Roby's first Miami Florida job was covering the Cuban Missile Crisis of 1962 and hurricanes as a newsman at WIOD, which was then WCKR. He then moved to Miami's WQAM and became a DJ (where he worked with another Miami radio legend, Rick Shaw).
"The Big Kahuna"He was best known for being fired from New York City station WABC-AM in 1969, after he reported over the air that the singer Paul McCartney might have died, circulating the now infamous Paul is Dead folktale saga and conspiracy theory.
He evolved into a character created out of a cartoon in the back of Playboy magazine. In the "Little Annie Fannie" cartoon, the "Big Kahuna" was a muscular surfer with a deep tan and all the girls. It was a joke because Roby was really the opposite, but the name stuck and he used his "surfer" image to great success in South Florida. He was not terribly athletic but the music he played was for the surfer crowd.
Here is The Big Kahuna on the air, March 28, 1966 [ LISTEN ] (45:54), again in April of that same year. [ LISTEN ] (20:19).
At 25, Yonge left Miami for WABC in New York. His first shows on WABC were December 30 and 31, 1967. He filled in for Ron Lundy before starting his own show on January 1, 1968 with the song "Devil With a Blue Dress On" by Mitch Ryder. However, his 1-3 p.m. show was short-lived.
Roby at WABC on January, 1969. [ LISTEN ] (29:55)
Roby takes over the Clark Moore Show while on a visit from New York.
He was shifted to weekends when Bob-a-Loo (Bob Lewis) went over to WABC-FM (now WPLJ) full-time. He was then shifted to overnights replacing Charlie Greer. He was told by WABC program director Rick Sklar, in the early fall of that year, that his contract would not be renewed. He subsequently went on the air with the Paul McCartney "death" rumor on October 21, 1969.
Having heard the rumor from WKNR-FM (Detroit) radio personality Chris Randall, he stated that he had already been fired and that at 12:39 AM, he would not be "cut" because there was nobody around, Yonge began to speculate on rumors circulating about the possible death of McCartney. He enumerated various "clues" in album cover art which he said had been catalogued by thirty Indiana University Bloomington students. The station switchboard lit up.
It was an hour and a half before Sklar got Les Marshak in to relieve Yonge. With a huge nighttime radio signal, which easily covered thirty states, this was an embarrassment for the station. Roby was fired while still on the air, but the ripple effect continued for some time. Sklar's reach did not cross radio bands, as, less than three weeks later, on November 14, former WABC DJ Bob "Bob-a-loo" Lewis did a full production "Paul is Dead" show on WABC-FM, putting forth many of the same assertions about McCartney's supposed death that had resulted in Yonge being yanked off the air.
Marshak continued to do the show until a replacement was hired.
Paul Is Dead fever went on for more than two months. Fans from ten to twenty-five, in grade school to college, looked at albums with magnifying glasses, identified symbols, and listened to songs, sometimes backward, for clues.
(TOP) 1960s jocks (BOTTOM) WQAM Reunion, Lee Sherwood, Dan Chandler, Roby, Rick Shaw, and Charlie Murdock.Yonge was hired by WCBS-FM, where he helped introduce the "Oldies" format of popular songs to that station. After a few years, he returned to Florida, where he served as general manager of Mother WMUM, an early FM rock station in Palm Beach.
After the demise of Mother in 1972, Yonge became a morning personality on Y100 WHYI in Fort Lauderdale/Miami. He was fired after the first day on the air, August 3, 1973. He moved to the competitor WMYQ-FM, where he spoke as a commentator with a morning show. In 1987, Yonge did a morning show at WKAT in Miami, then returned in 1993 to do a music/talk show on 790 WMRZ.
Roby Yonge passed away on July 18, 1997 of an apparent heart attack at age 54. He was broke and practically destitute living out of an old motel room. He would have turned 55 a week later on July 25.
As Roby would have said, “It’s cosmic.”
WHERE DID ROBY WORK? Here is the list: WTMC, WCKR, WQAM, WABC, WCBS-FM, WHYI, WMYQ, WKAT, WFUN, and WMRZ/WAXY.
Some materials found on this page were originally published by the following: 560, Savage Lost, Beatleness.
