North Carolina People, Places, and Things-September 27
I am the dad to five adult children. As they were growing up I attempted to remind them they were special and to implore them to learn something new. My goal was to do that daily.
In 2016 my goal is to learn something new daily on the people, places, and things that make North Carolina special. Everyday this year I am doing a post on what I have learned new.
In 1995 one of America’s legendary radio disc jockeys died in North Carolina. He passed away in the Northeastern NC in Belvidere, NC at the age of 57. Belvidere indicated by black point on map below. Located north east of Edenton, NC.
Wolfman Jack, was a rock-and-roll disk jockey whose unmistakable raspy voice and on-the-air howls brought him something of a cult following in America’s as one of the all-time best-known radio personalities.
Wolfman Jack was born Robert Smith in Brooklyn on Jan. 21, 1938 but his wife’s family was from Belvidere, NC. He got his broadcast fame as Wolfman Jack, a faceless hero on the AM radio, because it was broadcast from just over the border in Mexico.
From 1963 to 1966, Wolfman Jack howled and growled at night on XERF-AM in Via Cuna Cohuilla, Mexico. In 1966 he moved to XERB, where he spun the latest rock tunes from a small studio in the sleepy resort town of Rosarito, overlooking the Pacific Ocean, 15 miles south of the United States border. The station pumped out at 250,000 watts, five times the legal limit for American stations at the time, and was heard across most of the country.
XERF and XERB were some of the stations that pumped music across the border.
It was not until he played himself in the 1973 film “American Graffiti” that fans could match the voice with a face. And they were not disappointed. The Wolfman looked the part, with bushy eyebrows, sideburns, a mustache and a devil’s goatee.
It says something about you when a Canadian children’s show bases a character on you (The Hilarious House of Frightenstein)