013 Wolfman Jack

Bob Smith 0:00
He was one of the most colorful characters on rock and roll radio, a DJ known worldwide for his raspy voice and sense of humor.

Wolfman Jack 0:09
Wolf Man Jack is a conglomeration of all the great personalities. Wolf Man Jack is a little bit of Alan Freed. It’s a little bit of John R It’s a little bit of all those different people I grew up listening to and I love so much. So that’s basically what Wolf Man Jack really is. Coming

Bob Smith 0:24
up a conversation from the past with the most famous disc jockey in history, Wolfman Jack on the off ramp with Bob Smith. You

Bob Smith, welcome to the off ramp with Bob Smith, the place to slow down, steer clear of crazy and take a side road to sanity, a chance to shift gears, learn some facts and gain some new perspective, one of the favorite mementos of my career is a picture of me Bob Smith, sitting next to another Bob Smith, a very famous Bob Smith who went by the name of Wolfman Jack. That’s right, Wolfman Jack’s real name was just plain Bob Smith, specifically Robert Weston Smith. We met face to face in December 1980 backstage after a concert, but we first connected in a telephone interview he did with me promoting a rock and roll review he was bringing to the Midwest with a roster of famous hit makers, including Bo Diddley, the crystals and Freddie cannon that Bob Smith had an extremely colorful career. It was back in the day before the web, before MTV, before MP threes, streaming music or podcasts. He was the most famous disc jockey in the world when we talked in 1980 but from the moment our call began, he seemed intent on poking fun at me for keeping my original name.

Hello, Wolf Man, how are you? Bob Smith, that’s me. I know that’s you. Sounds like it doesn’t I’m rolling if you want to get started here. All right, well, anytime you’re ready, man,

Wolfman Jack aircheck 2:43
now we’re gonna do the weather for the valleys and the mountain tops gonna be hot, about 200 degrees, and Merced 400 degrees out in Fresno, and I know we’re gonna have about 500 degrees up around the valley. I wonder, wonder, who Purdue? In

Bob Smith 3:04
the mid 1960s word about him began to spread about a crazy disc jockey who went by the name The Wolf Man. He was one of the mysterious characters of underground radio, and no one seemed to know who he really was or where he lived. But stories about him began appearing in rock magazines around 1967 his radio shows were zany, and they were being pumped across the border by powerful Mexican radio stations, some of them broadcasting with five times more power than any US. Stations were allowed by our Federal Communications Commission. He played mostly rhythm and blues then, but as his audience grew, he became more commercial. He surfaced and became a top 40 DJ in Los Angeles, then New York, and he played a part in the film American Graffiti that paralleled his life story, that of a disc jockey who had such a mystique he was being sought out by the hero of the film, Richard Dreyfus. By the time I connected with him, the man whose real name was just plain, Bob Smith, was known worldwide. He was on television on the Midnight Special on solid gold and other rock TV shows. He’d built up a recording company, a radio and TV syndication network, a virtual Empire just using that voice and that character, Wolf Man, Jack.

Wolfman Jack 4:22
I used to have that name Bob Smith, just like you got, and it was so corny I had to change it.

Bob Smith 4:28
Let me look at it from my point of view. Why would a person with a perfectly good name like Bob Smith change it to Wolf Man Jack,

Wolfman Jack 4:34
well, you know, I was looking through the telephone directory one day, you know, and I just noticed that all the Bob Smiths there was in the telephone directory, right? There must be 4000 of them, right? I was living in New York at the time, and then I was looking to the telephone directory, I didn’t see no name, Wolf Man Jackson, the telephone director, I said, so nobody’s got that name. So that’s name I’m going to

Bob Smith 4:54
use. I think there was a disc jockey named the moon dog in New York at the time, but you used to listen to as a young. Sister. Was that an inspiration for you?

Wolfman Jack 5:02
I grew up. I was a kid like in 57 when rock and roll first started, you know, I was going to school and everything. And the person who started rock and roll was Alan Freed, you know, in New York City on W, I N, S. He started out, and he called himself Moon dog, you know. And then he got in the big, longest lawsuit with some prophet in the street who was calling himself Moon dog, and he had to give up to name, and then he called himself Alan, freed anyway. He was the man who coined the phrase rock and roll. He’s like rook listening to so that was your inspiration, in a way. Yeah, he was fantastic jock man. He really was.

Bob Smith 5:35
You’re a pretty interesting character in radio. You never really did anything by the book before he became famous. You never worked at a powerful American radio station. You never had real high ratings, but you became phenomenally successful as a wild personality.

