THE EARLY YEARS 1961-1978

Keith grew up in Houston, Texas during the space race of the 1960's and 70's and listening to great radio stations like Gordon Mclendon's legendary KILT and Top40 Rocker KRBE, as well as Houston Astros Baseball on KPRC AM at night.

At the age of four, I hijacked my parents' Stromberg-Carlson stereo system, playing Herb Alpert and the Tijuana Brass, Mitch Miller and Cuban dance band albums. Whenever no one was around, I CRANKED IT UP…a foreshadowing of future events…

Growing up in Houston and Austin, music from that "Little ole Band from Texas" - ZZ TOP is in my blood. Band leader and lead guitarist, Billy Gibbons, attended the same schools in Houston that I went to - T.H. Rogers Jr. High and Robert E. Lee High School. He was ten years older, but we all followed his rise to stardom along with Dusty and Frank as ZZ TOP. I recently took my ten year old son to a ZZ TOP concert in Austin. We sat on the 9th row and had a great time! Here is a picture and article from the T.H. Rogers Jr. High School newspaper "Rampage" talking about Billy Gibbons' days at Rogers.

Check out Billy Gibbons Jr. High class picture! PRE-BEARD!

KHFI DAYS 1979-1982

I put together a mobile DJ system while still in high school and approached radio station KHFI (K98) in Austin about providing my system for station events in the spring of 1979. Soon, I found myself performing at 2-3 station events each weekend. Especially fun were the High School Dances and Proms. We also did a lot of weddings, Christmas Parties and other special events too. By Summer of 1979, the station asked me to do an on-air radio show. I was 17 years old and was just about to become a senior in High School!

Photo of me at the controls of KHFI in 1979 (Click to enlarge) I began by doing two evening radio shows on weekends on KHFI, which at that time was known as DISCO98. The station had changed format from a badly-done rock format to disco in 1979, mainly as a publicity stunt. The ratings went up and the station later built upon that momentum and changed format to Top 40 Rock, now known as Contemporary Hit Radio (CHR). KHFI was located in the KTTV-TV (try saying that three times fast) building, as we were sister stations. It was not at all uncommon for the TV producer to run to the radio studio and grab someone to run a camera or voice a promo.

By 1980, new owner Dick Oppenheimer had led the station to become a top mass-appeal radio station. Legendary Top 40 Personality Chuck Dunaway came to Austin to program the station and ratings continued to climb through a succession of other Program Directors including John Michael Scott, Robb Stewart, Peter Stewart, Tom Rivers, Roger W. Garrett and others. There for a while, we joked about having the "PD of the Month Club", but each new boss, was better than the previous. At one point in 1981, KHFI, now known as K98, held a 15.1 share which was #1 in Austin and #6 in the entire US.

Here is a KHFI station sales flyer from 1981. It shows a steady climb from 1979-1981. The ratings doubled during the transition period from DISCO98 to K98.

In 1980, KHFI released the "Homegrown Album", produced by station Program Director Chuck Dunaway. Chuck was the road manager for ZZ TOP on their famous "Worldwide Texas Tour" and a radio legend. Just ask him.

The Austin Memorial Day Flood of 1981 (May 24, 1981) was a huge disaster for the community. 13 people drowned in the flash floods - most swept away in their cars while attempting to cross flooded roadways. Over $36 million in damage was caused that day when 10" of rain fell in just four hours. Shoal Creek, which normally flows at 90 gallons per minute, reached over 6 million gallons per minute at its peak! The storms that caused the flooding swept across the region over the weekend and before anyone knew what what was happening, flash flooding was sweeping cars off the roads and turning streets into whitewater rapids. The National Weather Service experienced a massive power failure, as did most other radio and television stations. Somehow, KHFI remained on the air! We began broadcasting road closures and emergency weather bulletins, updated by telephone from the NWS. The other radio stations that were knocked off the air remained off because the engineers could not reach the transmitter sites in Westlake Hills due to the flooding. Our backup power generator kicked in and we remained on the air. We were later commended by the City for providing invaluable and timely information. There were just three of us in the studio on West 6th Street that afternoon and evening gathering info from police scanners and by telephone from listeners and the National Weather Service. At one point, we broadcast a realtime warning as a wall of water came rushing down Little Walnut Creek. The all-night DJ Dave Starr actually SWAM to the station, which was located just a couple of blocks from some of the worst flooding on Shoal Creek to get to work that night. He was written-up in Billboard Magazine for that one…I am not sure if it was for bravery and dedication or what.

Live music in Austin is a way of life. We are very fortunate to have been the stomping grounds for some truly great performers including Willie Nelson, The Fabulous Thunderbirds, ZZ TOP, Asleep at the Wheel, Jerry Jeff Walker, George Strait and the late, great Stevie Ray Vaughn. Of course there are literally dozens of others as well too numerous to mention.

(click to enlarge)

A Billboard Magazine article in 1981 highlighted Texas Music and Radio. Here is a photocopy of the page showing Morning Man-Dave Jarrott, Me and Ed Volkman. We had just finished singing "Redneck Mother" on-stage with Ray Wylie Hubbard at the Jerry Lewis Labor Day Telethon. I appeared on the Jarrott-in-the-Morning radio program from 1981-1982 assidekick and traffic reporter, along with Darlene Lewis who did the news. There was a lot of good-natured heckling and teasing that went on during the morning show. At one point, the program held an incredible 54 share! Nothing on the air now even comes close to that.

