Kim Curry's Story: A Radio Legend turned Author

What if babysitting a radio station instead of children changed the course of your life? Join us as we sit down with radio veteran Kim Curry, who unexpectedly discovered his love for the medium in Canyon City, Colorado. Hear how the legendary Wolfman Jack inspired Kim from his high school days, igniting a passion that would see him through a vibrant career in radio. Relive the golden era of top 40 radio, filled with tales of iconic DJs like Big Ron O'Brien, and learn how these early influences shaped Kim’s path in radio.

Fasten your seatbelts for a wild ride through the evolving landscape of radio, from the days of spinning 45s to the onset of computerized systems. Kim Curry reveals the highs and lows of his career, offering a candid look at the impact of corporate takeovers on the industry. Discover how profits began to overshadow talent, stifling the creative freedom once enjoyed by on-air personalities. Yet, amid these challenges, Kim’s strategic programming decisions, like introducing Spanish music in Miami, showcased the power of understanding local markets and sparked unprecedented success.

Lastly, experience a heartfelt chapter where Kim opens up about his battle with multiple sclerosis, which led him to reimagine his life's work. From the initial unrecognized symptoms to his eventual diagnosis, Kim shares his journey of overcoming adversity and finding new purpose as an author. Don’t miss this touching and inspiring conversation that encapsulates the magic of radio and its lasting influence, reminding us of the resilience required to navigate life's unexpected turns.#tellyourstory #familymatters #thebenmaynardprogram #classicrock #kimcurry #radio #radiostories #multiplesclerosis #multiplesclerosisfighter

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Transcript

Speaker 1: 0:08

Hey there, welcome into the Ben Maynard program. Thanks for being here. Let's get some housekeeping taken care of right away. As a reminder, this podcast is available on multiple podcast platforms like Amazon Music, apple Podcasts and Spotify, or if you just search the Ben Maynard program, you'll see multiple options. Choose the one to your liking. As you know, I like to steer everyone towards Buzzsprout, because that's where my website is. Or if you can't resist all this beauty right here and you're watching on YouTube, then I ask you, please subscribe to the channel, give me a thumbs up and leave a comment. You know I love comments, I reply to every single one of your comments and, last but not least, follow me on Instagram. All one word Ben Maynard Program. So lots of ways to take in this show for your dancing and listening pleasure. And, as everyone can see, right to my left, maybe your right, maybe, whatever it is I have a guest today and it's a pleasure for me to introduce a radio veteran and personality, kim Curry, to the show. Thank you so much for doing this, kim.

Speaker 2: 1:22

Ben, thanks for having me. I appreciate it very much. Sounds like you got a lot going on over there, bro.

Speaker 1: 1:26

It just sounds like it. It's all smoke and mirrors and this show is actually just held together with scotch tape and chewing gum. But yeah, I really appreciate you taking time out of your day and doing this. As we talked about before, I love radio, I love music, and when you kind of can combine those things a little bit and talk about that stuff and talk about it with people who have experience in those fields, then it's better for me anyway.

Speaker 2: 2:04

Yeah, I get it. You know it's a. The radio is a really crazy thing because it is theater of the mind and and when, when you're on the other end, when you're the person listening and you're taken into another world whether it be a DJ's rap about a song, or a story he's telling about his mom or or whatever's going on in the radio station, it's our job on the other side of the mic, to be able to paint those pictures for you. So it's an interesting and intriguing business that I loved and I'm sorry I'm out of it, but hey, those things happen.

Speaker 1: 2:56

Well, you know, let's get right into it then, if we could. It seems to me that a lot of big name personalities began their career in a very simple manner and they bugged, and they bugged, and they bugged, and they just kept. They just kept showing up day after day asking for a job, until somebody broke down and gave them a job, and you know, and it was for because they wanted to hear their voice on the radio, or maybe they wanted to play their kind of music for their friends or their listeners and introduce them to something different, you know. So how did it start for you?

Speaker 2: 3:30

Well, I was a young boy in a small town here in Colorado, which is where I'm at Canyon City, colorado is a small little town and there's only one radio station. Of course you could listen to other stations from out of the market, but if you wanted to know what was going on in our county you had to listen to our radio station. And my dad was a retired 20-year Navy vet who did a variety of different things while I was growing up after he retired in 1965. He was a prison guard, he was the editor of a newspaper, he was a circulation director and then he got a job at the local radio station to be a news guy, because my dad had a really intriguing news voice. You're talking the 1960s, 70s.

Speaker 2: 4:21

So my dad came home one day and he said that the general manager of the radio station needed someone to come and babysit for him. And so I rushed to the radio station, figuring I was going to babysit his kids because I was a senior in high school, the drum major of the band, I was a trumpet player, I was a basketball player. The way I made my money in my spare time was to babysit my parents' friends' kids. So I went to the radio station, assuming I would see his kids. When I got there, he calls me downstairs and he says no, you're here to babysit the radio station on Sunday mornings. Because what they did was they ran, like I said, a small town, probably 10 churches. They recorded each of the church services on Sunday morning and they played them back the following Sunday and so nobody wanted that job.