Wolfman Jack 5:48
Well, I am a wild personality. I’ve kind of toned down a lot now, you know, I don’t crawl buildings or anything like that, or, you know, to do skydiving, or I gave all those things up. You

Bob Smith 6:01
know, you used to skydive and stunts like that, huh? I was skydiving, man, long

Wolfman Jack 6:04
before they were skydiving, you know, I think a fifth and jump out of the airplane. You know,

Bob Smith 6:13
it’s kind of ironic. You’re the most famous disc jockey in the world, but I think most people who know you have never really heard you on the radio, that often they’ve seen you in movies, on television, things like that. Well,

Wolfman Jack 6:22
I still syndicated all over the place. Man, I’ve got in different towns around like in Dubuque, I’m not on the radio there, but in other areas, I am, you know, and I’m on it about 150 markets altogether. Would

Bob Smith 6:35
you mind going back for just a moment here, you’re from New York originally. I understand from what you say, how did you get into radio and where?

Wolfman Jack 6:43
Well, when I was a youngster, you know, I grew up listening to moon dog, you know, Alan Freed, like you said, and I just wanted to create the same excitement that that man created. He was phenomenal. He had the whole city rocking rhythm, you know, and the scene when he came on here at night, man, New York would rock. So I tried to get a job on American radio, and they didn’t dig where I was coming from, you know. So I tried and tried and tried, and then finally I went down south to Mexico, and I got on that big station, xcrf, from viacunu, call real Mexico, and it’s just across the border from Del Rio, Texas, that was 250,000 watts, you could hear that station driving from New York to LA, you know. And I stayed there for about four years, and we sold everything from baby chickens to, you know, nose guards, mail order things, world crown hair jelly, you know, no one time

Bob Smith 7:37
your show was on. What three different stations broadcasting out of Mexico? Wasn’t it x, Erb, x, e g and x. Erm, yeah.

Wolfman Jack 7:43
I had one time I had him on X CRF, x, e g and x Erb, and you know, x, e g is in middle America, you know, cover all of Texas down here. X CRF was the real big, powerful one. And then x ERB covers the West Coast. Here about 13 states on the West Coast. Now, for the

Bob Smith 7:59
benefit of our listeners, 50,000 watts is the highest an American am radio station can go. And Wolf Man was on three stations. One was 50,001 was 100,001 was 250,000 watts, just across the border there. Before that time, you were in Louisiana, I understand it one time working as a radio station manager, and you were pretty conservative during the day with the business man selling advertising. And then you turned yourself into that wild wolf man. Wolf Man at night.

Wolfman Jack 8:23
We got to remember, back in those days, if he was real crazy, you know, they brought the men with the white sheets, and they put you in the funny farm. You know what I mean? You had to kind of hide it. You had to be closet crazy back in those days. So that’s what I was basically doing. I was closet crazy. And then during the daytime, I wore a little skinny tie and, you know, my little funny haircut and everything, and that’s, that’s where I did business as a manager as

Bob Smith 8:48
Bob Smith, strange name. Did anybody ever find out and have any adverse reactions? Not that I know of. Well, I’m from Ohio originally, but it goes back to the east coast from there. So there’s a possibility. Well, you

Wolfman Jack 9:05
know, my grandmother was, was Pocahontas, you know,

Bob Smith 9:10
I’d say Captain John Smith, right, right.

Wolfman Jack 9:13
That’s my grandmother. Pocahontas is the Indian side of me. You know,

Bob Smith 9:17
when you were on those stations on the in the Mexican area there. And you got, you must have gotten letters from all up and down the United States, Seattle. What you have a lot of fan mail in those days.

Wolfman Jack 9:27
I still get a lot, man, and it’s still, it’s always been like every state in the union, you know, and trust outside too. You know, I won. The American Force has been there for 12 years, and I’ve been on that, that situation they cover about 52 countries, is about like, something like 1000, 1200 radio stations here.

Bob Smith 9:50
You’re literally heard all over the world.

Wolfman Jack 9:54
I say they don’t get enough of the wealth, man, you know what? I should really be on your station there, right there in Dubuque.