Morning Man Dave Jarrott and KHFI were responsible for starting the whole "Halloween on 6th Street" phenomenon, which included Haunted Houses and huge crowds that eventually topped 100,000 costumed crazies. We were fortunate enough to borrow the actual movie props from The Texas Chansaw Massacre from Mr. Robert A. Burns, who graduated from the University of Texas and still lived in Austin. He was Art Director for TX Chainsaw Massacre, the Howling and many other horror flix. I went over to Robert's house one day to pick up some of the props in preparation for the 1981 haunted house. It was uniquely decorated, to say the least. The "arm chair", "grandma", a pinball machine - complete with fingers for flippers and many other strange and unusual movie props highlighted the uniquely ghoulish décor. I worked on the K98 haunted houses of 1981 and 1982 and 20 years later, the party still goes on on 6th Street…

KRBE DAYS 1983

I moved back home to Houston in the Winter of 1983 and landed a gig at 104KRBE - the station that I listened to all through Junior High and High School. What a thrill it was to work there!

Duties included a regular radio show on KRBE and also producing Houston Astros Baseball on the flagship station of the Astros Baseball Network.

KEYI DAYS 1984-1986

During the Summer of 1984, I was hired to do fill-ins at KEYI (KEY103) while taking a break from classes at the University of Texas. In the Fall, I washired full-time to work evenings.

Ratings on the evening show doubled among the target demo (female 18-34) and I so was moved to mid-days and named Music Director. Ratings went up again, so I was moved up to Afternoon Drive, my favorite time slot.

A Local Television station held a unique party to showcase the new fall lineup, including Miami Vice. Here is the invitation that I received. It sure got my attention!

KEY103 put together a great promotion known as Summer Gold in 1985. It featured music from the Four Tops, Temptations, Johnny Rivers and tickets were only available through station give-aways at client sites. There were always huge screaming crowds clamoring for the tickets! We caused a lot of traffic jams and the publicity was great. We lucked out as there was a huge revival in interest about the Motown Sound of the Tops and Temps just as we executed the promotion! The show was held on Auditorium Shores, site of many major concert events in Austin ranging from Wednesday free concerts sponsored by Austin Parks and Recreation, Austin Aqua-Festival and station-sponsored events.

Here is a picture of the KEY103 DJs on-stage with the Temptations.

Pictured L-R are BJ Adams, Dave Jarrott, Keith Jacobs, Johnny Shannon and Bob Vance.

Working in radio, the perks can be terrific! As Music Director and Drive Time DJ, I was fortunate enough to receive free ticket to literally hundreds of shows. Here is a small sampling from some of the early 1980's shows when concert tickets were actually colorful and interesting. Now the compu-tickets all look the same. I have actually almost left the house for a show with the wrong tickets in my wallet!

Free concert tickets are nice, but the real goal is a Backstage Pass. Especially if it is one of your favorite artists or a real mega-star. Here are a few backstage passes that represent station events. Here are some that represent some memorable shows. Some of the biggest stars were the most down-to-earth, like Bryan Adams, Tina Turner, Barry Manilow, Sting, Steve Tyler from Aerosmith.

Barry Manilow made a rare appearance at the KEY103 studios AFTER his December 1984 concert in Austin. He was promoting his new album and we did about an hour show playing his favorite songs (not just his songs) and taking listener calls. Early in the program, we over-loaded and blew out the 390-xxxx telephone exchange in Austin, plus the emergency phone numbers for the police, fire and EMS (this was before 911 came about). We even had a few hundred die-hard Manilow fans crowsing the station parking lot and looking in through the studio's picture window! Here is the story from the Austin Ad Club's Magazine in January of 1985.

KORA DAYS Part ONE 1987-1988

After KEYI, I worked for Clear Channel Communications' KORA in College Station, TX while finishing college at Texas A&M. I worked for Roger WWW Garrett at KORA and he pretty much let me do whatever I wanted on the air as long as it did not threaten the station's license...I worked a full-time job in radio while taking 18-20 hours at Texas A&M University. I did not have a spare minute!

KASE DAYS 1990-1994

I worked at KASE101 from 1990-1994. This was during the evolution of "Hot Country" with more upbeat modern music and more personality. We won three Country Music Association Awards for Country Station of the Year during the period as well as one from Billboard Magazine. Program Director and Operations Manager, Bob Cole, was my boss and he always treated me well. The station was later sold to AM-FM Inc. and then Clear Channel Communications. It has been #1 in Austin for as long as I can remember. (The last station to be #1 consistently was KHFI in 1981-82.) After Urban Cowboy, KASE101 implemented a "Continuous Country" format, which was sort of like an AOR approach to country.

KKMJ DAYS 2000-2001

I had been off the air for a few years running my own business, when in the Fall of 2000, I was approached by KKMJ (Majic95) about doing Afternoon Drive on the Adult Contemporary station owned by Infinity (CBS). I agreed and did the afternoon show from Fall of 2000 through Spring of 2001. Ratings increased from #7 to #2 for PM Drive in the target demo during my tenure there. I had a great time bringing personality to the afternoons on an A/C station along with my partner, Kris Chase, who is now working for KVIL in Dallas. One classic show was in March of 2001 when we got listeners to stand eggs on their ends. (The first day of spring is supposedly the only day of the year that this is possible.) Listeners came through and some even continued calling into the evening show (Love Songs) and on into the next day...talk about Time Spent Listening!

KORA DAYS Part TWO 2005-NOW

I returned to Texas Country 98-3 KORA in 2005 as the "Promo Voice" of the station and can be heard all day and all night! Its almost like I'm there!

I also have a digital home studio and provide voice-over production services for radio. If you think that you recognize the sound of my voice on the air, maybe it is me...but is it live or is it Memorex???

Visit the KEITH JACOBS PRODUCTIONS website for more info.

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