Wolfman Jack

Broadcasting career[edit]

After graduating from NAB in 1960, Smith began working as "Daddy Jules" at WYOU in Newport News, Virginia. When the station format changed to "beautiful music", he became known as "Roger Gordon and Music in Good Taste". In 1962, Smith moved to country music station KCIJ/1050 in Shreveport, Louisiana, as the station manager and morning disc jockey, "Big Smith with the Records". He married Lucy "Lou" Lamb in 1961, and they had two children.^[4]


Cleveland's Alan Freed had originally called himself the "Moon Dog" after New York City street musician Moondog. Freed both adopted this name and used a recorded howl to give his early broadcasts a unique character. Smith's adaptation of the Moondog theme was to call himself Wolfman Jack and add his own sound effects. The character was based in part on the manner and style of bluesman Howlin' Wolf. At KCIJ, he first began to develop his famous alter ego, Wolfman Jack. According to author Philip A. Lieberman, Smith's "Wolfman" persona "derived from Smith's love of horror films and his shenanigans as a 'wolfman' with his two young nephews. The 'Jack' nickname was taken from the 'hipster' lingo of the 1950s, as in 'Take a page from my book, Jack', or the more popular, 'Hit the road, Jack.'"^[5]


In 1963, Smith took his act to the border when Inter-American Radio Advertising's Ramon Bosquez hired him and sent him to the studio and transmitter site of XERF-AM at Ciudad Acuña in Mexico, a station across the U.S.-Mexico border from Del Rio, Texas, whose high-powered border blaster signal could be picked up across much of the United States. In an interview with writer Tom Miller, Smith described the reach of the XERF signal: "We had the most powerful signal in North America. Birds dropped dead when they flew too close to the tower. A car driving from New York to L.A. would never lose the station."^[6]


Many of the Mexican border stations broadcast at 150,000 watts, three times the U.S. limit, meaning that their signals were picked up all over North America, and at night as far away as Europe and the Soviet Union. At XERF, Smith developed his signature style (with phrases such as, "Who's this on the Wolfman telephone?") and widespread fame. The border stations made money by renting time to Pentecostal preachers and psychics, and by taking 50% of the profit from anything sold by mail order. The Wolfman did pitches for dog food, weight-loss pills, weight-gain pills, rose bushes, and baby chicks. Even a pill called Florex, which was supposed to enhance one's sex drive, was sold. "Some zing for your ling nuts", the Wolfman would say.^[7]


XERB was the original call sign for the border blaster station in Rosarito Beach, Mexico, which was branded as The Mighty 1090 in Hollywood, California. The station boasted "50,000 watts of Boss Soul Power". That station continues to broadcast under the call sign XEPRS-AM. XERB also had an office in the rear of a small strip mall on Third Avenue in Chula Vista, California just 10 minutes from the Tijuana–San Diego border crossing. The Wolfman was rumored to actually broadcast from this location during the early to mid-1960s. Smith left Mexico after eight months and moved to Minneapolis to run station KUXL. Although Smith was managing a Minneapolis radio station, he was still broadcasting as Wolfman Jack on XERF via taped shows that he sent to the station.


Missing the excitement, however, Wolfman returned to border radio to run XERB, and opened an office on Sunset Boulevard in Los Angeles in January 1966. He recorded his shows in Los Angeles and shipped his tapes across the border into Mexico, where they would then be beamed across the U.S.^[8]


In 1971, the Mexican government, under pressure from the Roman Catholic church, banned the Pentecostal preachers from the radio, taking away 80% of XERB's revenue. Smith then moved to station KDAY 1580 in Los Angeles, which could only pay him a fraction of his former XERB income. Smith capitalized on his fame, though, by editing his old XERB tapes and selling them to radio stations everywhere, becoming one of the first rock-and-roll syndicated programs (as the tapes began to age, they were eventually marketed to oldies stations). He also appeared on Armed Forces Radio from 1970 to 1986. At his peak, Wolfman Jack was heard on more than 2,000 radio stations in 53 countries.^[9] He was heard as far afield as the Wild Coast, Transkei, on Capital Radio 604 based there.^[10]


In a deal promoted by Don Kelley, the Wolfman was paid handsomely to join WNBC in New York in August 1973, the same month that American Graffiti premiered, and the station did a huge advertising campaign in local newspapers predicting the Wolfman would propel their ratings over those of their main competitor, WABC's Cousin Brucie (Bruce Morrow). The advertisements proclaimed, "Cousin Brucie's Days Are Numbered / Wolfman Jack Is on the Prowl", and thousands of small, tombstone-shaped paperweights were distributed that said, "Cousin Brucie is going to be buried by Wolfman Jack".^[11][12]


After less than a year, WNBC hired Cousin Brucie, and Wolfman Jack went back to California to concentrate on his syndicated radio show, which was carried on KRLA-Pasadena (Los Angeles) from 1984 to 1987. He moved to Belvidere, North Carolina, in 1989, to be closer to his extended family.^[13] In the 1980s, he did a brief stint at XEROK 80, another border-blaster station that was leased by Dallas investors Robert Hanna, Grady Sanders, and John Ryman. He also hosted a TV show at Little Darlin's Rock n' Roll Palace, which was eventually renamed Wolfman Jack's Rock'n'Roll Palace.^[14] Ryman then moved Smith to Scott Ginsburg-owned Y95 in Dallas, Texas.


Recordings of Wolfman Jack's old shows were reintroduced to syndication a decade after his death and remain available to local stations, through Talent Farm as of mid-2020.^[15]