Bob Smith 9:58
Well, you’re on. You’re on right now. You’re on right now. Yeah, but I know I got a great radio

Wolfman Jack 10:03
show though. I do an oldie show, and then I course, I do a hit show and and you should ask the folks out there, they’d like to have Bob Smith on the radio. Okay,

Bob Smith 10:11
when you, when you started out during your wolfman curry, were you sort of disguising the fact that you were a white man playing what was essential in those days, black music? No,

Wolfman Jack 10:19
no, no, no, no. I mean, there was a lot of white jocks playing Black Music in those days. It was those days. It wasn’t that way. I mean, like John, John, John R from WAC in Nashville, you know, old Jewish guy sounded great, you know what I mean. And then there was, then there was a whole horse Allen, you know. And I could think of so many jocks that were that, you know, were into that bag. It was into that bag. Man, it wasn’t. It wasn’t a color thing. It was a style, personality

Bob Smith 10:45
and radio, you certainly have kept that going all these years. And there have been, there have been faceless people on the air for quite a few years. How did you manage? He must have had problems sometimes, because people thought you were just a little too wild for their stations. Yeah, I

Wolfman Jack 10:59
had a lot of problems, man, but I tell you, you know, it’s, it’s, it’s kept going. I’m very upset with the way pop radio is going today. I think it’s very, very bland, very dull. You know what? I mean, we need more crazy things, you know, unpredictable things happening, because that’s, that’s what always drew the audience, that that that’s what always made everybody, you know, tune in and give you the numbers

Bob Smith 11:24
as it was when you were a youngster listening to the radio. And

Wolfman Jack 11:27
they doing it today. I mean, it’s a shame, you know, we played 20 records and that’s it. You know what I mean, when you

Bob Smith 11:32
were, when you were in the in the Mexican area, they’re doing all that, and then pumping up your sound to Los Angeles, you were pretty much of an invisible personality, from what I understand, you went to great lengths to well, disguise where you were who you were. Got an article I read last night that Tom Nolan wrote in cheetah magazine back in the 60s about trying to make contact with you, and he met Bob Smith, but he couldn’t find Wolfman Jack. And you never did radio interviews like you’re doing right now, either did you Well,

Wolfman Jack 11:57
you see, back in those days, I wasn’t trying to Wolf Man Jack was not my main, my main way of making money, you know what I mean? And I did Wolf Man Jack really to save money, because I ran Wolfman Jack on the radio station. So they have to hire another jack, pay him some money, you know? So what I did is I did most of the taping myself, and then I went out and sold it. So I was like two different people. The one on the air, I still talk about him like he’s somebody else, you know. And Bob Smith went on, got the business, you know, when

Bob Smith 12:27
you think Wolf Man Jack, it’s like another person takes over your personality. I’m

Wolfman Jack 12:32
definitely a Schizoid man.

Bob Smith 12:34
Now, I wasn’t thinking, not necessarily, in those terms Wolf Man. Wolf Man

Wolfman Jack 12:38
Jack is a conglomeration of all the great personalities really had something going. And Wolf Man Jack is a little bit of Alan Freed. It’s a little bit of John R It’s a little bit of Rosco, you know. Remember the guy, mommy, Oh, Daddy, oh, gonna take off at his spaceship, you know? And it’s a little bit of all those different people I grew up listening to, and I love so much so that’s basically what Wolf Man Jack really is, and that’s why I enjoy listening to Wolf Man Jack, because, as I say, that style is from all those different people, and it makes a very interesting listening coming

Bob Smith 13:13
up next, Wolf Man Jack talks about his role in a film that Brought him much success and popularity American Graffiti, when the off ramp with Bob Smith continues. Welcome back to the off ramp with Bob Smith. One of the subplots of the film American Graffiti was what was going on on the radio. And what was going on on the radio was the Wolfman Jack show Richard Dreyfus, the hero of the film, was constantly trying to find this mysterious, all seeing, all knowing voice, and the subplot mirrored wolfman Jack’s early career as an underground disc jockey when he was a voice everyone liked, but no one seemed To know too much about going

Speaker 1 14:01
Little Rock, way down the valley. You call folks into rock California, yeah, long distance, man. What kind of entertainment you got in that town? All we’ve got is you

Wolfman Jack aircheck 14:14
all right, baby. Here we go with another call out of the stations. Can you dig it? Answer the phone,

Speaker 1 14:21
dummy, pinkies, pizza. Yeah, listen. You got any more? No. Secret Agent, Sky scoops hips right on the stethoscope. No, don’t a secret agent, Spy scope. Man that pulls in the moon, the stars, the planets and the satellites and space. Men, you

Unknown Speaker 14:35
must have the wrong number partner if you

Wolfman Jack aircheck 14:37
want to jitter, jive, bust around Fanny. Man. How about

Bob Smith 14:44
the movie? American Graffiti. How did you get asked to do that?

Wolfman Jack 14:48
Well, George Lucas already had it in his mind, you know, to do that movie and and when he came to me, had me plan to do the to do the movie. And when I met him and saw that, I was in every page. Piece of the script and everything like that. I actually offered him some money if I figured he’d need some backing or something, you know what I mean. And luckily enough, the movie came out, became a classic. And it’s a very lucky, fortunate thing to be in a motion picture like that.

