WMAK 1963.Jolley then found work at WPLO Atlanta in 1962. As part of the WPLO staff that was rotated out Jolley Began looking for work finally landing 7PM-12 Midnight at WMAK in Nashville. He also worked part time at WLAC, also in Nashville, and he was a top contributor to Paul Drew's Southern Music Survey.
Arriving at 6:55 PM on January 3rd in 1965 unshaven and tired, car running in the parking lot Frank dropped in to say hello. Ken Scott said "Hello you're on the air, that's the mike, those are turntables and those are cart machines, I gotta go! KBOX has a basketball game and he left! Jolley's first night on the air was mostly music and Jingles.
Legendary Doug China and Bill Weaver hired Jolley at WKBW in December of 1966. He moved to Buffalo and preformed an on-air marathon over the year end and it ended January 7th. Fired by Weaver after only 3 weeks on the air at WKBW, he was sought by Bill Stewart for WNOE.
Chosen as MC for the 1966 Miss Teenage America Contest in Dallas Jolley is pictured here with the Winner and runner up.In April, 1967 KVIL in Dallas, changed from it's Beautiful music format that featured such orchestras as Lawrence Welk, Montovani and Guy Lombardo to Top 40. Jolley was hired as the morning man on the air from 6A.M to 9 A.M. "I remember it as if it were yesterday " says Jolley" I opened the mike and said Good morning Dallas this is Frank Jolley and I have an idea", and he played Lets Spend The Night Together by the Rolling Stones. The switchboard was closed so it wasn't until after Jolley was off the air that the calls started.
KVIL Pirates Nook Promo
After six months Jolley was fired because as the GM put it "You make too much money. Hell Frank, you make more money than I do, I have to let you go." And just like that, he was let go.
Next Jolley went to WNOE in New Orleans another 50 thousand watt station that he'd grown up with.
Working 7p.m. to midnight on one of the most powerful stations in America, Frank was heard as far away as the state of Washington at night but mostly throughout the midwestern states. One radio archive site has Jolley listed as "A Midwest Rock n Roll Legend"' probably as a result of being on WNOE. The station was good for Jolley, and it helped him regain his confidence and he developed an alter ego "COUNT DOWN" the whacky Vampire of the New Orleans French Quarter. His nighttime was filled with other whacky characters too, there was the Count, and the Count's coach driver Zero Zorro and the Beautiful Vampiress Missy Francois, Glen Simms, and one of Jolley's college Instructors who Jolley had adopted as a newscaster Ross Miles sometimes referred to as Raw Smiles.
WNOE made the decision to change format from TOP 40 Radio to an MOR format and Jolley wouldn't fit in.
Bob Magruder the station manager got on the phone and called his old friend Jack Roth the President of the National Association of broadcasters and owner of radio station KONO in San Antonio and when Roth heard Jolley was ready to be on the loose, he immediately hired him for the Afternoon 3p.m. to 7p.m. drive slot in San Antonio.
Ward, Peter, Frank, Gordon, & McChesney.This was based on Jolley's previous numbers in both Dallas at KBOX and WNOE in New Orleans where he'd topped WTIX in the first book.
KBOX December, 1966
Jolley contacted Ken Dowe the newly appointed Operations Manager of KLIF in Dallas. He was offered a summer relief fill in position. He took it. This was the opportunity he was seeking, a possibility to return to Dallas and return to his earlier prominence. That didn't happen. Before Jolley could arrive at KLIF Rod Roddy from WKBW in Buffalo showed up on KLIF's doorstep and he was given the position that Jolley had been promised. This, as it turned out was the 'straw that broke the camels back' and Jolley worked a sometime relief shift until late December at which time he made the decision to find work in California and on December 31, 1969 loaded up a rent a car and headed west.It wasn't until March 1970 that Jolley landed the 7-12 midnight shift at KNAC. Jolley and another KNAC jock Jerry Longdon put together what was called at the time an 'underground' movie theater deal at the Art Theater in Long Beach a venue which was held on Saturdays at Midnight. A Venue that exhibited student films, experimental films and some films he made himself. Running the Art Theater midnight movies for the first two years of his stay at KNAC.