Speaker 2: 5:11

I had to hire a little high school kid and that's how I got into it. And the first time I heard, because my job was to get the tapes ready to play them. When the tape was over, I had to introduce the next one, and then I had to maybe even do the station identification and I remember the first station ID I did and it really. It hit me when I heard my voice on the radio the first time. This is KRLN Canyon City, colorado, the station with the news reputation, and I'll never forget that. And once I heard that I was stuck and they couldn't get rid of me at the radio station. It was a day timer. It was only on from sunrise until sunset. Oh my gosh, after sunset I'd go into the radio station and I would practice and practice being a DJ and it eventually got me into college, which is where I started learning all about the business.

Speaker 1: 6:05

That is great. So many, as I said, so many big name personalities that people wouldn't even imagine. That is how it started for them on this tiny local radio station and, like you said, it broadcasts from sunup to sundown, that's it. Like you said, it broadcasts from sunup to sundown, that's it. And when it's off the air, you're in the back, you know, recording your air check and probably putting on some records or something like that and really jocking it up.

Speaker 2: 6:35

Thinking I was Wolfman Jack, you know, because the guys like that Wolfman Jack and Don, what was his name? Somebody Brock, the ugliest jock in rock, and everybody had funky names and it was really intriguing to be a DJ back then. So I practiced and practiced and practiced and decided I was going to go to school. I had told my parents I was going to major in music because I was a trumpet player all the way through high school, but when I got there I got so enamored by the broadcasting classes I stopped going to the symphony class that I was going to and stopped going to my music classes and that's all I did was radio. And it was really fun to learn the intricacies, because it's different when you're just talking. You're trying to be somebody, you're trying to say things that make sense to people. But there's a science behind this business and I was, fortunate enough, the three people that I ended up working for individually, if I mentioned their names to radio people. They're legends and I was lucky to work for three legends and I was never outside of that, and so I learned a lot and learned the science of radio and learned all the intricacies of how to make people want to listen to the radio. And so, as I said, for a kid like me, I was a drama kid.

Speaker 2: 7:57

In school I was in all the plays, I was a trumpet player. It was a natural thing for me to be an entertainer player. It was a natural thing for me to be an entertainer. And back in those days, if you know, radio guys became, you know, tv guys, tv guys became movie guys. So you're really on the. We were on the bottom of the totem pole of entertainment. But the whole process in my mind was eventually to get to the Johnny Carson show. I want to be so good I'm going to get on that Johnny Carson show.

Speaker 1: 8:26

Hey, if you made it to Carson, you made it.

Speaker 2: 8:30

Yeah, absolutely, no doubt no doubt.

Speaker 1: 8:33

So, besides the legends that you worked for, who were some of the personalities that you admired coming up?

Speaker 2: 8:45

Well, there are, in my opinion, three from the entire time I was on the radio for 33 years. There are three radio disc jockeys who are absolutely the best of all of us, and I was fortunate enough to work with two of them Robert W Walker, who I first encountered at Y100 in Miami. Robert W Walker was he was lightning on fire at all times when he turned that mic on. He knew where he was going, he knew what he was going to say and he never said it like everybody else. The other guy was Joe Nasty Joe Nasty in your afty. Joe actually ended up working for me for a while. Joe Nasty was out of Los Angeles. He had been in Texas at a variety of different radio stations and joined us in Miami. And then the other was Big Ron O'Brien. Never got to work with Big Ron O'Brien, but I can guarantee you that Big Ron O'Brien was the best.

Speaker 2: 9:44

There was something about what he spewed on the radio and the way he did it. He was constantly aware of where he was. I used to listen to him. You know I lived in Canyon City. I went to school in Pueblo, colorado and Denver. Of course, 90 miles up the road he was on a radio station up there called KTLK, k-talk Crazy. So he was on KTLK and we would go up behind the college late in the afternoon so we could get the skip of it, because we couldn't hear it all day long. It was just the way the science is on AM radio. But there was a time in the afternoon when the atmosphere changed and we could tune in and hear Ron O'Brien and oh man, he's who I wanted to be. Big Ron was a legend and the best as far as I'm concerned.

Speaker 1: 10:38

So what time frame are we talking about with Big Ron?

Speaker 2: 10:43

Big Ron. I heard him in 1972, 73, 4, 5, 6. Now that was in Denver, but Big Ron was on CFL Chicago. He was in New York. Big Ron, he was everywhere that we wanted to be.

Speaker 1: 10:57

Well, the reason why I ask is the three names you mentioned. I've heard of them, but Big Ron is the one that sticks out the most out of those three, because in the early to mid 80s Big Ron was doing an afternoon shift at Kiss FM here in Los Angeles, yep yep, yep, that was him.

Speaker 1: 11:19

Yeah, and I used to like to I mean I to my core as far as my musical taste to my core, I'm a I'm a classic rock, hard rock guy. Music and listening to the radio, that's what I listened to and especially in my high school years, which was 80 to 83, that's what I was listening to. A lot of top 40 radio, listening to Casey Kasem on Sundays doing the billboard top 40 countdown and that kind of stuff. And so, yeah, I would hear Big Ron weekday afternoons on KISS FM.

