April 30th was Bob Edwards last day on NPR's Morning Edition. 24 years and six months ago, our daughter Shelby was a newborn. We lived at 919 Maryland Street in Lansing, Michigan and I was a mid-day schlub on WVIC radio. Money was tight and whenever possible, I walked to work. In those days portable radios were a lot bigger and they still made those uncomfortable hard plastic earphones that crammed into your ear like a hearing aid. Bob Edwards had just made the move from All Things Considered and he was my regular companion on the long walks to Mount Hope Road.

For those of us who were used to the compression of the overnight news into five minute capsules, Morning Edition was in iconoclast. Then, as now, there was something special about Bob's mellow, measured delivery, his thoughtful interview questions and the way he explained the world that churned around us. I likened it to the recordings I heard of Edward R. Murrow describing the quiet courage of Londoners during World War II. It was too good for the ever more mind-numbing radio I heard in the 70s and I never thought it would last.

But last it did for almost a quarter century. If the back story is to be believed, the current leadership at NPR thought Bob didn't have the right connection with the next generation of potential public radio donors. So they are shunting him into the role of Special Correspondent, a place with a microphone where yesterday's stars are put to pasture.

But like Murrow and the men and women who he inspired, it's now Bob Edwards' turn to be an inspiration. His three decade body of work, which is hinted upon in a tribute section at npr.org will be the stuff of study for the few true broadcast journalists who will continue to emerge from our universities.

KEENER Q&A: These days, the music lists I hear on rock radio stations seem both short and predictable. Are the playlists as top secret today as they used to be?
In the old days, we used to wait for the WKNR Music Guide to see what music was hot in Motown. And the tweaks the Paul Cannon made to the playlist were some of the best kept secrets in town. Competitors would sometimes hire visually impaired folks to keep logs of what music was played where so that a station could effectively counter-program. Nowdays the info is all available to the public at websites like Joel Denver's AllAccess.com. You can track the number of spins a particular record gets on a particular radio station. If you want to know who's trading what MP3s on the web, bigchampagne.com is the place.

From Wired, an analysis of the state of Low Power Broadcasting. Between FCC foot dragging and lukewarm community support, LPB isn't what many hoped it would be. Contrast that with Sue Carpenter's book 40 Watts From Nowhere, about KBLT's underground rise and fall in LA

Quote of the week: "Once upon a time, commercials used to support great radio. Nowdays, radio supports great commercials." With more on satellites, high def radio and disappearing personalities, here's Art Vuolo's latest Oakland Press column.

April 25, 1972: The last broadcast day for WKNR. Listen to the final moments. At the top of the last WKNR Music Guide? The Stylistics with Betcha By Golly Wow. Here's a look back at the last 12 months of Keener's Detroit run.

All of us who frequent keener13.com would probably love to program our own radio stations with the stuff we like. Scott Shannon is getting his chance. I don't agree with everything he's got on his playlist, there are some great Psychedelic tunes from the WKNR Music guide that deserve airplay, he's in the neighborhood. Thanks to Orlando's number one afternoon oldies Jock for the link.

Guy Zapoleon shares the view of many that great radio is a rarity in today's world of cookie cutter formats and corporate homogenization. In this article, he highlights a few pages from the playbook of legendary KHJ PD Ron Jacobs, that shed some light on how Boss Radio got the job done. Thanks to B. Bumble for the link.

Fred Jacobs has made a career out of studying listener tastes and creating successful radio formats. In a recent Art Vuolo column in the Oakland Press are the results of a survey Fred took regarding the FCC's indecency fines in the wake of the Super Bowl. The radio purist in my is sick and tired of schlocks like Howard Stern who would rather shock than do the harder work of creating something that's funny without being prurient. But I also believe in the First Amendment and worry that the Feds could also over react. What do you think? Add your two cents on the Keener Bulletin Board.

Advertisers still seek the young. It was part of Keener's appeal when it burst on the scene in 1963 and many believe it's behind NPR's recent move to oust long time Morning Edition host Bob Edwards. As Mark Fisher writes in the Washington Post, public radio, like their commercial counterparts desires a younger audience. Ironically, Edwards' morning Edition listenership has more than doubled and it boasts one of the youngest demos of any public radio program. Thanks to Bob Berry for the link.

Bob Dylan rarely grants interviews, preferring to speak through his music. So it's an important event when "Rock's Enigmatic Poet" agrees to answer a few questions, as he did recently for the Los Angeles Times. Thanks to Sue Whitall for the link.

Attention Air America: It's gotta be entertaining. That's the advice I'd give to the attempt at a "progressive" answer to the conservative bent that seems to dominate talk radio. The network has not yet found a Detroit home, heard in Motown only on XM satellite radio channel 167. Al Franken, Janeane Garofolo, Ed Schultz and Randi Rhodes are trying to prove that there is a market for Left leaning listeners. But if the early air checks are any indication, it may take some time for them to find their groove. All Janeane's Majority Report did for me the other night was itch my button-punching finger.

Coming soon: an updated and expanded edition of Turn Me On, Dead Man: The Complete Story of the Paul McCartney Death Hoax by Andru Reeve. It is THE authoritative source on the most famous urban legend of the 60s. We'll be posting information on the site as the publication date nears. Andru was kind enough to include material from the keener13.com archives, and he sent me a tantalizing CD with audio highlights from the lost RKO TV special "Paul McCartney: The Complete Story Told For The First and Last Time", hosted by F. Lee Bailey and featuring an interrogation of WKNR-FM's Russ Gibb. The Thanksgiving weekend television special from 1969 is the holy grail for Keener Fans and Beatlemaniacs alike and we hold out hope that perhaps someone will someday find one of the ten kinescopes that were distributed to RKO television stations across the country and contribute it to keener13.com

Jan Berry was a perfectionist. You hear it in everything Jan and Dean ever recorded. As he wrote in a farewell message to Larry King, he also admitted to having "my way or the highway" attitude sometimes rubbed people the wrong way. On his 63rd birthday, I'll always remember him as a fighter who had the courage and the tenacity to battle incredible adversity.

Berry Gordy sells his last stake in Motown. The final 20 percent of Jobete Music goes to EMI, the world's largest music publisher

For anyone that grew up listening to punk rock being born in Ann Arbor / Detroit, the MC5 is indelibly etched in our memories. So when RCA/BMG announced that the long awaited documentary on the life and times of the band was set to be released on DVD, fans were eagerly awaiting the opportunity to again Kick Out The Jams. But, as Susan Whitall writes, the same currents that destroyed the band 32 years ago have again gummed up the works on the eve of the DVD's release.

As Keener13.com approaches it's third anniversary, the world is a different place. Both Steve and I are back at work in corporate assignments. It's an election year, with all the associated energy and insanity. And our beloved industry continues to evolve, with satellite radio taking off and the FCC's rediscovery of it's responsiblity to look out for "the public interest, convenience and necessity." We also continue to be amazed at the interest surrounding our little website. I get a regular stream of email with questions about the music, the artists and the associated pop culture of the 60s. And Keener air checks are still turning up in the attics and basements of the faithful. And now, we're joining the Blogisphere, aggregating some of the site content along with our highly biased opinions and attitudes here on the newly minted KeenerBlog. Hopefully, I'll be able to more quickly share the links and feedback so many of you continue to send with our community of Keener fans. Keep em coming to curator@keener13.com.