Wolfman Jack

Wolfman Jack, who died at the age of 57 in 1995, was perhaps the most popular radio personality of our time. By far, the most famous voice ever to grace the airwaves. Bringing to AM radio, not only rock and roll, but also original programming that can never be duplicated.

The Wolfman was born Robert Smith in Brooklyn, and story says, spent much of his youth trying to avoid the gangs of New York. He was an avid radio listener and was inspired by DJ's such as Alan Freed. Smith first found himself in radio when he started doing menial tasks backstage at the Paramount Theater. He dropped out of high school, and soon afterward, left New York; bound for Virginia. It was there that he obtained his FCC license and began his climb to fame.

He hosted several radio programs before taking on XERF-AM just across the border in Mexico. A powerful radio station of 250,000 watts - five times more powerful than any station in the United States. At the time, the station was best known for it's religious broadcasts - but that was about to change. It was there that his following grew, mostly teenagers who were in awe of his programming and his voice. The Wolfman, who took his name from one of his favorite horror movies, had been born. Although it was his voice that made him the most successful, his unique styling of howls, singing along with the music, doing parodies and including bits of unusual humor helped transform him into a radio icon. (It was his growly voice and grammatical styling, that made most people assume he was black, and it wasn't until the seventies, when he made his appearance on television and in movies that they were proven wrong.)

The fifties were shakin' and the sixties were moving in fast, and Wolfman Jack was injecting hard rocking blues and Rockabilly into the airwaves as fast as teenagers could absorb it. He was spreading the message - the message was rock and roll! At a time in American history when television was threatening to take radio out of the spotlight, rock and roll brought it back, in full-swing. The Wolfman, undeniably empowered the airwaves by playing the music that America's youth was hungering for. And undoubtedly kept the music alive at such a time when so many were trying to do away with rock and roll, all together.

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