Speaker 2: 12:15

Well, top 40 radio. I mean, that's what you grow up in. You know what I mean. Everybody has their little favorite little top 40 stations. I had mine when I was a kid, even before I got into radio. Even before I was doing this, I was on the porch of my house sleeping late at night, skipping in with WLS in Chicago, listening to X Rock 80, which is where Wolfman Jack was. He was on X Rock and I was listening to Kp in minneapolis, listening to top 40 radio and the djs, not even realizing, as in my young life, that I would eventually get to be one of these guys.

Speaker 2: 12:54

There's something about the 18 to 34 year old audience and that's what top 40 really is 12 to 30, 18 to 34. Those are the, those are what we grow up in. And being in top 40 radio when I first started was Casey and the sunshine band. You know we were still playing old Beatles songs still as recurrent records on the radio. Later in life, of course, now we have the disco appear and when I retired from the business I was playing tupac and uh, you know, puff daddy and why clef jean.

Speaker 2: 13:30

So my whole 33 years in radio I stuck in that 18 to 34 year old genre, but the music changed the whole time and but it to me. In fact I still. You know, I'm 70 years old next year. Man, I don't think I still feel like I'm 40 years old because I was in that mindset for so long. I believe my daughter was the first one to turn me on to Billie Eilish. There's a guy named Granddad. If you haven't heard that, that is some funk music and this guy is evil but he is good. So my daughter and so I'm still in that. I've got a 20 year old, actually four kids, from 30 something down to 20, but my kids have always kept me in the demo, so I'm still very aware of what's going on. On current music. Um, I know about current events. I could still do a top 40 radio show tomorrow if I had to. It's just something that becomes part of you and it became part of me. I am that guy.

Speaker 1: 14:30

That's great.

Speaker 2: 14:32

I hope I don't look too much like Sid.

Speaker 1: 14:34

Okay. So now during your career, did you work different shifts? You have morning. I mean, did you have a morning show at one point as well?

Speaker 2: 14:44

Now the name Kid Curry. That's me Now. When I left my hometown. Well, when I left college, I was there about two and a half years, and you know, a year in school I was doing part-time on the only radio well, on the number two radio station in Pueblo. And then I finally thought well, you know what, I'm good enough to go out and start applying for jobs. So I applied for jobs around the country and got a hook on a station in Knoxville, tennessee. So much to the chagrin of my parents, I packed up my car and took off across the country to go to work in Knoxville and because I was going to be on the radio at night from 10 until 2, I was going to come up with a real cool name. So as I'm driving across the country, I'm thinking I'm going to call myself Night Smoke. I'm going to be Night Smoke on the radio. Well, this is actually in my memoir.

Speaker 2: 15:35

I go to the radio station, I drive up to Knoxville's 15Q and I go inside. It was a Saturday morning and there was a receptionist there and a big, tall guy, big, overweight guy with curly hair behind her, in a Hawaiian shirt, and I reached my hand out to the receptionist and said hello, I'm your new nighttime disc jockey, I'm Night Smoke. And the guy behind her says, well, if it isn't Kid Curry. And I said I hate that name because my name is Kim Curry. If you go all the way back to those days, there was a takeoff TV show on ABC called Alia Smith and Jones. Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. Well, it was a takeoff of Raindrops Keep Falling on my Head, butch Cassidy and Sundance Kid. It was a takeoff On that, their character. One of their characters was Kid Curry and I hated it because when I was in high school that was a big TV show and all my friends would kid me hey, it's Kid Curry. I'm like shut up, I'm Kid Curry. So this guy had seen this show and he saw my name and he thought, well, wait a minute, I'm going to change his name to Kid Curry. So when he said, when I said I hate that name, he says, well, I'm not going to sign your check. And so when he said that, I thought, well, kid Curry it is. But what's unique about that? And it was the right thing to have happen, because I'm not.

Speaker 2: 16:56

When I started in the radio, every big DJ had big, deep voices. They were very. You know, I was a young kid and my voice still hasn't changed, for Christ's sake. So Kid Curry was the little kid on the radio. And so when I, six months after I was in Knoxville, I get hired by Jerry Clifton in Miami to go to 96X and he's got me doing six to 10 o'clock at night because he thought the Kid Curry thing with my voice was absolutely perfect for Miami and that's how I got the name and then I created the persona. And then, surprisingly enough, after Kid Curry arrives at 96 decks in Miami, jerry Clifton gets dismissed because he did a contest called find Greg Austin in the Bermuda triangle. I got in their boats and went out to try to find him and the FCC didn't like that very much. So eventually, jerry Clifton the year after I get to Miami he gets blown out.

Speaker 2: 17:51

Well, the way we did radio back in the 60s and 70s and 80s was, the enemy was the competition. I was on 96X. It was the number two station in Miami. The number one station was Y100. It was the number two station in Miami. The number one station was Y100. Now Jerry Clifton had convinced us all at 96X that the people at Y100 were out to steal our children and eat our babies. Oh gosh, we did not like them. But Jerry Clifton gets blown out.

