Charlie Douglas
Charlie
Douglas (abt 1933-2011), born Doug China, was a radio presenter.
Charlie Douglas, the radio announcer whose “Road Gang” radio show on
WWL invented a genre of overnight programming for truck drivers
nationwide, died on Thanksgiving Day. He was 78.
Douglas’ onetime co-host and eventual successor on WWL, Dave
Nemo, called Douglas a pioneer of the overnight talk genre, geared
toward truckers.
“Trucking radio lost the man who invented the genre. He will
live on in the memories of all who rode through the night with this
great friend of the truck driver,” said Nemo, who now hosts a show
on Sirius/XM radio.
Douglas, whose real name was Doug China, first brought the “Road
Gang” to WWL in 1971. The station’s clear channel signal meant that
the program, which featured country music, weather reports and
homespun humor, could be heard by truck drivers nationwide.
“Charlie went to WWL and said ‘You’ve got a signal that is a
flame thrower out there,’” Nemo recalled. “He said, ‘You’ve got all
these truckers with nothing directed towards them. Why don’t we
start a program aimed for the trucking audience exclusively?’“
The program would later earn the attention of Time magazine.
“Six nights a week at 9:30, Charlie Douglas sounds two beeps on
a truck horn, and thousands of truck drivers on the road all over
the country cock an ear,” explained the magazine in a 1973 article.
“For the next 7½ hours, over WWL, a clear-channel New Orleans radio
station at 870 on the dial, they can hear not only country music but
business information that could be vital.”
Nemo said that the
show was not just about entertainment, but also public safety.
“The mandate for the program was to keep truckers awake, and
therefore alive,” Nemo said. “The best compliment we could get was
for someone to say, ‘Man, you really helped me make it through that
night.’ We took that very seriously.”
In a 1976 article in The Times-Picayune, Douglas explained that
the program received more mail from Ohio listeners than from those
in Louisiana.
Douglas himself boasted of the program’s wide reach, saying that
when he once asked listeners to send in shoulder patches “just to
find out who was listening,” he received patches from police and
fire departments, sanitation crews, even Boy Scout and Girl Scout
troops, and of course trucking firms.
He said the country music he played fit with the trucker’s
lifestyle. “It’s about being lonesome,” Douglas said, “and workin’
hard.”
Nemo said that the program also served as a lifeline between
truckers and their families back home.
“In those days, telephone
communication with the folks back home was limited to pay phones at
a truck stop,” Nemo said. “So the song dedications and birth
announcements helped bridge that gap.”
Country music and truckers’ talk may not have been the first
thing listeners of WWL, the station whose studios were at one time
in the Roosevelt Hotel, may have expected, but Douglas made the
program into an institution.
“The whole thing seemed a bit off
center at the time,” wrote Ronnie Virgets in a 1985 Times-Picayune
profile of Nemo, which credited Douglas with inventing the format.
“A country format in jazzy New Orleans, no local sponsors and a
floating audience of unknown size and desires. But Douglas made the
whole thing work.”
Douglas had never driven a truck, but said he was fascinated by
the big rigs that rolled through his boyhood home of Ludowici, Ga.
His “Road Gang” show, broadcast at various times from 9 p.m. or
11 p.m. until 5 a.m., continued on WWL for some 13 years before
being picked up nationally on satellite and spawning dozens of
imitators.
Douglas also worked stints as an announcer and
host on WNOE in New Orleans, as well as on WSM-AM in Nashville, and
stations in Dallas, Houston, San Antonio, Buffalo and Oklahoma City.
He began his career in 1953 at KLIC in Monroe, La.
Douglas served two terms as CRS president.
Among the
memorable stunts Douglas has been credited with is his career was
broadcasting from a hot air balloon in Texas before losing control
of the navigation and winding up drifting over the Gulf of Mexico.
He was also reportedly the first person to broadcast while
parachuting from an airplane. He also broadcast while standing in a
lion’s cage and riding on the back of a bull. In 1975, Douglas took
his show on the road, broadcasting from 40 different locations in 50
days.
He was inducted into the Country Music DJ Hall of Fame in 1994.
He retired from radio a year later to work full-time for CDX, the
countyr music distribution business he established ith business
partner Paul Lovelace in 1991.
He died on 24th November 2011, aged 78. He is survived by
his wife and three children.
Any contributions will be
gratefully accepted
Contributed:
• Ben Moses: In 1964 Charlie Douglas was still working under his
real name, Doug China, and was in management or sales at WINZ Radio
in Miami when I started to work there as a part time DJ. I was in
the Army at the time, and had weekends off, and one day cut an
audition tape for Doug and his Program Director (whose name I can't
remember). They hired me and I spent the better part of that year
and 1965 filling in for whoever was out sick. Eventually they gave
me the Saturday night slot. I have never forgotten Doug, and always
wondered what happened to him after I left for Vietnam in late '65.
Glad he did well. As for me, I wound up writing a movie story about
my DJ stint in Vietnam - you may have seen it. (Good Morning Vietnam
- Ed)
Errors and Omissions
|
|
The Forum
|
|
What's new?
|
|
We are looking for your help to improve the accuracy of The Douglas
Archives.
If you spot errors, or omissions, then
please do let us know
Contributions
Many articles are stubs which would benefit from re-writing.
Can you help?
Copyright
You are not authorized to add this page or any images from this page
to Ancestry.com (or its subsidiaries) or other fee-paying sites
without our express permission and then, if given, only by including
our copyright and a URL link to the web site.
|
|
If you have met a brick wall
with your research, then posting a notice in the Douglas Archives
Forum may be the answer. Or, it may help you find the answer!
You may also be able to help others answer their queries.
Visit the
Douglas Archives Forum.
2 Minute Survey
To provide feedback on the website, please take a couple of
minutes to complete our
survey.
|
|
We try to keep everyone up to date with new entries, via our
What's New section on the
home page.
We also use
the Community
Network to keep researchers abreast of developments in the
Douglas Archives.
Help with costs
Maintaining the three sections of the site has its costs. Any
contribution the defray them is very welcome
Donate
Newsletter
If you would like to receive a very occasional newsletter -
Sign up!
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
