Weird Beard

Weird Beard Night jock from November 21, 1966 through September 30, 1971. Weird Beard left WAKY for a PD gig at LIN Broadcasting's station in Rochester, New York where he spent two or three years before taking a position with the Rochester Police Department.

Weird was named after his father, Carl Markert (but not a junior) who was a member of the Louisville Orchestra. During the late '60s, Weird would often bring his father's old bugle to the station and play sour notes over the air.

Here's a KQV Macleans Demo in 1966. [ LISTEN ] (7:02) The Beard is at KQV on August 20, 1966. [ LISTEN ] (28:56) KQV on May 20, 1967. [ LISTEN ] (25:41)

He was dubbed 'the dropout from bugle school,' and would play the thing over the air in the worst way. He especially enjoyed playing alongside Herb Alpert's 'This Guy's In Love With You,' which featured a trumpet, bugle or whatever, on the long outro of the song. Hilarious.

From top: On location at a hop, with Janis Joplin, and with buddy Dude Walker.

Another reason many people think he departed Louisville was because of the 1971 tragic drowning death of his young son, Scotty. Mason Lee Dixon recalls: "We spent many anguish-filled hours searching for the boy, sensing all of the time that he had crawled through the hole in the fence at the Water Company across the street from his house. There were all kinds of rumors flying hell, west and crooked since Burt (Weird Beard) and his wife were separated at the time. People can be cruel in their ignorance. Most of the city was sympathetic, even the competition. Only the cops and some really low-vibing characters were suspicious of Burt.

It wasn't until the city finally consented to drain the reservoir that they recovered the body." Burt was diagnosed with Multiple Sclerosis at the age of 19, but didn't let that stand in the way of successful careers in broadcasting and law enforcement. He returned to Louisville and lived with his mother for a while. Eventually he went into a Pewee Valley, Kentucky nursing home where he died November 22, 1995 due to complications brought on by MS.

This Weird Beard may not be your Weird Beard. It turns out that there were many different Weird Beards. Burt Markert has no connection to Bill Vermillion another Rock DJ of the same era who was Weird Beard in Orlando on WLOF-AM. Nor any relation to Russ "Weird Beard" Knight on KBOX, WICC and KLIF Dallas in the 1960s and 1970s. Also unrelated is Windy Craig "The Weird Beard" another mid 60s radio personality. His real name was Fred Winston, of WOLF and WLS-AM. That Weird Beard set a Ferris wheel riding record of 183 hours 2 minutes.

Before WINN, before WAKY, Weird Beard paid some early radio dues at a station in Corydon, Indiana in the mid '60s. Here's an aircheck of Burt Markert playing "good music" at WPDF. [ LISTEN ] (11:32)

Another early Weird Beard from November 25, 1966. Includes commercials of the day and a newscast from Byron Crawford. [ LISTEN ] (17:05)

Some materials found on this page were originally published by the following: 79 WAKY, Jeff Roteman's Radioville.

NOTE: Not much bio information is available for Weird Beard. To date this is all that has been found. The search continues for additional information.