KROY (defunct) - The Music Power Years

The Music Power Years

By the mid-1960s, KXOA began winning the ratings war. In response, KROY hired Johnny Hyde away from KXOA to be the station's program director. Following the continued evolution of Top 40 radio at the time, Hyde would institute a style of programming called "music power", featuring personalities who would use their unique, energetic talents, and sometimes off-the-wall talents. This form of programming would continue for the next two decades. Supplemented by occasional (and sometimes outlandish) promotions for concerts, clothing, movies, and Cal Expo July 4 fireworks shows, KROY would become the number one radio station in the Sacramento area for years.

The KROY staff during this era included Hyde and his morning-drive "Uncle John's Fun Club," midday personalities Bob Sherwood and Martin ”Wonder Rabbit Ashley, Chuck Roy ("the deejay from KROY) handled afternoon drive with humor and a horn off a Model T Ford. Other personalities included Jack Hammer, Captain Rick Carroll, Dr. Tom Becker, Dave Williams, Steve Moore, Gene Lane, Hal Murray, Terry Knight, and Donovan Blue.

For a brief time in the late 1960s into the 1970s, KROY carried programming from American Contemporary Radio, a division of ABC Radio. The studios had also moved again, to 977 Arden Way. The broadcast studio included a window onto the sidewalk of Arden Way with an old drive-in movie speaker serving as an intercom so passersby could speak directly to the DJ on the other side of the glass.

By 1974, KROY had adopted the Bill Drake format including jingles played on other Drake-Chenault stations. On-air personalities included Terry Nelson, Ken Sutherland, Bob Castle, and Mike Townsend.

DJ Martin "Wonder Rabbit" Ashley had a memorable jingle set to Woody Woodpecker's theme for his show. It went "Eat a banana, eat a banana- It's the Wonder Wonder Rabbit Show."