the old days: Jess Cain

[Donna Halper]

At 05:22 PM 8/27/2005 -0400, Doug Drown wrote:
>While we're on the subject of the Richmond brothers (of WMEX), I've long
>been curious as to who they were and how they got into the radio business.
>Donna, can you help me out?

Maxwell (Mac) and Richard (Dick) owned WPGC in Washington DC back in the AM 
top 40 era.  (If you are from greater DC, you recall that WPGC was jokingly 
called the Pig and the other major top 40, WCAO in Baltimore, was called 
the Cow.) I believe Dick Richmond had a legal background.  Mac was a 
businessman.  He was also notoriously cheap, as many who worked for him 
will attest.  They bought WMEX from the Poté brothers in the summer of 1957 
and proceeded to turn it into a major force in top 40, home of Arnie "Woo 
Woo" Ginsburg and many other famous (and nearly famous) jocks.  The place 
was a revolving door-- low pay and Mac meddled in everything-- but for a 
time, it was quite influential in breaking new music.  (It also got accused 
of taking payola-- the Gold Platter show, it turned out, really did expect 
record companies to pay if they wanted their song to be the Gold Platter 
that week-- the song that was chosen by the staff to be destined for 
stardom...)  So what do you wanna know about the Richmond brothers?  I've 
got all sorts of articles about them...