Speaker 2: 18:18

I'm like uh-oh, I'm not staying here, I better start looking for a gig. Suddenly I get a call from the competition, bill Tanner, over at Y100. He's like I need you to come over here. I've been listening to you long enough. You need to come and work for us. It took me a while to even think I would go talk to this man, because they were the enemy, jerry Clifton to Bill Tanner.

Speaker 2: 18:41

There's no bigger radio station in America in 1976, 77, 78, all the way through the early 80s no bigger station in America than Y100.

Speaker 2: 18:52

So here I was, the nighttime guy, 6 to 10 PM on Y100.

Speaker 2: 18:57

And then, after I got such a big radio show, I started feeling my oats, thinking well, wait a minute, I'm tired of doing nighttime radio, I want to go get a morning show.

Speaker 2: 19:07

It just so happens that the people over across the street at a radio station called I-95 had turned on a new format and started hiring guys from around the market to build their radio station. And they heard word that I was looking to get out of town. And they said you know, you ought to stay here in Miami and come work for us and do our morning show. So I was pitted against Bill Tanner's morning show, which was the number one morning show in town. But it wasn't too long till Bill Tanner who, by the way, when I left Y100, he did not like me. In fact there was no such thing as a non-compete contract until I left Y100 and went to I-95. Because Bill Tanner said I'm not having anybody do that to me again. So that's when they came up with no-compete contracts. So I went over to do the morning show over there and Bill Tanner calls me a couple of months after I'm over there and he says you know what, man, you're kicking my ass.

Speaker 1: 20:01

I was like see, I told you Was I-95,. Was that in Alabama?

Speaker 2: 20:15

No, i-95 was in Miami, but you know there's no, there's a bunch of Y-100s. It used to be. When you came up with a call sign, you were the only one. But then, of course, later in life, with all the people and all the iHeartRadio taking over the world, because when I was in radio there were 5,000 different owners of radio stations the guy who owned your station probably owned seven. He could only own seven, and there may have been seven stations in that state that he owned. That's the way it was. There was one owner, but now, in 1996, bill Clinton's administration told the FCC we're going to drop the limit on how many you can own, and that's when the corporate takeover of radio began and that's when radio died.

Speaker 1: 20:53

So anyway, yeah, I was going to ask you about that too, and I agree because, yes, you had separate owners for separate radio stations and now, throughout the country I don't know how many radio stations there are 2,000, 3,000 radio stations around the United States and you've got basically two companies that own almost every single one of them.

Speaker 2: 21:20

Yeah, and it's a shame. And these are non-radio people. From the very beginning these were non-radio people corporate people, money people, deciding they were going to make the money they could because they saw, wait a minute, we can sell commercials and make radio. But what happens is you get rid of all the talent because you're not paying them. When I left the business, I was making over a quarter million dollars a year as the program director of Power 96. There is not one PD in America that makes that kind of money now. And I was at the number 11 market running the number one station and there were guys above me that were making killing money. I mean, bill Tanner signed a million-dollar contract to go work at Wash FM in Washington DC and then once corporate takes over, it was gone All of the talent. They decided not. And then once corporate takes over, it was gone All of the talent. They decided not to pay. And we're like no, I'm not playing this game with you. And we left.

Speaker 2: 22:12

The business is now full of people who read liner cards and there is no personality anymore. You can't have some guy go nuts over a song and turn around and play it again and then I think I like that song so much I'm going to play it again and then play it again. You know what I like that song a minute ago. I'm going to play it again. You can't do that now. And you see, I was the kind of guy when I went into the radio station on my radio show with an attitude and if I wanted to do something I was going to do it and that's just the way it was. But you can't do that anymore and trust in knowing that guys like Joe Nasty, robert W Walker, ron O'Brien, those guys they couldn't do it either. They wouldn't work for corporations who would not let them be them. Right, right, it just killed the business and it's ridiculous.

Speaker 1: 23:02

It's. You know, with big corporations coming in and taking over all the radio stations, it's really taken away the art form of being an on-air personality. And you know, yes, of course, way back when you were physically playing a 45 or a 12 inch acetate, dropping the needle on it and all that kind of stuff, and that really took a lot of work in itself, having to really time it out and all that kind of stuff. So I appreciate that and of course then it went to. Would it go to carts after that?

Speaker 2: 23:44

Carts. We played carts after that, which was ridiculous because you know, at least with a 45 you can go over the intro a couple times before you play it and hear it and go. But when you're playing carts you got no idea. There's a new song coming and you got to go. Oh crap, it says 15 seconds here, so I guess I better be ready push. Oh okay, well, here's this new song and you've never heard it before.

Speaker 1: 24:03

So right, right it's harder, harder to time your intro on that song right?

Speaker 2: 24:08

yeah, it was uh, we kind of bit ourselves on that one, but but then cds arrived and cds, and then we went from cds into uh, you know, it's all computerized now, yeah, and, and so there is no art form in playing the music.