It was during his second stint at KNAC in Long Beach that Jolley had the foresightedness to see a boom on the horizon, namely cable television. In 1972 Jolley and Chris Thomas produced the first ever feature for cable television a ninety minute spoof on early black and white television that won a National Cable Television Association award for Cablecasting, titled 'ZEBRA9'. The show was shown nationally on the Times Mirror Cable Local O's. This set Jolley in motion to begin filming what Art Laboe wrote in his L.A. Free Press column "Jolleys First above ground movie". (Previously Jolley had made dozens of shorts ten to thirty minutes in length.). In 1973 with the success of Zebra9 (and a Cash award) Jolley and Company set out to produce the western feature John Wesley Hardin. Jolley was heralded by EARTH NEWS as coming of age in an Independent world of moviemaking.
With the help of Bernie Baker and Neal Williams, Jolley set up his own film company and organized a film shoot with 36 friends with benefits and they filmed forty four hundred foot rolls of film on a movie that was released as JOHN WESLEY HARDIN. Later in 1992 the movie was reedited and re-released under the new title "The Young'un", which opened to a standing room only audience at the Angelica Theater in New York City.
With John Wesley Hardin 'in the can' Jolley accepted the role with Hubert, Ducket, Mason and Dowe advertising agency to produce and appear in a series of both radio and television commercials. First he appeared in the Westinghouse WEDGE commercials as their spokesperson, then in the Hahn LTD Lawnmower commercials which both aired nationally.
In 1977 Jolley-Clark produced several pilots for the newly formed The American Cable Network. None of which were ever aired.
In 1979 it was back to radio and syndication was the name of the game. From 1979 till 1985 Jolley was regional manager of Drake Chenault a company known for it's highly popular and productive Special titled 'The History of Rock and Roll'. From there it was a matter of thirty six months before radio called him back to service. With the help of a partner from Hanna Barbera, Jolley set out on a buying spree, first buying KKDV in Eureka a small Northern California town, and then KPAK in Redding, another small California city.
Upon the sale of the radio stations Jolley again turned his efforts to producing and developed a syndicated series on Hometown USA simply titled "Frank Jolley Presents..." a twenty six week video musical half hour show targeted to the MTV audience in small markets where cable had not yet arrived.
In early 1992 Jolley produced 'The Young'un' another western feature and it was screened and picked up for foreign distribution as an official entry in the Independent Feature Film Market at the Angelica Theater in New York."
In 1998 Jolley slipped back to Radio and On-the-Air at KTKZ in Sacramento, Ca with a consumer oriented talk show until moving to 'The Arrow' a top 40 Klassic Rock station in Sacramento Until 2001. In 2001 Jolley's script, "Top 40 Soundtrack of the 60s" was selected and featured at the Independent Feature Film Market in New York. In 2004 Jolley became the Executive producer and Producers Rep of the Endeavor Productions film titled Elsa Letterseed. Also hired By Liberty Pictures to Produced a still untitled film in Pennsylvania which only went into Pre Production. 2005- 2006 Jolley worked as a Marketing Rep for the O'Hara - Klein Motion Picture Company of Hollywood to market their Producers services. Next in 2008 Aberle Films hired Jolley to represent their Feature film "Raveled".
Frank can currently (2019) be found hosting "Rock House" a streaming radio program, playing hits of the 60s, 70s, and 80s.
WHERE DID FRANK WORK? Here is the list: WKIK, WNEX, WPLO, WMAK, KBOX, WKBW, KVIL, WNOE, KLIF, KNAC, KKDJ, and KPAK.
Some materials found on this page were originally published by the following: VStudio.
