Rock Radio Scrapbook
FROM THE ARCHIVES...
Talent: FRANKIE CROCKER
Station: WMCA New York
Date: August 6, 1969
Time: 21:37
"If Frankie Crocker isn't on your radio, your radio isn't really on."
Self-described as "tall, tan and tantalizing", Frankie Crocker established his considerable reputation at black music stations like WWRL and WBLS. Calling himself the "Chief Rocker", Crocker's on-air passion for the music was only matched by his flamboyance off it. He rode through the front entrance of Studio 54 on a white stallion. He drove fast cars and wore his hair long. But the core of his life was music and radio and he was passionate about both.
"Hollywood" Crocker began his career at WUFO, a soul station in the Buffalo suburb of Williamsburg. He was part of the "Buffalo Brigade", a group of jocks that included Imhotep Gary Byrd and Eddie O'Jay that moved from the Queen City to New York's legendary soul station WWRL. In 1969 Crocker went to to the evening shift at WMCA, a lily-white station that was in its waning days as a Top 40 station. But despite a lineup that included Crocker, Gary Stevens, Dan Daniel and Jack Spector, WMCA switched to talk in 1970 - one of the first of the legendary 1960s AM Top 40 stations to disappear.
After WMCA, Crocker worked as a program director for WBLS-FM, helping that station to the New York ratings lead in the late '70s. He helped coin the phrase "urban contemporary" in the mid-70s, the contemporary R&B format that has been very popular over the years. Crocker did three tours of duties at WBLS-FM and also worked in the radio markets of Los Angeles, Chicago and St. Louis. A master of ceremonies at the famed Apollo Theatre in Harlem, Crocker was also one of the first VJ's on the video cable channel VH-1 and hosted the TV show "Solid Gold". He also starred in five movies, including "Cleopatra Jones", "Darktown Strippers" and "Five on the Blackhand Side". Anyone who listened to Crocker over the years will also remember his famous sign-off song, "Moody's Mood For Love", by King Pleasure.
Crocker died of pancreatic cancer on October 21, 2000 in North Miami Beach, Fla. He was 62. So secretive was Crocker about his fatal illness that even his own mother didn't know.
Enjoy Frankie Crocker on WMCA here.
(The Gary Pedoto Collection)
More 1969 airchecks here!