Speaker 1: 24:24

And then also, with the corporations coming in and taking over everything, like you said, the personalities are gone or they don't want to do it because the companies don't want to pay it. Now, and this is what has just bothered me for the last 25 years, maybe 30 years, I don't hardly listen to terrestrial radio anymore because the beauty in listening to even top 40. We'll take top 40 just for a moment. Even in top 40, yes, you were playing the Billboard top 40. But it wasn't just that you get a few songs an hour. That would be a few years old. They'd still be popular songs, they'd still be rotating them in and out of that regular hour's worth of play. But now doesn't matter what genre it is. There's about 100 songs that get played over and over and over.

Speaker 2: 25:34

And if you sit there long enough you can figure out okay, this one's played here, I'll wait and see how long it is till it plays again there. It is again minutes later and you, just, you just start to pick it out. But you know, when I was in miami, um, each market is different. Yes, you have top 40 music, there's no doubt. But not every market likes every song in every market. Like san antonio, you could get away with playing ronnie milsap on top 40 radio in san antonio. Get Antonio get away with playing Willie in San Antonio on Top 40 Radio. And in Miami I came up with a thing that you know, my old partner and I, funky Frank Walsh, who is still doing an internet radio station now, it's very good, it's called Miami One. In the 1980s he and I thought you know why can't we play top 40 songs and intersperse those with the current Latin hits? Can we play top 40 music and then play Latin hits?

Speaker 2: 26:30

Because there came a time, after the Mario boat lift, that Cuba was in Miami. I mean, when I got there it was very much Jimmy Buffett, land man, everybody's laid back, but then that was 1976. Jimmy Buffett, land man, everybody's laid back, but then that was 1976. You fast forward to the 1980s, early 80s, when you had the influx of hundreds of thousands of Cubans in the area. They were already there in the first place. But suddenly you get them from Cuba, venezuela, puerto Rico, they're all over the place. So it made sense to us We've got to be able to play these songs that we know everybody likes. And if you turn this radio station on, there's a whole bunch of songs over here that they like over here. So let's intersperse these.

Speaker 2: 27:09

And I caught some real crap. I mean, I was in a meeting with our general manager. I was having a staff meeting with our general manager and I had been out to LA over a weekend and I heard a song called Esa Nena Linda by Artie, the One man Party. Very simple, two and a half minute, little Spanish thing and I thought I'm going to take this back to Miami and play it. So I went into my staff meeting and everybody's there and the GM, the boss, the guy who owns the joint, walks into the meeting and I'm telling everybody okay, listen, I'm going to start playing some of these Spanish songs because I just feel there's a, there's a cum audience here If playing some of these Spanish songs because I just feel there's a, there's a CUME audience here. If we can just do this, we'll gather a bunch of people. So I played this song and it's only two and a half minutes long. And when it was over, the GM looks over at me and said you're going to play that song on my radio station. And I said that's right, greg, and I'm going to go find a bunch more.

Speaker 2: 28:07

Well, fast forward six months later when they start seeing the monthlies come in and suddenly our QM is going boom, boom, boom, boom, boom. And then I'm out here in Colorado and I'm at Seven Falls with my wife and my kids and I'm on this like plateau and my phone rings and by this time now Bill Tanner has reappeared in my life as my consultant, one of my consultants. So he's in Miami while I'm on vacation, kind of watching over things, and he calls and says you're never going to believe this man, we are number one for the first time ever in this market and we have got the largest cube in the Southeast USA. And I was like see, I told you, all you had to do is figure. It didn't seem. I mean, if you can play Willie in San Antonio, you can play Shakira in Miami, sure, and it just made absolute sense and it was why, for the nine years that we were in Miami and I was programming well, for the last nine years of my career, while I was programming Power 96, it was the most listened to radio station in the Southeast USA. There were Atlanta bigger than St Petersburg, tampa. We had a CUME larger than everyone, because we had figured it out, Wow, and the station made money like crazy, and so I was the hero, I was a star, but it wasn't you know what. Here's the thing it really wasn't even anything that I didn't already know, because Bill Tanner taught me back in the old days, you've got to really get into your market and figure out what makes the place tick. And so I was just doing what Bill told me to do, and I was doing it with the staff that Bill basically had hired prior, because, unfortunately, bill got tossed out through a unfortunate incident where they accused him of having relations with a child, and so it forced Bill out.

Speaker 2: 29:54

Eventually, I become the program director. I'm kind of still got his staff there. I didn't change anything. I just changed the mind of the people that were working around me, and when I changed their mind and I said you know what? We got this thing here, we're going to go do this and I turned them onto it. And then, you know, we had mixers and the mixers got into it. Because the mixers got to play a lot more Spanish hits than the regular rotated songs, because I let them dig deeper into the format. So you know, every radio station in every market should be different. You shouldn't be hearing the same things in LA that you hear in Chicago, that you hear in Pueblo, that you hear in Colorado Springs. That, to me, drives me nuts and that's why radio is dead.

