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Stacks of Wax and Platter Chatter

Adelaide Radio in the Late 50s and Early 60s

The era of the radio dee jay emerged in the late 1950s. Television had just arrived in Adelaide and radio, which had been the dominant entertainment medium, suddenly found itself without its core audience. Until then, the staple diet of the wireless had been drama, light entertainment, news and sport. Suddenly, with the arrival of TV, that audience was no longer available and radio had to re-invent itself just to survive.

Source Radio 5AD.  Popular radio personalities on Radio 5AD in 1964 included Eldon Crouch, Bob Francis and

Source Radio 5AD. Popular radio personalities on Radio 5AD in 1964 included Eldon Crouch, Bob Francis and Graeme Edwin

Those were the pioneering days of a new breed of radio announcer called DJs or disc jockeys. As the three commercial radio stations in Adelaide, 5AD, 5KA and 5DN turned to ‘pop’ music for survival, names like Alec Macaskill, Paul Linkson and Bill Long emerged as the new personalities. By the early 1960s it was the DJs who were the stars and the main point of difference between the old ‘wireless’ and radio of the post TV era.

The combination of top forty music and the DJ style of presentation was perfect for the time. Although the new medium of TV was exciting for the overall audience, initially it had very little to offer teenagers of the day. Radio was more in step with the new music of rock’n’roll and when the Beatles arrived on the scene in the early 60s, it was the radio that brought their music to the audience.

It’s hard to imagine in this day and age of the music download but generally speaking in the late 50s and early 60s, people did not have access to a large selection of music. The idea of hearing a song or an artist and immediately being able to purchase it was unimaginable back then. Only radio stations and their DJs were in a position to acquire large quantities of recorded music.

Source the Jim Slade Collection. Jim Slade who first gained popularity on 5DN before switching to 5KA in the mid 60s

Source the Jim Slade Collection. Jim Slade who first gained popularity on 5DN before switching to 5KA in the mid 60s

On 5KA you could hear the latest ‘Fabulous 50’ songs every afternoon with “big C, little h-a-s”, Chas Lumsden, who had surfaced as that station’s most popular DJ. In King William Street it was “the big guy, ten floors high”, Big Bob Francis on the tenth floor of the Advertiser building at 5AD who commanded the ratings, while in North Adelaide, Jim Slade was playing hits from the ‘Big 60’ and presenting such programmes as ‘Hits and Misses’ and The Beatles Show.

In those early years, Top 40 shows certainly did not dominate the radio. There was still a lot of sport (including racing), radio serials continued well into the 60s, there were women’s sessions with the likes of Roberta Russell and her budgie, chat programmes like ‘Mel and the Girls’ with Mel Cameron and other music programmes such as Barry Hall’s “Choose Your Own” which didn’t feature pop music.

Gradually though the popularity of Top 40 music and the DJ style of presentation began to dominate the airwaves. New names like Stuart Jay, Ian ‘Loco’ Sells, Barry Ion, John Vincent and Neil Humphrys emerged and became the leading music dee jays of the Adelaide radio scene in the 1960s.

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7 Responses to Stacks of Wax and Platter Chatter

  1. Bev Pedlar November 29, 2015 at 9:19 pm #

    As a12 year old I used to spend time with Eldon Crouch who was ill with the repercussions of polio. Haven’t seen Eldon for many, many years and would like to contact him. Could you please let me know how to do this, would love to catch up after so many years. Thanks.

  2. Mick December 10, 2015 at 7:05 am #

    I heard Chas Lumsden introducing a brand new song on the hit parade in 1963:
    “We’ve had the Swing Age and the Space Age, but now we’ve got the Garb-Age … It’s the Trashmen with Surfin’ Bird.”

  3. gray chandler May 29, 2016 at 11:11 am #

    I was working for IEL, Astor Car Radios and installed a radio in Chas Lumsdens’ Light Iridescent Green new Nissan Cedric. Circa 1962-63.

  4. Brian Lamprell November 14, 2016 at 4:08 pm #

    How quickly it all changed. As a 7 year old in the mid 1950’s, I listened to 5KA’s serial Captain Silver and the Sea Hound which was followed by 15 minutes of “new” hit songs – that was it. 15 minutes was all that was offered before the station returned to more traditional programs. But within 2 years we had hit songs pretty much all day.

  5. Graham Bone October 29, 2018 at 9:00 am #

    I can remember listening to the top 40 on one of the Adelaide’s commercial radio stations in the late 1950’s and winning a carton of William Butler cigarettes for my father for picking the order correctly. Maybe someone can recall which station.

    Regards
    Graham Bone

  6. karen ellison January 26, 2020 at 12:47 pm #

    my husband just said in the 60s he would listen to 5AD all the way up at mt isa

  7. Fred Payne February 25, 2020 at 4:41 am #

    I used to listen to Chas Lumsdens at 5RM His saying was Hi there you there me here . Great days

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