Adam Jones taking a big leap

Intro, and Arriving at WQUA

My wife, Debra, got me this site for Christmas and my son, Steve, is helping - so an old radio guy can tell his stories. I call the mid-50's - 1970 the Silver Age of Radio. This was before de-regulation, when personality was your ticket to the dance! I'm going to jot down some memories of each station I worked at.

I'm going to start with WQUA Moline (thanks to Mark Moskowitz and all my Q friends for the kind words.)

In February of 1965 I sat in my room at the LeClaire Hotel, trying to find WQUA on a cheap radio. I had come to the Quad-Cites to be like Pat Murphy in Louisville, a great all-night guy, very free-form. I kept switching back and forth between KSTT and WHBF, but all I could get was Mummers music (Mummers are strange people who dress up like butterflies and dance up and down the streets of Philadelphia playing kazoos and glockenspiels. Music only a brother could love. That's why they are in Philadelphia.) Who the hell plays Mummers music at 8:15 in the morning?? WQUA. That's who!

The next day I was told the manager, Max Ryder, a nice man with bad taste in music, liked it. I told Joe Murray, the P. D., that I didn't care who liked it - the only way I would play Mummers music on the radio was at gunpoint.

(What had I gotten myself into?!)

- Adam Jones
1-5-07


MORE STORIES

First Job WSRS
End of WSRS
Getting a Job at WIOI
First Night Moline
Ballad of the Bum Trip pt. 1
Ballad of the Bum Trip pt. 2
Ballad of the Bum Trip pt. 3
Ballad of the Bum Trip pt. 4
Ballad of the Bum Trip pt. 5
Ballad of the Bum Trip pt. 6
Ballad of the Bum Trip pt. 7
Ballad of the Bum Trip pt. 8
Fish and Otto
Daddy Cool, WCAW Charleston
Stand-Up-Sit-Down and a Mop Sink, WCEF
Ronnie Powell and Bruce Pease
Mister Bob calls, segue to Adam and Bob
Everything from A to B
More Daddy Cool, WCAW Charleston
The Devil Himself takes the Train
Spring Training
Bob Allen Retires
After all these Years, Hampton Hall looks better than I do
The Bluegrass State She Ain't What She Used to Be!
Creamed Corn and the Old Watts Line
WITH Radio You Got Laughter
Happy New Year 2012
The Days of KIOA Jones
Adam Only Has One Name
Do the DJ Shuffle
An "Ice" Day for a Fire
Going to Flint was No Laughing Matter
This Doc
Back at the Hamp
Adam Jones: A Man with a Record
Home of the Crackers (Not the Braves)
Can the Adamizer Play in Peoria?
Boy Meets WIRL
Remembering Bob Allen
Boy Leaves WIRL
WOWI - What a Time We Had! (Part one)
WOWI - What a Time We Had! (Part two)
WNUW - We Never Understood Why
On My Way to a Fistfight, Part One
On My Way to a Fistfight, Part Two
Moving Makes Me Sick
Who is Adam Jones and Why is He Watching Me?
When Moline's Wells Fargo Had Lounge Acts
Adam in the Evening Some More
El Capitan and Coney Island


Adam Jones guesting on Scott James radio program Oct. 21, 2013:


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