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A VERY RARE AND WONDERFUL ARCHIVE of KCAC photos is being shared with us, by Pegi [Cookenboo] Gant, now residing in Florida.
Pegi was Hank Cookenboo's first wife, first Secretary of KCAC and friend to many. This collection of photos is some of the known "best of the best" of the times.
I will attempt to add at least one of these to the blog EVERY DAY as I scan them to CD. THANK YOU Pegi, for trusting me with them.
If you have some of your own to share, please get in touch. When the scans are complete I will pass them along to Daniel Page to be added to the "official" Bill Compton pictures website IN FULL COLOR and at full resolution and actual scan size - which cannot be done on Blogger. What you see here is at best, about 30% of actual size. That is important to note because there are details that are easy to miss in many of these photos. For instance here is Pegi posing with "Snoopy" a stuffed toy, on top of a discarded washing machine near "The Living Room" at Starbright Ranch on the western edge of South Mountain Park in Laveen, AZ.
Off of her left shoulder are some unexplainable "lights" which may have been survey markers or some other artifacts. That Christmas however, some pictures made by Betty with her Polaroid (remember those?) had some undeniable light anomalies on the mountainside. I am told those pictures still exist but I do not know where. We would probably have been spooked by those lights but most of us were preoccupied with some brownies shared by Crazy with everyone. Deck the halls.
THIS is probably the "definitive" earlest picture of the KCAC family, taken also at The Living Room. L to R; Viginia Norton Bill's girlfriend at the time and the second Secretary at KCAC. Seated are Hank and Pegi. Standing at the "coffee table" (tractor tire and bedframe) are Bill on the left and Tommy Vascocue with the Marlborough.
The picture was taken I believe, by Betty Thomson - Ray Thomson's sister - a New York artist, who assembled and constructed The Living Room from discarded materials around the ranch. Besides being hopelessly remote in the desert (about 100 yards from anything), it had a certain cozy quality to it. Far finer ambience than any Lounge in Phoenix.
The "YES" sign was painted by yours truly, Ronco but for whatever reason, I do not know. Jon Anderson and Yes were not recording as yet to the best of my knowledge.
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Title: CRAZY
Songwriter: John Stewart
Copyright: © John Stewart, All Rights Reserved
Recording: The Lonesome Picker Rides Again (Warner Bros., K46135, 1971)
Gold (Wrasse Records, WRASS016, 2000)
Lyrics:
Crazy lives in Tempe
Married three times that Crazy knows
One dude was a hustler
One dude was a drifter
One dude I heard tell
Crazy didn't know
You're crazy to let 'em use you
You're crazy to live alone
I will drive you, Crazy
If I see you by the road
'Cause I will know Crazy
You have gone
Yea, you've gone, Crazy
I believe there's hope for you
You've gone crazy
You've got to be to face the world
You've gone, Crazy
And I think of you
When I'm going too
Crazy to be lonely
Is just dying too damn slow
And Crazy, as it seems
You know to love somebody
Is just that, it's Crazy
The only way to go
Yea, you've gone, Crazy
I believe there's hope for you
You've gone crazy
You've got to be to face the world
You've gone, Crazy
And I think of you
When I'm going too
8 comments:
Most excellent! Starbrite... there sure was a lot of enlightenment going on there. Ah, the sweet memories of medicine and power.
I've uploaded the full-size versions to the Webshots album (link in sidebar). Note: one has to click the "View Full Size" link when viewing a picture to get the real full meal deal. Thanks, Ron!
:~)
These photos are incredible! Thank you so much! I love the "living room" photo (o:
By the way it's Ray Thomson's birthday tomorrow, Aug 29th. How about a bunch of us email him a happy birthday (I call them all 'reverse birthdays' after I hit 40!) Maybe we can get him writing on the blog too!
He told me he's working at KDKB engineering for the corporate radio behemoths...good for him, he's got chutzpah! And probably he's probably the ONLY person who's really hip in the whole place!
