Keener13.com - Where Were You

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Four Decades Later, The Keener Phenomenon Lives On
By Scott Westerman

Nellie Knorr had a problem. Her Dearborn radio station, WKMH, was a perennial also ran, "21st in a 20 station market," as Robin Seymour used to say. With a deficient signal, a hodge-podge format and a playlist of over 100 records, the signal on 1310 kilocycles never came close to challenging the likes of WXYZ, WJBK and WJR. For some time, her staff had been talking about the magic being worked by Todd Storz and Gordon MacClendon after a a chance encounter with a juke-box gave them an idea for a new format being called "Top 40". And when programmer Mike Joseph proposed cloning the idea in Detroit, Mrs. Knorr and her general manager, Walter Patterson decided to take a risk.

They gave program director Frank Maruca $130,000 to promote the new image and invested in some of radio's brightest young talent. Music Director Paul Cannon crafted a play-list of just 31 records and to confirm his research, the station planned to launch with a "Battle of the Giants" where the listener would determine which of the hottest songs in the country would be played. On Halloween night, 1963, the station dropped it's old format and played an evening of ghost stories and the next morning, a rechristened WKNR was born.. and Detroit radio was never the same

40 years later, the Keener phenomenon lives on. The keener13.com website welcomes visitors from around the world. Clear Channel, the world's largest owner of radio stations, resurrected the Keener sound for two years during Detroit's famous Woodward Dream Cruise Weekend. WKNR is given an entire chapter (chapter 13) In David Carson's classic history of Detroit radio, "Rockin' Down the Dial." Art Vuolo's landmark History of Detroit Radio documentary devotes more time to the Keener story than to any other radio station in the market. The men and women who worked there credit the station as a pivotal stop in their broadcasting careers. Keener jingles sold at a brisk pace for many years at Kenr.com. WKNR Music Guides are bought and sold on EBay, and the limited edition Keener Gold and WKNR News record albums are sought after by collectors. For nearly three years, a WKNR podcast was one of the most downloaded programs on the Internet. And on the 40th anniversary of Keener's birth, special programs were broadcast on WPON AM in Pontiac and nationwide on both XM and Sirius satellite radio.

Mike McDowell, Editor/Publisher of Blitz Magazine says WKNR is, "..by far the single biggest inspiration in doing what I do.. The station set the standard of excellence in rock and roll radio broadcasting, and has never, ever been surpassed to this day."

Mike Austerman created Michiguide, the premiere Michigan media website. "It's incredible to realize the power one radio station could have over a market," he said. "Even more than 31 years after it left the air! Detroit's love affair with radio is legendary, much of that affection comes directly from those that grew up with Keener and then later CKLW."

Idele Ross, a journalist living today in Israel grew up with Keener. "Even today," she says, "an oldies tune on the radio throws me back to the concerts, the dances, the cruisin' and the excitement of growing up in a city where radio rocked and Keener was ... the first button on everyone's car radio."

Art Vuolo has a unique perspective on the Keener story. Art was one of the few who had an FM portable back then and listened to the station on 100.3 FM. "Radio's Best Friend" was, "..starting my senior year at Ann Arbor High School when Keener launched. I remember having it cranked on my Zenith transistor radio while selling goodies, as a fund-raiser, to U of M football fans heading to the game. We had never heard anything like it. It set the standard for Detroit radio from then on."

Why does a station who's prime lasted less than a decade still generate such enthusiasm, often bordering on reverence?

"My wife and I are continually amazed at the continued popularity that WKNR has, not only in Detroit, but around the country," said Keener program director and on air legend Bob Green. "It appeared at just the right time, in just the right place, with just the right format."

"Keener launched my career in Detroit," remembers WOMC's Dick Purtan. "The place had a personality that just clicked with the market."

Russ Gibb, who is credited with amplifying the Paul McCartney is Dead urban legend to international proportions on WKNR-FM recalls, "The station broke ground on a number of fronts. We were among the first to try underground radio. Just as WKNR-AM was hip in the early 60s, WKNR-FM was hip in the late 60s."

When CKLW came on the scene and eclipsed Keener's popularity, the station still had a legion of dedicated fans. "I was there at the end," said Sirius' Pat St. John. "Even as things began to fall apart, there was still a Keener magic around the place."

And when John McCrae played "Turn, Turn, Turn", the final record broadcast on WKNR on April 25, 1972, many of Keener's faithful listeners broke down and cried.

Even after Clear Channel moved the broadcasting facilities from 15001 Michigan avenue, people still drive by and remember. Former WKNR Newsman Marty Buffilini took pictures of the ghostlike studio complex after the move. "It was a haunting feeling to walk through those halls where so much history took place."

Perhaps Detroiter Jim Feliciano best distills the Keener phenomenon "Listening to WKNR during the annual Dream Cruise broadcasts still takes me back to an impressionable time in my life. A generation came of age with Keener."

As a teenager, Infinity Detroit Market VP Steve Schram declared to then WKNR program director Frank Maruca that someday he would be working in that office, a dream that ultimately came true. When we were contemplating the idea of a website celebrating WKNR, he told me, "Today, when we listen again to classic Keener air checks, or hear Mitch Ryder, The Temptations and the Rationals, the sights, sounds and emotions of our youth come rushing back. From the perspective of the years, we often long to return to the time when it cost $6.00 to fill the gas tank, we worried about high school football, and watched Johnny Ginger every morning on Channel 7. WKNR still takes us there."

For each of us, there are pivotal moments, crossroads in our lives, where things happened that shape who we were then and who we are now. For the generation that grew up in the days when rock radio was coming of age, the music and entertainment that emanated from WKNR was what Fred Knorr, Jr. calls, "the soundtrack of our youth." Keener was playing in the background when many of us first fell in love. It helped us try to understand and cope with the senselessness of war, assassination, and urban violence. It kept us company through the highs and lows of an adolescence when life often seemed incomprehensible and out of control.

"Keener was my best friend," wrote anonymous poster to the keener13.com bulletin board. "I wish we could be together again."

Pat St. John's Tribute on Sirius