Documentaries
In 1978, Drake-Chenault released and syndicated an all-new, 52-hour edition of the definitive rock documentary, The History of Rock & Roll, a concept originally created by Ron Jacobs and Bill Drake at KHJ in 1969. The new version, researched, written and formatted by Gary Theroux, was narrated by Drake and produced by Theroux, Drake and chief engineer Mark Ford. Its most famous feature: the final hour, which showcased a montage of every chart-topping hit from 1956 to 1977 in sequence. That montage inspired a whole series of later medley hits by everyone from Elvis Presley to The Beatles, Stars on 45 to Jive Bunny & the Mastermixers. The landmark "rockumentary" debuted as a weekend marathon broadcast over more than 800 foreign and domestic stations and went on to win Billboard magazine's "Top Special Program of The Year" award. It also sparked Theroux to write the book The Top Ten: 1956-Present, which reveals the sometimes funny, sometimes sad, sometimes outrageous but always insightful stories behind the ten biggest hit records of each year since 1956.
Because the History was in pre-production when Elvis Presley died in August 1977, a completely new 3-hour Elvis special was able to be written, produced, duplicated and shipped within 48 hours of Elvis' death to several hundred radio stations. It was narrated by Bill Drake.
Drake-Chenault also produced the multi-part hour-long series "The Golden Years" and "The Golden Years of Country" as well as Mark Elliot's "Weekly Top 30" (from 1980 to 1982) and its successor, Charlie Van Dyke's "Weekly Music Magazine".
Bill Drake died on November 29, 2008. Gene Chenault died on February 23, 2010.
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