Bill "Hoss" Allen
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Bill Allen (aka "Hossman" or "Hoss"; born William Trousdale Allen III, Gallatin, Tennessee; died February 25, 1997, Nashville, Tennessee) was an American radio disc jockey who attained fame and notoriety from the 1950s through the 1990s for playing rhythm and blues and black gospel music on Nashville radio station WLAC.
Allen, the youngest of a quartet of jockeys that included Gene Nobles, "John R." (Richbourg), and Herman Grizzard, wound up having perhaps the longest career of any of them, managing to work for radio stations for some 45 years before his 1993 retirement. Like Richbourg, he also had extensive involvement with Nashville's small but vibrant blues and gospel music scenes, from the 1960s through the 1980s or so.
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[edit] Early history
Allen was reared in the small town of Gallatin, some 35 miles northeast of Nashville, by an African-American domestic who worked for his grandparents. Because she was primarily responsible for his nurturing and upbringing (which included taking the young Bill Allen to church with her on Sundays, where he first heard gospel music), he identified primarily with black youngsters as playmates and peers, something highly unusual for the still strongly-segregated South. Allen got the nickname "Hoss" from his grandfather, because of his tall, athletic frame.
He became a jazz musician as a youngster and played, during World War II, in USO shows abroad. After peace came, he enrolled as an English major at Vanderbilt University, where he developed a reputation as a strong amateur actor. Although he considered joining the professional theater at one point, Allen decided instead to enter the more promising field of radio instead, going to work for Gallatin station WIHN in 1948. There, he imitated Gene Nobles' routine of playing R&B and jazz tunes, mixed in with standard pop music. His success was so great, that, after only a few months, he got the courage to approach WLAC for a job there.
[edit] Joining WLAC's "50,000 Watt Quartet"
Much like John Richbourg, Allen first went on air at WLAC as, of all things, a talk-show host, but eventually parlayed that into selling ads and producing programs. But the real aim of his labors would open itself up in the mid-1950s, when Nobles took a several-years-long leave of absence from his nightly program. Allen established himself in that slot, peppering liberal amounts of songs by the likes of Ray Charles, Little Richard, Fats Domino and John Lee Hooker with "jive talk"-style commercials, most notably for sponsors Royal Crown Hair Dressing (unrelated to the cola drink) and Buckley's Record Shop, a Nashville-based mail-order business.
[edit] The "Hugh Baby" interlude
Allen's popularity grew steadily until the early 1960s, when he decided to branch out into the record business itself, taking a job with a label as a field representative. Replacing him at the station for several years was "Hugh Baby" Jarrett, a former member of The Jordannaires vocal group, which backed Elvis Presley at his height of stardom. Jarrett took the "hep cat" idiom into a younger direction, staging sock hop dances, rotating more rockabilly and rock and roll into the blues/R&B playlist, and "pushing the envelope" by dropping sexually suggestive double entendres in the product advertisements. The latter practice eventually led to his termination by WLAC, after receiving a reprimand by the FCC over an incident; Jarrett later lived down that career mistake by compiling a lengthy run on several Atlanta-area stations. Happily, Allen was willing to return to the station afterward, and he resumed his nightly programs.
[edit] Keeping the beat into the 1970s
Allen kept spinning the newest releases from the likes of Sam Cooke, Muddy Waters, and Aretha Franklin, while paying attention to the new soul scenes developing in the mid-1960s in two nearby cities: Memphis and Muscle Shoals. His playlist varied from Richbourg, Nobles, and Grizzard mainly in that he emphasized, to a somewhat greater extent, newer releases on his one-to-two-hour shows, heard six nights per week.
Furthermore, "the Hossman" took full advantage of his fame to indulge in passions such as drinking and womanizing, according to Wes Smith, author of "The Pied Pipers of Rock 'n' Roll: Radio Deejays of the 50s and 60s" (Longstreet Press, 1989). These activities led to several run-ins with station management and the occasional problem with police. But Allen finally admitted to alcoholism in the early 1970s and obtained treatment for his condition, quite likely prolonging his life.
Allen hosted a short-lived syndicated television show in 1966 titled "The!!!Beat". This program, of course, featured most of the same artists he played on radio. Episodes of this program were recorded at a Dallas television station, where color facilities were available, something none of the Nashville stations had yet.
All 26 episodes of the show are currently available on DVD. Allen hosts all but the last show. Reportedly, Allen was so distraught that the show had been cancelled, that his drinking got the best of him and he was unable to host the final show. A very understanding and enthusiastic Otis Redding stepped in as host.
[edit] Surviving the purge
In the early 1970s, when longtime cohorts Richbourg and Nobles decided to quit rather than tailor their programs to a new management's desire for the entire station schedule to conform to a pop hits format, Allen opted instead, because he was years away from retirement age, to quietly adjust toward more funk and smooth soul offerings, discontinuing most of the oldies he had been playing. By early 1975, "the Hossman" was the lone jockey still working at WLAC from five years earlier; after a brief absence from the airwaves, he reformatted his show as "Early Morning Gospel Time With The Hossman," a showcase for national and regional soul gospel acts, moving it to the overnight shift from late evening. Since he had been taping his programs from about 1970 onward, this proved to be little if any problem.
For about ten years after that move, Allen assumed a much lower public profile, working in his off-station time as a music producer for several local acts. However, WLAC's sister station, WLAC-FM (now WNRQ), used his voice in the mid-1980s for a promotional campaign. This brought his memorable drawling sound back to public consciousness, and ad agencies began to enlist him to supply voiceovers on various radio and television commercials. This became a quite lucrative business for him for several years.
Meanwhile, Allen continued his gospel show, a favorite among his old African-American listeners in particular, until 1993, some years after WLAC abandoned all other music altogether in favor of a news and talk format in the daytime and paid religion in the evening hours. Although he made a brief attempt to revive his R&B/soul/blues show on Saturday evenings in 1986 and 1987, it collapsed due to lack of promotion and pre-emptions by Vanderbilt football and basketball coverage, to which WLAC held the rights at the time.
After stepping down from regular work on radio, Allen continued his instantly recognizable voiceover projects until about a year or so before his death. Allen was the final of the four jockeys that constituted what fans termed "the 50,000 Watt Quartet."
[edit] Famous phrases
"All around, down for Royal Crown"--said during commercials for the hair-care product, used by some African-American youngsters in the 1950s and 1960s; product is still sold as of 2006
"Bless your heart"--Allen used this phrase constantly; derived from a traditional Southern religious greeting
"Camelot time"--informal name for his nightly shows
"Git down time"--phrase originally referred, in the mid 20th-century, to the beginning of prostitution activities at nightfall in places like Gallatin and Nashville; later became a teenage/African-American slang term for dancing, thanks to Allen's frequent use
"Just a touch ... means so DOG-GONE much!"--slogan for Royal Crown Hair Dressing and Pomade
"Well, hello, darlin', hello, darlin'"--Allen's standard greeting to begin his shows
"That's Randy, R-A-N-D-Y, Gallatin, G-A-L-L-A-T-I-N ... Gallatin, Tennessee!"--the closing catch phrase used on 60-second commercials for Randy's Record Shop, a sponsor of "The Hossman"'s (and also Gene Nobles') program for many years on WLAC
"...then YOU have a DISEASED SCALP! And now it's time to CURE UP that diseased scalp...you don't want no itchy head!"--another catch phrase used in the middle of a 60-second spot for a certain mail-order product used to treat psoriasis voiced by Hoss Allen. Commercials for mail-order products and services such as these were a frequent mainstay during his overnight gospel program.