Bob Smith 15:14
Did that do a lot for your career? I know you were known before that, but I think the mainstream of people say in this portion of the country, in the Midwest here, who might not have heard Wolfman Jack on the radio, suddenly became aware, really, of this man that they had sort of heard about on the fringes.

Wolfman Jack 15:27
No, it did. It did. It did a lot for my career, definitely. And just like a Midnight Special, has done a lot, you know, being on that television show for nine years, you know, being on radio for 20 years. You know what I mean, all that’s done a lot. I think being around has done a lot. Just

Bob Smith 15:41
be invisible, uh huh, yeah, just surviving, you know, hanging on by your fingernails all the time. That takes a lot of work. You’re in the you’re into syndication, ready? You’ve been doing some acting on television too

Wolfman Jack 15:52
well. Actually, I’ll do anything I can get a hold of. Man, if they want to, you know, if they want to give it to me, you know, for money, is that what you’re saying, Wolf Man, it’s not all money. I just like to get on the stage and do my little thing, whatever it is. So therefore, anything anybody got for me, I listen very closely, and if I can do it, I say, Yes, sir, and then I send the lawyers in to make the deal with them. You know what I

Bob Smith 16:13
mean? I see what you mean. Well, when you get that big, you got other people handling your business for you.

Wolfman Jack 16:17
Yeah, that’s trouble. I got too many people handling my business, you’re based

Bob Smith 16:21
in LA. These days, you have a family, but we never hear how many kids you have, or anything like that.

Wolfman Jack 16:26
Well, I’m a very family orientated person, man. I’ve been married to wolf woman for 20 years, and I got two kids, you know, a son and a daughter, and after I had the son and a daughter, I said, That’s it, you know, we’re gonna close it off no more through, you know what I mean. And they’re both grown now. They’re both about one is 21, one is 17 so I don’t feel like a pop anymore. You know what I mean?

Bob Smith 16:53
Yeah, it’s it sort of happened and it’s gone. Yeah, it’s finished. I don’t want to go through it again when you when you were just, just getting on your kids for just moment, without getting too personal about it when they were growing. It. When they were growing up and they heard a wolf man on the radio, did they realize that was Dad? Did they did it was there a point when they finally said, Gosh, that’s That’s Dad. That’s on the air.

Wolfman Jack 17:09
. Same thing I do on the radio. Do at home all the time, you know? So they knew it was me, you know, when I call for him, I go and then they go back, they say, oh, you know what I mean. We do that all the time in the house.

Bob Smith 17:21
The only kids in the neighborhood that have a father like you. Well, I think they were very

Wolfman Jack 17:25
fortunate to have me for a father man, because I let him do anything they wanted to do. You know what I mean? And they appreciate that. Tell us a

Bob Smith 17:32
little bit about the show, your bringings with the crystals and Bo Diddley and Jade 50. Well, it’s

Wolfman Jack 17:37
going to be a nostalgia show, of course. And if you’ve ever heard of catastrophes, you realize that it’s a heck of a good band, and along with us gonna be Bo Diddley and the crystals. So, I mean, you can look forward to a real, real good time, and it’s gonna be a lot of fun, dancing, drinking, having a good time. You know

Bob Smith 17:55
those days with Bo Diddley and the crystals, those were some of those early days you were referring to, back in the early 60s, late 50s.

Wolfman Jack 18:01
I’ve been doing both diddly for 25 years. I mean, he’s, he’s still going strong. Still does at least he must do 200 gigs a year. You know, out of 365 days he does at least 200 days. He’s still working. The Crystal still working. These are all the originals too. We don’t bring in no phonies when we’re doing a wolf man Jacks rock and roll is here to stay, sure?

Bob Smith 18:23
Okay, well, man, let me ask you one more thing here, and we’ll let you go. I know you got business to attend to here. You’ve you came out at a time when radio was getting rolling in terms of rock and roll radio, you became a big personality. You survived a lot of ups and downs, and know what the radio business is like over the years. You were starving at times, I’m sure, come back on top. What about your career? Is Wolf Man gonna be around another 20 years from now?

Wolfman Jack 18:48
20 years I feel like I’m slipping into the toilet right now, but I keep trying. Man like I say, I’m syndicated in about 150 markets. I still do the Midnight Special. I do a lot of TV shows. I got a TV production company now that I’m cranking out a lot of shows that you might not see me in, but you know, I’m producing a lot of things. And of course, I’m doing a lot of movies. If you go to see motel hell, you see the old wolf band in that picture. And I’m in a lot of other B movies. You know what I mean? I’m gonna do a movie called Linda Lovelace meets Wolf Man.

