L&B at KFI

Most listeners tuned to KFI in the 70’s knew that L&B meant Al Lohman and Rodger Barkley. Mornings they were listening because of Lohman and Barkley.

Before that happened. (1968) New billboards had pictured them as clowns falling from the sky. Captions said, ”The Greatest Air Show on Earth.” Soon I was waiting in the small Emerald studio at 141 Vermont, L.A. to record some promotional ‘spots’ that would announce their arrival at KFI.

Two desk mikes were set up in the announce position, where only one had been placed before. Two smiling strangers came in and at down as if they would both talk at once.

This was the L&B team. I was meeting them for the first time, ‘Through the Glass’. I opened the two mike faders and pressed the intercom switch and we spoke for the first time. I couldn’t tell which voice was coming from which mouth!

Later I would learn which voices belonged to each man. The many characters came from life, mostly from people they had known. They liked double names, Doctor,Doctor, and Dean, Dean Dean. Sam was added when a real Sam was L.A. Mayor. W. Eva Schneider remains my favorite. This was the irreverent, dowager, female voice (done by Lohman) that broke all the rules.

Example: The show opened with Lohman instructing the ‘staff’ to be sensitive about telling one absent member that their cat had died. When that member walked on, W. Eva blurts out,” Your cat’s dead!”

I asked if they would run-through their radio characters for me. They looked at each other as if they had never done such a thing before. Rodger said, ”He wants to hear all our voices so as to see which mike they come through.” With that they went through them one at a time. Saying,” Leon Lights comes through about like this.” Some forty voices in all. I was so pleased and entertained that I didn’t hide my feelings when this train of talent ended in a loud forced belch” - (Lohman’s of course.) they both thought it was funny. Perhaps the look on my face was enough! I still regret not having a tape running that day.

Rodger was the serious one. He cared if the commercials were done in the scheduled time. He kept up the paper work. He was neat, punctual, and polite.

Al’s characters were well defined, his timing was good and he pulled his weight with original thought. But big Al was a lovable ‘mess’.

These two were a ‘Team’. More ‘married’, than to a spouse. They needed each other to be what they were - so much so that KFI management decreed that if one was sick, they both were sick! KFI didn’t want it any other way. Today they would be called co-dependant.

We knew them as L. & B. Only on a special B. & L. Day were they billed backwards, out of order. I remember that it was Dyer Huston’s idea. It may have been done each year. All of KFI’s staff recognized and tried to remember to say, “B & L, but it was difficult to keep the order reversed.)

L.&B. and their families didn’t ‘hang around’ together as you might expect. To keep their programs spontaneous, they didn’t script their material. They didn’t do read-throughs. In the lounge, ahead of program or recording takes, they would share an idea. One would suggest in a general way that they do a certain take and the other would nod and suggest the next plot direction.

Several sub-plots would be a continued idea. During their stay at KFI, W. Eva Schneider was variously married to most all of the imaginary staff.

With two ‘heads’ to start with it was difficult to ‘help’ them. I tried to, only once. I could see immediately that it was a mistake! Their train of thought was interrupted. Roger looked at me quizzically, not being able to accept another idea. Much less fit it into what they wanted to do.

The morning that our astronauts were quarantined for rubella, I suggested that W. Eva might have rubella. They took the idea and exposed their entire staff! That was an exception.

Sometimes when I worked with them they said that Jane Wyman was their engineer! They signed an autograph for me the same way!

L.&B, were fun to work with but their program was difficult to engineer. Some parts of a segment would be taped from the program in progress, to be used in a following hour. There was no chance for an edit or re-cueing. It was ‘done on the fly’ with no chance to correct an error.

They ran a continued story each day. (They made it up pretty much as they went along.) The sound effects and organ stings were on separate carts that the engineer would punch on cue. Without rehearsal, most of this all happened as it should. But one miscue could and has caused a cascade of others. I remember now, how it feels!

Their character voices and parts, taken, were so well understood by the listener that it was hilarious when L.&B. purposely had one voice pretend to be another!

Lohman particularly enjoyed doing Lone Ranger stories. He was called ‘Lone’. Barkley must have been the Tonto voice.

If there ever was a tape it must be lost. The show was on the air live. I was mixing. I want to recall it here. Now it never can be re-done, at least that well.

(If you can remember their voices, try to fit them to this remembered script.) Lone’s horse is down. (Sick) Lone and Tonto are kneeling at the horse’s head. They are sad and Tonto asks for a mirror. He holds it to the horse’s nose and says, “Good news, no steam on mirror!” (There is a pause and,) ‘Lone says,” No that Bad news.”

That was Classic L&B and I was paid to be part of it!

I was not regularly scheduled to L&B but was involved with them from time to time. They did personal appearance remotes too. I went along to several places.

The L&B Remote Broadcast from the Bridge of the Queen Mary

Dyer Huston, producer, and I, the remote engineer with L&B, and all our spouses, were invited to spend the night nearby in the then new circular apartment hotel in sight of the moored Queen. KFI had decided that the out of town, early morning program warranted the outing. I liked the pie shaped parking stalls facing the core elevator. Our party took up most of a floor of suites with views in all directions.

Early the next morning the luxury ended quickly. The Queen was not open for visitors at that hour. The dockside elevators were not in service. The broadcast was to be from the ship’s Bridge several decks above the waterline. We took the stairs. Everyone had something to carry.

Lohman pulled the lanyard, to sound the blast that sent the seagulls flying. He wore a tired Captain’s cap. They had fun on and off the air.

I had less to do as the commercials and taping were handled at the studio mixer. We had several mikes as we did live interviews from the Bridge. Publicity prints show a radio receiver in the window. We brought it to monitor KFI and receive cues for our program feeds.

Huston’s shiny stopwatch made it all come together with time for the commercials.

Should such a program be done today, lodging could be available on the ship. We have had the opportunity to stay aboard overnight, viewing fireworks off the stern and sharing a porthole the next morning to see Long Beach through the fog, pretending that it was the English Channel!

All together I have spent 33 years with KFI and wouldn’t have missed a one! Following are three audio clips from some old recordings. - nw

Posted and Edited by Steve Blodgett, EarthSignals.com