Speaker 1: 30:36

And it doesn't matter what genre it is, because every area of the country has their particular artists that they really dig into and they like Yep. So, yes, it makes sense. Yes, of course, if you're going to play, we'll just use the 100 number again, but if you're going to play 100 songs, then probably half of those songs are going to be more regional, or should be more regional than someplace else.

Speaker 2: 31:09

Well, that's why the ratings disappeared in everybody's markets, because you stopped focusing on the market. I remember the first time I had a consultant I was in San Antonio. I was programming KITY in San Antonio and there was a consultant last name Zarecki somewhere in New York City. The GM I mean the owner of the station again had hired this consultant because we need some help in the programming office. I don't need no help, I know what I'm doing here. But he brought this consultant in and this guy starts saying, well, in New York City, I'm like, okay, I'm not doing it.

Speaker 2: 31:44

And then after about two months of me not doing anything the consultant told me to do I was bounced out of the radio station. So but that's okay. I mean I ended up in Washington DC at Wash FM. So that's okay, it was the right thing to do. And it was with Bill Tanner. Again, jerry Clifton and Bill Tanner continued to weave themselves.

Speaker 2: 32:01

My two consultants when I was running Power 96 in Miami were Bill Tanner and Jerry Clifton, and Bill Tanner continued to weave themselves. My two consultants when I was running Power 96 in Miami were Bill Tanner and Jerry Clifton. So it's not like I needed help. I had all the help I needed. But I listened when these guys were teaching and all they had to do was sit back and go yeah, he's doing the right thing. Let him do this, greg, because we think he's got something. So I was real happy to do that, very proud to say that we were. In fact, it was the highest ratings in the history of the station, and the station is still on, but now has a 1.8 and owned by Odyssey, so it'll never change. So anyway, that's a personal comment.

Speaker 1: 32:39

Now, at that time when you had the number one ratings, were you doing mornings?

Speaker 2: 32:44

You know what I was doing midday. In fact, I saw an article. Somebody sent me an article that ran the week that I actually retired from being on the radio. I was doing middays and programming the radio station because I was the teen disc jockey for many years. Well, those girls grow up and they become a part of your target demo. And so let's put the old nighttime guy, kid Gurry, everybody's favorite DJ when he was a kid. Now let's put them on. Let's put them on middays to appeal to the women. So it worked really well for me. Man, again, I'm on a format that is unlike anybody else's. I'm speaking to people who've been listening to me for years. The women love the show.

Speaker 2: 33:25

But again, programming a major market radio station. If you know anything about programming, the program director has to know everything that's going on every second of the day. Whatever was happening at three o'clock in the afternoon had to be perfect. It also had to be perfect at three o'clock in the morning, and the only guy that was going to assure that was me, when I wake up three or four times a night to make sure the guys are doing what they're supposed to be doing. So there came a point to where I just had to get off the radio because I had pushed myself a little bit too much. But that again cleared my time and we continued great success. So I didn't go back on after that. I missed being on the radio. I never went back on. After that, I missed being on the radio. I never went back on after that.

Speaker 1: 34:06

And that was when.

Speaker 2: 34:08

I think the article I read here was like 1998, 99. Okay.

Speaker 1: 34:15

And then, for the balance of your career, you were just a program director.

Speaker 2: 34:19

Just a program director, man, it's all his fault Program director man.

Speaker 1: 34:24

It's all his fault. So tell the audience about some of the silly radio stunts that you took part in during your time.

Speaker 2: 34:35

Well, we told you about the Jerry Clifton thing. Find Greg Austin in the Bermuda Triangle. You try to come up with things that aren't going to get you licensed, arrested or fired, or both right.

Speaker 2: 34:48

Well, I did. You know, specifically at Power 96, we were very much in the know of what was going on. We had a beach house, a radio beach, you know, the MTV beach house. We had our own beach house in Miami and so we invited people to come over there and we told terrible stories about the waters and the whirlpool being infected because there were too many greasy people in it. And it wasn't true, but it was just people. And then we also used to do billboards. In Miami We'd do specific billboards. We had very, very advanced billboards, very techno-type billboards, and we got on the radio one time and just apologized. We did not mean to do what we did in our billboard and it goes by on all the buses. The buses have got them, they're all over every bus, Right, and we didn't do anything. We just said you know, we apologize. And it became a news story. Hey, what happened? What's on the billboard? Nothing, I just told you that. So you'd look at the billboard. You know, sorry, there was a lot of things. But see, that's the kind of thing.

Speaker 2: 35:59

I was more into theater of the mind to play with your brain than you know, because if you really mystify the audience, they'll come and go. What's he talking about? What are they talking about? So I mean, there's a bunch of these funky stories. Here's a. Probably just turn to these books here and come up with stuff. There's, oh, yeah, okay.

Speaker 2: 36:23

So I'm at the, I'm at the Grammys. Every year I we did a big concert called Powerhouse, and every year I would go to the Grammys to talk to the record company people because they were all in one place at one time and convince them that they needed to send their acts to my big Powerhouse concert. And I loved that show. It was a great show. And we had Ricky Martin before. He was a hit. We had all sorts of big acts, puff Daddy, we had Jay-Z, I mean, all these things were coming to us as concerts. But to do that I'd have to go out to the Grammys and put these together.

