Ron Jacobs
Ron Jacobs
Born: Honolulu, Territory of Hawaii; September 3, 1937
In the 1950s, what were the odds against a Honolulu kid growing up to radically change the dynamic of the national radio industry; and then dominate it through the last half of the 20th century and well into the first decade of the 21st? Staggering, perhaps, but for Ron Jacobs, not impossible.
Early years
A cub reporter at 15, the FCC issued Ron Jacobs his license to broadcast on Christmas Eve, 1953. Dropping out of high school, he turned pro as an all-night DJ at Honolulu’s KHON Radio. This was before his first big break when he was picked up by NBC affiliate KGU as the Honolulu correspondent for the network's groundbreaking new program, Monitor.
Connecting with the visionary industrialist, Henry J. Kaiser, in 1957, Jacobs teamed with fellow KGU DJ (and future concert impresario/record producer) Tom Moffatt to jump-start Kaiser’s new KHVH Radio. The young deejays broke with mainstream radio traditions with a solid injection of rock ’n’ roll. In no time, the two dominated Hawaii’s airways; brought the best young talent to perform concert dates in Honolulu; and developed incredibly tight relationships with the era’s best rock talent – including lifelong relationships with industry legends Elvis Presley and his manager, Colonel Tom Parker (even serving as honorary pallbearers at Parker’s 1997 funeral).
In 1958, at the age of 20, Jacobs – now at KPOA Radio – became Hawaii’s youngest program director. This was incubation time, where Jacobs honed his skills, mixing with trailblazing radio executives Bill Gavin (Lucky Lager Dance Time) and Mike Joseph, the medium’s first programming consultant.
Then, in 1959, Jacobs launched and programmed fabled K-POI Radio – Hawaii’s first Top 40 outlet. Together with Moffatt and news director Tom Rounds, in the first six months of K-POI’s life, Jacobs programmed it, was the morning guy, the afternoon guy, and the production/promotion manager. Within six months, K-POI ruled the ratings, and Jacobs ruled the station’s success. Jacobs’ wild stunts also landed him and K-POI in a feature story in NEWSWEEK magazine.
Using the large K-POI studio, Jacobs wrote and produced the first Pidgin English rock ‘n’ roll records, among them: “Da Kine,” about Hawaii’s delayed entrance into the US, and local Hawaii rock hits by “Lance Curtis” (real name, Dick Jensen); and co-wrote “Dahil Sa Lyo” (“This Song of Love”), still available on Alfred Apaka’s Greatest Hits.
Programming the Nation
At 23, Jacobs had gone as far as anyone could go in Honolulu radio. His drive soon took him to the mainland where, in 1962, he was promoted to vice president of programming at the Colgreene Corporation. Fine-tuning his format and promotional concepts, Jacobs took them to San Bernardino’s KMEN Radio and, three months later, to Fresno’s KMAK. Within months, both were rated Number One.
In Fresno, Jacobs found himself competing head on with radio consultant Bill Drake, but rather than duke it out in smaller markets, Drake and Jacobs not only buried the hatchet, but combined their talents to program RKO General’s KHJ Radio, and simply slayed the competition in Los Angeles. Within six months, the Drake-Jacobs’ “Boss Radio” format was Number One in America’s second largest radio market, garnering national recognition for creating pop radio’s most influential sound of the 1960s. Ron Jacobs was just 27 years old.
Jacobs’ KHJ finale was the 48-hour, fully produced, History of Rock and Roll. Radio’s first "Rockumentary" – coined by Jacobs to describe the much-imitated, never duplicated broadcast – brought together the considerable talents of Los Angeles Times’ syndicated pop-music columnist Pete Johnson, who scripted the show; and legendary Boss Radio morning man Robert W. Morgan, who narrated the original 1969 broadcast. Jacobs’ History of Rock and Roll was accepted into the Library of Congress as the “first aural history of rock and roll music.”
Though still programming the RKO radio chain from KHJ, Jacobs teamed again with pals Moffatt and Rounds to form Charlatan Productions. Ten years before MTV had occurred to anyone, Charlatan produced more than 30 “concept” films featuring extraordinary recording artists in weird, eye-catching settings: “My favorite film was shot in a deserted Santa Monica lighthouse,” Jacobs remembered. “It was a most bizarre flick, with Jimi Hendrix performing ‘All Along the Watchtower’ while Aretha Franklin floated along in a rowboat in a small lake in Echo Park.”
Learn more by visiting http://RonJacobsHawaii.com