Bob Smith 19:28
Yes, I understand Wolf Man. Thank you for that. To answer your question briefly, I’m gonna keep cooking, and if you folks still want the old man, I’m gonna be here. Alrighty, how about a wolf man? Hell, before we leave, you do I have to we’re paying you a lot of money for this interview, Bob. You know what I mean, anybody

Wolfman Jack 19:48
with the name Bob Smith got to be kind to me, some kind of way.

Bob Smith 19:57
Wolf Man. Jack, you.

Unknown Speaker 20:00
See Well, I’m looking forward to

Bob Smith 20:03
seeing you too. Sure you’re the next best thing to Dick Clark,

Wolfman Jack 20:07
or maybe you’re better. I ain’t as pretty as Dick Clark, though. You gotta remember

Bob Smith 20:12
that. Okay, well, man, thank you for talking to us All right. Bye bye, bye bye.

Speaker 2 20:20
How old are you? 13? How do you I’m only 14. Oh, boy,

Bob Smith 20:26
I love you. Well, you can bet I was there the night Wolfman Jack rolled into town. I was looking forward to his performance, and he didn’t disappoint. Here’s some of his patter, which I recorded as he emceed his nostalgia show. Ain’t

Speaker 3 20:45
nothing like those oldies, but good as you always there. Cause you even, how many folks have you had problems tonight? Raise your hand.

Speaker 4 20:51
Well, I tell you those oldies, but goodies out of all problems. Yes, I say unto you good people of the good rock and roll fellowship. We are gathered here to get the feeling.

Wolfman Jack aircheck 21:02
I and you get down and dirty with one

Bob Smith 21:08
another later in the dressing room, he shared with the legendary performer Bo Diddley. I had a chance to talk to Wolfman Jack face to face. How many shows you do a year?

Speaker 5 21:18
Oh, how many shows I don’t know? 180 200 maybe, you know. And on the road, a lot of times I see Bo Diddley, an awful lot. You know, me and Bo Diddley. How many dates we done together? Bo Diddley, about 50 or 60 or something like that, you know. And then we just did this one with Joe catacio and the Jade 50s,

Bob Smith 21:43
and your voice always been the this, this wolf man voice. I we talked about on the phone a little bit, but I know how you adopted the Wolf Man with the moon dog and so forth. But is your voice always been low, like this? Is this? Well,

Speaker 5 21:52
I tell you, I’m, I’m a little fatigued, man. You know the we came in. Let me see. We came in from Los Angeles to Chicago, and then from Chicago we got, we couldn’t fly in here because the, you know, the fog and everything. And then we get into Waterloo, right? And it’s all fogged in there. We had to rent a car, me, boat, diddly riding down the highway, you know, about an hour and a half to get here. Do and do the gig. I’ve been gone since about four o’clock in the morning. I think my I think fatigue has finally reached me. You know what I mean, I’m on my knees, you know? Sid,

Bob Smith 22:27
you had some movies coming up. You mentioned motel hell when I talked to you, but you said the you gave the indication might be some others in the can or coming on the way. I got

Speaker 5 22:35
a lot of projects happening, and a lot of TV things are going to be happening this next fall. And also, there’s a, one of the big movie companies have the picture, the X ERF story, you know, which is about the big Mexican station down, and that’s that’s going to be done next year. And motel hell did pretty good. You know, I had this little bit part there. It did pretty good. Man, everything else, doing well. A Midnight Special doing well. Or the old wolf man, doing fairly well. And I’m going to be doing better shortly.

Bob Smith 23:16
Robert Weston Smith, also known as Wolf Man Jack, was 42 the night I interviewed him in that dressing room. He died of a heart attack 15 years later at the age of 57 on July 1, 1995 at his home in Belvedere, North Carolina, shortly after recording his weekly radio show, I told you earlier about one of the favorite pictures for my radio career, Bob Smith sitting next to Bob Smith. But an even better Memento is an eight by 10, glossy signed in this way, to Bob Smith. I love that name you wear, that thing better than I do signed Wolf Man Jack. Well, that’s it. Hope you enjoyed our look back at that very colorful personality, Wolf Man jack, and that you’ll join us again next time here on the off ramp with Bob Smith, the other Bob Smith, you music,

the off ramp with Bob Smith is produced in association with CPL radio and the Cedarburg Public Library, Cedarburg, Wisconsin on.

Transcribed by https://otter.ai