Speaker 2: 36:56

Well, if you know about the Grammys, it ain't really the Grammys, it's the Clive Davis party. So being invited to the Clive Davis party is completely bigger than being at the Grammys, because at the Grammys you're like I don't want to sit here anymore, I want to get up and you leave, and then they have seat fillers, come in so they can't see you on TV, but at the Grammys I mean at Clive Davis's party Wyclef Jean had become a friend of mine. He'd done a couple shows for me and my father passed away and then his father passed away, so passed away and then his father passed away. So Cleffy and I became very, very entwined. At that point Everybody knew that Kid Curry and Wyclef Jean were good friends.

Speaker 2: 37:38

So I met Clive Davis's party and Cleffy's performing, getting ready to perform on stage. He goes on stage and he comes off and I'm sitting in a table. I get up, start to walk over to say hi to Cleffy and suddenly, don't know what, aaron Neville. Aaron Neville comes up to me and says hey man, can you introduce me to Wyclef? But you know, it was just a great it was. It was fun to be able to know that I had such an influence on people that everybody knew that the guy in Miami is square, he's a good guy, he runs good radio, everybody likes him, clive Davis invites him to his parties and so you know, it was really exciting to be able to be around that kind of stuff. And you know, aaron Neville got to meet Wyclef Jean, so it was my pleasure.

Speaker 1: 38:27

All thanks to you.

Speaker 2: 38:28

Well, I didn't know. I just the first year I was there, though. The first year I was at this big round table and I'm by myself because I didn't take a date then. But I'm with some friends and suddenly Donny Osmond and his wife come up and they're like can we sit here? Please do Mr Osmond my pleasure.

Speaker 1: 38:48

Yeah.

Speaker 2: 38:51

So, ben, I'm going to, I'm going to have to give you about eight more minutes, then I'm going to have to bail for my next.

Speaker 1: 38:55

All right, I'll take your eight minutes. So let's do this, let's do this then, After you got out of well okay, you were kind of forced into retirement, Am I right? Because you were diagnosed with MS, correct?

Speaker 2: 39:10

Multiple sclerosis. Yeah, in 2004,. I had had exacerbations of MS my whole life. I just didn't know what it was. I thought I got bit by fire ants. My arm was curling up. I couldn't see out of my right eye, shoulders in deep pain, I had my toes start curling up and I thought even one time I got stung by a killer bee. All that was happening throughout my life, and in 2004, those symptoms became predominant. I couldn't even walk straight. I was bouncing off the walls at my office to get from one office to another because I was losing control of my legs. I'm home visiting my mother. We're watching one of the tsunamis that wiped out part of the world and my mom looks at me and she says to my wife there's something wrong with him, look at his face. And I looked at my mom and said Mom, I'm watching this terrible thing on TV. She said no, elizabeth, you've got to get him into the doctor. So, through that, three months later, I was diagnosed with multiple sclerosis.

Speaker 2: 40:07

What happened then was very simple to me. Suddenly, I was diagnosed with a chronic disease. It was affecting me and kicking me at the time and all I could think of was I need to figure out what's going on with MS. I'm not thinking about the radio station. I need to get out of here because power 96 is bigger than me. It's still there. Like I said, it was big when it came on. It was big. I didn't want to be the one to bring it down, so I decided I had to leave, give the station to my assistant and let him take care of it. So I was forced into retirement and my company took very good care of me when I left.

Speaker 2: 40:46

Years I had declining health. I was on a specific drug for eight years that wasn't doing any good. I have the best MS doctor in the United States and in here in Colorado. His name was Dr Alan Bolling. Dr Bolling, who is very much into the research of MS, says you need to change over to this new drug, copaxone, but when you do that you need to start taking 30,000 IUs a day of vitamin D, because the doctor in his mind was saying there's a connection between vitamin D, which is a sun vitamin, and the way your body accepts your medicine. So for six months I'm taking this new medicine, copaxone, and nothing's happening.

Speaker 2: 41:28

Because when I was a radio DJ, at night on Y100, I put my mom on the radio and my mom would say, oh, you, make sure you take your vitamins, achoo, achoo, achoo, make sure you take your vitamin C. And I'd always say, mom, vitamins don't work, you've got pneumonia, and it was just something that stuck in my head. So when the doctor's telling me to take these vitamin D, I'm like vitamins don't work, doc. But six months after my wife's harassment because the doctor kept saying to her get him on the vitamin D, I started taking those 30,000 IUs. So now I've got a medicine change, taking high doses of vitamin D.

Speaker 2: 42:01

Six months go by and I'm not hearing the fingernails down the chalkboard in my brain, in my spine. Remember, ms is lesions on your brain. Your brain is actually my spine. Remember, ms is lesions on your brain. Your brain is actually on fire. Those lesions end up in your neck and in your spine. It's not funny, it's not good.