Cool Picture. The face of the revolution of Phoenix Rock Radio, inspired by our beautiful Sonoran desert. I think a lot of the desert vibes came through, over the airwaves. I love
Hank's "muttonchop" sideburns a la Zappa/Nesmith.
It was my pleasure to run Hank's board during his final stint at KDKB. We became friends and I set up the first meeting between him and KSLX's Andy Olson at The Safari's Brown Derby. Andy was like this disciple, coming to worship at the coffee shop tabernacle of Hank, and ask him a million questions about KDKB and Bill Compton.
I was doing the 7-mid shift, then. Late one night Andy and I "liberated" a lot of the KCAC and early KDKB vinyl collection, (the boss did say I could have a "few") that was otherwise going for some cheesy, KDKB garage sale promotion, at some car dealership for a buck a record because they had ceased playing vinyl and they wanted to just get rid of 'em.
It was 1991 and there was not much respect for the KDKB heritage at the time.
Many of the records spun on KCAC and early KDKB are still alive today on RFP! They are tucked into the shelves and shelves of records, that are still played every day, on Radio Free Phoenix.
Many of the albums feature hand written programming notes by Bill Compton. They are albums that are cherished and taken care of by Andy. I laugh at the memory of Andy, like a man with gold fever, grabbing stacks and stacks of albums in a frenzy and me screaming, "Andy, I'm gonna get fired!"
Mariah, you are a songstress of words.
Ron, did this wit come across in your radio show ? I'd love to hear an aircheck ! I'm fascinated by your observations.
Daniel, you have a gentle spirit that transcends the page.
Bob, 100% Irish says it all.
Jimmy, you initiated this creative outpouring !
The memories and witticisms of all you sharp, creative minds, make for an entertaining and oftentimes enlightening read.
Thank you and g'night !
And when you stop and think about it,
You won't believe it's true.
That all the love you've been giving
Has all been meant for you.
(Moody Blues - Question)
Whoa, that newly posted desert "Living Room" picture absolutely rocks! More like these please.
I gotta comment on Liz's story. I saw the same nonsense at KMET/LA & KSAN/San Francisco, both legendary progressives in their day. When CD's became ubiquitous both station's inarguably historical record collections were unceremoniously "tossed" by mindless execs. All those "first issues", all those autographs (!) all those jock notes from "the day", lost forever to say nothing of the irreplaceable music! It's like invading Iraq and securing the oil infrastructure while allowing the museums to be looted. All those artifacts put away and lovingly protected since the Old Testament days of Mesopofuckingtamia gone forever. No worries, Chevron has its pipeline.
Liz and Andy, nice work:)
I remember that show and the high hopes for the venue. Nice little room as I recall. Too bad it didn't last longer.
Liz,
Loved your post about you and Andy rescuing the albums and memorabilia from the station. I can just picture you in true catholic school guilt mode telling Andy you'd get fired for sure for being "on" on it (o: Go Gerard Redcoats, eh?
You're so right, Andy does have such an incredible library of music and memorabilia! He and John Dixon are the Arizona music archivists of our era. Without Andy and you and whoever saving those hand written notes on LPS and incredible memorabilia, the Compton era days would be lost to history and foggy memories.
What's really cool is that Andy is so into it and dedicated to all the good that era represented, he put together RFP and they've kept it going for two years. He is a radio legend in his own right, but he's too humble to think that.
I don't know how he does it, running that station all by himself, the technical aspects of it alone are enough to make the average person's head explode. It all really amazed me. But there's nothing average about RFP though, God bless them!! Dunno how they do it, but it's our fortune that they do!
The amount of time it takes to make RFP happen and stay on the air, and figuring out all that great programming takes a lot of time and forethought...Andy's musical knowledge and enthusiasm is nothing short of astounding. I think of it as Andy being the archangel and all the RFP djs being the angels.
Hey, if we put Andy and John Dixon in a room and got em started talking it would go on for weeks! And they'd tell stories half of us had never heard! Hey there's an idea for a show right there!
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