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By Rick Kaempfer
REMEMBERING THE EARLY LOOP
should go a little bit harder .” I had nothing to lose at that point . I was lucky . Jay was a was a programming genius . If you remember WKRP in Cincinnati , Jay was a little bit more of a devious version of Andy Travis . I remember meeting with Jay , maybe just a couple of months after we started the Loop . He came in really down in the dumps because we didn ’ t get very good ratings . I said , ‘ Jay the thing ' s been on barely two months .’ When the next book came out , boom , we had exploded .”
Less than two years later , the Chess family sold the Loop . Terry says the portrayal of that sale in the book is slightly different than his own ne of the great advantages of writing an oral history like I recently wrote about WLUP Radio ( The Loop Files ) is the opportunity to hear the stories right from the horse ’ s mouth . I interviewed over a hundred of those horses ( Loop employees ). Since the book came out a few months ago , I ’ ve heard from even more .
For instance , a few weeks ago I heard from Terry Chess . He was the first general manager of the Loop , the son of station owner Phil Chess . Yes , the same Phil Chess who founded Chess Records with his brother Leonard . Terry wasn ’ t too involved in the record part of the family business , but he remembered it well . “ I did see a lot of iconic sessions there , including the Rolling Stones . I brought a couple of friends down with me . We were in high school at the time . I recall posing for a photo with Bill Wyman . And I gotta tell you , the three of us , we could barely stand next to this guy . I don ' t think he ’ d taken a bath in a year . I couldn ' t wait to get to get away from him .”
Terry pursued the radio part of the family business . “ There was a guy named Burt Burdeen , who was program director at WSDM ( which is what the Loop was called before they changed call letters to WLUP ). And when I started there , as an intern , Burt taught me anything I needed to know to just get going in the business . I was twenty-one at the time . And I did that for about a year and a half . That was when my uncle ( Leonard Chess ) said , you ' re going to be the general manager now . Which was a big mistake . I had no experience other than what I ' d seen at the station , so I floundered for the first two years . We were also so poorly budgeted and given no leeway to hire professional people , whether it was DJs , or whatever . After a while I said , I can ' t keep doing it this way . I spoke with my father and asked him to give me one year , and a decent budget . If , at the end of a year , the station was floundering , I told him to sell it .”
Terry also had additional insight into the man who turned WSDM into The Loop in 1977 . “ I conducted a three-month nationwide search which included interviewing individuals and syndicated programmers . I found Jay Blackburn ( the first Loop program director ) on a recommendation from Claude Hall at Billboard Magazine . Hewas programming a station in the Virgin Islands . I flew him to Chicago and hired him on the spot . I envisioned turning it into a soft rock station . Jay Blackburn changed my mind . He said , “ No , you
memory . “ In the book Tom O ' Toole said I called a staff meeting to say there ' s rumors going around that the station is going to be sold , but don ' t worry , it ’ s not true . And then two days later called another meeting to say we were selling . I don ' t think it happened quite that way . When I heard the sale rumors I just thought , I don ' t want staff coming to work everyday thinking , Am I going to be fired today ? That ’ s why I called a meeting and said , ‘ I want you guys to know , as far as I ' m concerned , nothing ' s gonna change , even if we do eventually sell . We ’ ll do everything in our power to keep the staff unchanged .’” Although he does remember it happened quickly . “ My father approached me and said there was big-dollar interest in the station , but I had no intention of selling . In two years , we ’ d gone from the depths of WSDM to become a major player in Chicago radio . But then , the more I thought about it , it seemed the best option . We were beating our network competitors , but as an independent , familyowned company , we didn ’ t have deep enough pockets to compete for the long term .”
The end of the family ownership of the Loop was also the end of Terry ’ s radio career . “ My father found a station in Honolulu . He wanted me to go out there , but for some strange reason , I said no . Then he found another station in Kansas City , and asked if I was interested in going there . Again , I said , no . I didn ' t want to leave Chicago . I have no regrets . If I had moved to Hawaii or Kansas City , I would have never met my wife , I would have never had my child . So , you know , things turned out okay for me , and the Loop . I was proud to be there at the start of something that lasted 40 years .” february 2024 illinoisentertainer . com 19