Speaker 2: 42:18

But suddenly I stopped hearing the fingernails down the chalkboard because over those eight years I went from walking to a cane, to crutches, to a wheelchair. I was constantly in pain. I was constantly on steroid treatments to try to calm my brain down. But six months after the vitamin D I didn't feel like I was going down anymore and in reality I haven't gotten any worse or gotten any better since then. And so I am, as far as I'm concerned, and I tell my new MS doctor because my old MS doctor retired I tell my new MS doctor, I'm a success story. I'm a success story. Ms is a tough disease. There are drugs out there to try to stop the progression. In my particular case I was going down for eight years and suddenly screech, it stopped and I now, to fill my time, I'm now an author. I write. I've got three books out. I'm working on my fourth book.

Speaker 1: 43:17

That's how I fill my time. Now. That was the next thing I wanted to get to and, because we have limited time right now, quickly give us the titles of those books and then where we can get them.

Speaker 2: 43:23

Okay, come get me, mother, I'm through. This is all about the radio show. This is all about my radio career and the diagnosis, and it teaches you that we really need a better health care system in America. This is the death of fairness. This story is about what happened to a small American town, my small American town I grew up in. What happened to the town after President Reagan rescinded the Fairness Doctrine. Now, the 1987 Fairness and Broadcasting Act contained the Fairness Doctrine, which had been in effect since the beginning of broadcasting. If you hear someone lie on the radio, you as a citizen have the right to go to that radio station and demand equal time to call the liar out or dispel this information. Well, in 1987, ronald Reagan got rid of that rule. You see what's happened to America since then. When everybody gets to lie now and nobody is held accountable, do you think Ronald Reagan thought we'd get here like we are today?

Speaker 1: 44:22

Probably not.

Speaker 2: 44:23

I don't think he thought that. So he made a mistake and he's put us in this situation. And this tells the story of what happened to a small American town and its only radio station after Reagan rescinded the Fairness Doctrine. This book, bonnie's Law, the Return to Fairness, teaches you how to go back to those days. It was only legislation. All it is is legislation. If you had the right people in the right place, you could bring back the Fairness Doctrine and stop this lying.

Speaker 2: 44:52

But remember, one particular party has benefited from the liars and so every time it comes up in Congress and it came up two years ago let's bring it back. They squelch it immediately. They don't want anybody. No, we want to stay with the liars. So and this book tells you how you can get back to that little Bonnie fixes all this stuff. So and my next book is actually Bonnie, at 90 some years old, reflecting on all the changes she made when she became the first female president of the United States, formed a third party, the Bonnie party, because the GOP and the Dems couldn't get it together. She forms a new party that becomes so big and so positive. It brings back the fairness doctrine, stops all the lying and over the 50 years since she was president. She's now going back and reminiscing all the good things that have happened and how America has changed because we brought back that one law.

Speaker 1: 45:48

And when do you expect to have the fourth book out?

Speaker 2: 45:52

Sometime in the next six months. It takes a long time for 40,000 words and I've got. You know, what I do is I get the story in my mind and I get the segments in my mind and I just have to get to the next one. So I'm about 35 pages in now. It'll take me a little bit longer, but it should be in the next six months or so and I will do what I always do I'll promote it like crazy when it comes out. In fact, bonnie's Law is being reviewed now for a possible mini series.

Speaker 1: 46:22

Oh really.

Speaker 2: 46:22

So yeah, wow, that's great. Yeah, and if this doesn't work out with that company, I've had another company address it. So, whatever, I'm sorry.

Speaker 1: 46:31

Okay, so I'm assuming that all your books are available on Amazon?

Speaker 2: 46:36

Amazon. Yes, sir, and you can also run to my website, krcurrycom. That's krcurrycom, and it tells a story of my radio career, lets you know what. All the books are out there and I actually do some writing and all the podcasts that I'm on end up on my Web site too. So eventually this will end up on my Web site too.

Speaker 1: 46:56

So oh, all right, Good, give some more exposure to to this program here. You know, look, kim, I greatly appreciate the time that you've given me this morning.

Speaker 2: 47:13

It's great to get to know you. Yes, sir.

Speaker 1: 47:14

Thanks, Ben. I would really love to hear some more radio stories. I would really like that.

Speaker 2: 47:19

Well, if you need me to come back, I can always do that. I'd love to come back, and we can come up with some other things.

Speaker 1: 47:25

Maybe right around the time that your book comes out. Perfect.

Speaker 2: 47:29

Ben.

Speaker 1: 47:31

We'll talk about your book, talk some more radio stories and all that kind of stuff. All right, listen, hang tough really here.

Speaker 2: 47:39

Yes, sir.

Speaker 1: 47:39

For me really quick while I close things out, and then I'll cut you loose. Again, thanks to Kim for being here, and again, as you know everybody, this program is available on multiple podcast platforms like Apple Podcasts, amazon Music and Spotify, or just search the Ben Maynard program. Choose your option and go with it. For those of you who are watching on YouTube, please subscribe to the channel, give me a thumbs up and leave a comment. Last but not least, follow me on Instagram. All one word Ben Maynard Program. With that, it is a wrap. Thanks everybody for tuning in. This is the Ben Maynard Program. Tell a friend.