Al's Morning Blog 12/19/22

The word "legend" is thrown around rather casually in all works of life and certainly no more than in radio. It seems like everyone is a legend and I know of only a few. Rush, Paul Harvey and a few archaic names few would remember. To me, a legend is someone who works hard and, in many cases, is not credited. One name comes to mind, locally. That would be William "Boy" Brown. Boy, (and the term here is self-inflicted, he liked it) was a major part of radio when I came here 60 years ago. He worked for the black radio station in Beaumont. That was KJET (1380 AM) located at 4900 Fannett Road. Thats were the studios, sales offices and transmitter were. It was owned by a white man from Tyler and run by a white manager with white salesman. The "Jocks" were black, and they were good. Cal Weaver, King Arthur, WIllie Knighton and Earl Belton. They owned the radio market. The fact that they were a daytime operation only was even more astounding. Jim Saxon, the white general manager gave those guys the run of the station. Their ratings were always at the top. "Boy" took me under his wing and even invited me to the NATRA convention, introducing me as his "chauffer", which brought the house down. He was loved by the community and loved nationwide. He was the real deal. He was responsible for so many new artists getting a break that it's impossible to remember all. Barbara Lynn, Aaron Neville, Irma Thomas, "Frogman" Henry and many more. They named a Beaumont street after him. It's long overdue but those of us who remember him count him as legendary. This past week we lost another great radio guy. Randy Orchid, who worked in Beaumont at KAYC and was responsible for introducing local folks to groups like Deep Purple, Hendrix, Steely Dan and many others to album-oriented radio. He was dubbed "Heavy Earth" by those who loved the underground music he featured on the air. Hat's off to a couple of local "heavies" who made a difference in Beaumont radio.