The untold story of WLAC, the powerhouse Nashville station that helped introduce R&B to the world
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In this second installment of Hallowed Sound, journalists from the USA TODAY Network examine the state of race in country music, scour the South in search of untold stories and shine a light on a new, eclectic generation of Black artists.
NASHVILLE, Tenn. — In 1946, a few Black college students approached a local radio DJ with a stack of records.
Back from serving in World War II and studying on the G.I. Bill, they wanted to hear something different on Nashville station WLAC. On-air personality Gene Nobles agreed, and after dark he began replacing pop songs with boogie, blues and jazz records on the station.
Nobles started spinning 78s from the likes of swingin’ piano player Pete Johnson and saxophone bluesman Bull Moose Jackson. Mail began pouring in from corners of the South and Midwest. People wanted to know more. And they wanted to hear more.
By way of a 50,000-watt clear-channel broadcast, the station stumbled into music history. WLAC became what’s believed to be the first high-powered gatekeeper to play R&B records, introducing listeners to Duke Ellington, Meade Lux Lewis, Johnny Ace and — years later — Little Richard, B.B. King, Aretha Franklin, Wilson Pickett, James Brown, Otis Redding and countless others.
For some, WLAC pumped out of living room stereos. Others tucked battery-powered receivers under pillows and listened to songs between ads for baby chicks and pomade.
Blind Boys of Alabama singer Jimmy Carter, 89, remembered listening as a kid from his living room in Birmingham.
“Every night from about 10 o’clock until 1 a.m. would be all WLAC,” he said.
WLAC stood as a beacon for R&B music — a crucial bricklayer in building towering legacies out of timeless entertainers. It didn’t last as long on air, but some could argue these pioneering playlists out of Nashville proved as influential during its time as WSM radio, another 50,000-watt station out of Music City known for hosting indelible country program the Grand Ole Opry.
“The influence that WLAC wielded in the R&B world, it just can hardly be overstated. It provided a shared cultural experience for millions of African Americans while also transforming the lives of millions of white teenagers," said Michael Gray, executive senior director of editorial and interpretation at the Country Music Hall of Fame.
‘That’s the station’
On a given night, the WLAC signal stretched from Canada to the Caribbean. It once reached as many as 40 states, and anywhere from five to 10 million listeners tuned in during peak years, per Tennessean archives.
White disc jockeys Nobles, John "John R." Richbourg, Herman Grizzard and Bill "Hoss" Allen — dubbed the 50,000-watt Quartet — anchored shifts from downtown Nashville with fast-talking ad copy and gravely Southern voices that led many listeners to believe they were Black (the station later hired Don Whitehead, a Tennessee State alumni and lone Black member of on-air talent who broke ground as one of the first African American radio hosts at a location the size of WLAC).
Fred Carpenter, a retired local reverend and once a member of Nashville's burgeoning R&B scene, remembers falling asleep on summer nights to the sounds of WLAC. He listened from a gliding swing outside his childhood home on 13th Avenue South in Nashville, pushing his radio dial to the far right to reach the station on 1510 AM.
"I had that radio and I could listen to WLAC and John R. and Hoss Allen both would be playing all of those songs — blues and the gospel," Carpenter, 82, said. "I just enjoyed that immensely. Nobody there but me."
But Carpenter wouldn't be alone. Through the station, Howlin’ Wolf's music reached Gregg Allman in Florida, and in Minnesota, a young Robert Zimmerman heard the Staple Singers long before becoming Bob Dylan, according to a 2016 Mavis Staples interview.
Two years before he moved to Chicago, Buddy Guy heard Chuck Berry's "Maybellene" for the first time on WLAC; Robbie Robertson tuned in from Toronto for songs that later helped define the sound and imagery of The Band.
And Little Richard heard his breakout hit "Tutti Frutti" on the radio for the first time via WLAC, according to an authorized biography.
"When it came on, I jumped up and started screaming and running through the house and shouting ‘That’s my record," he said.
Catching your music on WLAC? "That's the station," said Jimmy Church, a veteran of the Nashville R&B scene.
Church first heard his voice on WLAC at age 17, as part of local vocal group The Seniors. He was still enrolled at Pearl High School in Nashville. Church later was a member of The King Kasuals, a group that featured a young Jimi Hendrix.
"If your record was played on WLAC, that means you were heard everywhere," said Church. "50,000 watts? ... That was a highlight."
A record parade
From the late 1940s through at least the '60s, WLAC anchored a growing ecosystem for R&B music in Nashville.
Local spots Randy's Record Shop and Ernie's Record Mart teamed with DJs to sell mail-in album orders. Richbourg anchored a program called "Ernie's Record Parade," and Nobles would often tell his listeners Randy's was "the place for R&B records," according to "You Can Make It If You Try," a book by Nashville R&B luminary Ted Jarrett.
Plugs for these stores became ritual on WLAC, joining ads for Royal Crown brand pomade and jingles for White Rose petroleum. And it worked — they soon overflowed with business. By the early 1960s, Ernie's received at least 1,000 mail orders a day out of Nashville, according to "You Can Make It If You Try."
Strong sales led Randy's owner Randy Wood to launch Dot Records, which later released music from 1950s pop star Pat Boone; Ernie's owner Ernie Young started Nashboro and Excello Records, the latter once featuring formative artists Slim Harpo and Earl Gaines. Excello releases reached overseas, influencing a young Mick Jagger and Keith Richards.
Ernie's advertised records in package deals, said Carpenter, who once performed as soul artist Freddie North. In the early '60s, Carpenter worked in marketing for Nashboro.
"Even if it was a hit that wasn't on our label, we could still package it and let [the hit] be a lead item," Carpenter said. "It was a good selling point. You were still pushing records out of the Nashboro group."
Meanwhile, some WLAC on-air talent expanded into TV spots, artist management, concert promotion and the record industry. In 1964, WLAC-TV launched music show "Night Train," the first television program to feature an all-Black cast. In 1966, Hoss Allen hosted a similar program called "The !!!! Beat" out of Dallas.
Off air, Allen befriended Brown, King and others, said his daughter BeBe Evans. Artists like Brown, Berry and Fats Domino would sometimes give WLAC first spin on a new single.
"It was his life," Evans said, adding: "His voice was so big, his personality was so big. ... It's bigger than life, that's all I can say. And I still meet people and they go, 'Oh my God, I listened to your father.'
"He was having fun. He loved doing it."
The ride wouldn't last forever, though.
In the 1970s came programming changes at WLAC as audience interests shifted and competition grew. It wouldn't be the only major R&B station forever, after all; and FM radio was in full swing.
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This article originally appeared on Nashville Tennessean: Inside WLAC: This Nashville station helped introduce R&B to the world
