Clyde Clifford
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Dale Seidenschwarz, aka Clyde Clifford, is the host of Beaker Street a weekly freeform rock radio program.
Beaker Street, which first aired on clear channel KAAY AM 1090 from 1966 through 1972, was the first underground music program broadcast regularly on a commercial AM radio station. The show attracted a legion of fans across the western hemisphere with its pioneering format, which featured long album cuts from artists who otherwise would not get airplay.
Clyde is the prototype of the laid-back late-night DJ. His on-air comments are delivered softly and deliberately over a background of space music. Clyde was one of the pioneers of the album oriented rock format which became popular on FM radio in the 1970s.
The stage name of Clyde Clifford came from an inside joke at KAAY. The on-air personalities took their stage names from the board of directors of LIN broadcasting, the owners of KAAY. Clyde W. Clifford was the comptroller general of LIN.[1]
To be fair, there were actually a number of other personalities that followed Clyde Clifford. Among the many people who hosted the show after Clyde, there were several Ken Knights. As mentioned earlier, many names were given to the jocks to use at KAAY until the 70's when Dick Downes became the Program Director after Wayne Moss had left the station. After the Ken Knights, there was Beaker Street with Stuart for the last few years into the mid seventies. Stuart expanded the show from the original three hours to a full five and a half (11:00 PM to 4:30 AM). It had some of the best ratings that the show ever had, besting the 10 PM lead-in hour with twice the audience. When Carl Hamilton took over the Program Director position, he decided to end Beaker Street.The last Beaker Street show was done by Don Payne after Stuart McRae had resigned at the final end of Beaker Street on KAAY.
Beaker Street can still be heard today. It airs every Sunday night from 7 p.m. until midnight Central Time, on Magic 105.1 FM KMJX. And it is also streamed live via the internet, from the Beaker street homepage (see External Links below).
