"Lucky 13" KDIA, broadcasting from Oakland at 1310 AM, was a popular Rhythm & Blues and Soul Music station in the 1960s through the 1970s.
By the late 1950s, while still known as KWBR, the station was competing with KSAN/1450 in San Francisco for black listeners with rhythm-and-blues music and popular disc jockeys, including Big Don Barksdale and Bouncin’ Bill Doubleday. In July 1959, KWBR was sold for $550,000 to the Sonderling Stations group, operator of the legendary Memphis station, WDIA. On September 4, 1959, KWBR became KDIA, reflecting its new parentage. (Sonderling also owned KFOX in Los Angeles and WOPA in the Chicago suburb of Oak Park.)
Under Sonderling ownership and the management of Walter Conroy, KDIA directed its full programming effort toward the emerging black audience, keeping Don Barksdale and Bill Doubleday on its staff and adding high-caliber talent over the years that included Bay Area Radio Hall of Famer George Oxford (previously a competitor at KSAN), John Hardy, Belva Davis (later known for her television work at KRON, KPIX and KQED), Rosko (nom de radieux of William Roscoe Mercer), Roland Porter, Bob White, Bill Hall, Johnny Morris and Bob Jones. The station leveraged its dial position — 1310 AM — into its identity as “KDIA Lucky 13.”
Under Sonderling ownership and the management of Walter Conroy, KDIA directed its full programming effort toward the emerging black audience, keeping Don Barksdale and Bill Doubleday on its staff and adding high-caliber talent over the years that included Bay Area Radio Hall of Famer George Oxford (previously a competitor at KSAN), John Hardy, Belva Davis (later known for her television work at KRON, KPIX and KQED), Rosko (nom de radieux of William Roscoe Mercer), Roland Porter, Bob White, Bill Hall, Johnny Morris and Bob Jones. The station leveraged its dial position — 1310 AM — into its identity as “KDIA Lucky 13.”
ROSCOHere's an hour-and-a-half of "The Burgie Show" with the Poet Laureate of Soul, Rosko Mercer. Despite numerous breaks, Rosko's incredible talent and the spirit of KDIA comes through in vivid detail.
Sly at KDIA c.1963..
..with the FamilyThe station helped launch the careers of such musicians as Sly and the Family Stone. And featured artists like James Brown, The Supremes, The Impressions, Aretha Franklin, The Four Tops, The Temptations, Otis Redding, Sam Cooke, Wilson Pickett, the list could go on forever, you weren’t cool unless your radio was set to KDIA.
KDIA was committed to the San Francisco-Oakland Bay Area as far as community involvement.
The station worked with the Black Panthers on numerous community issues while KDIA personalities represented the station at local events like the “Juneteenth” Festival, a neighborhood celebration held in San Francisco’s historically black Fillmore District that celebrated the abolition of slavery in the United States.
In 1965, KDIA’s power was raised to 5,000 watts from a new transmitter facility near the Bay Bridge Toll Plaza which also housed the station’s new studios and offices.
The five-fold increase in power made KDIA a veritable powerhouse and hastened the demise of old KSAN, which had become KSOL in 1964. (Going full circle, it was another KSOL, this time on 107.7 FM, that would eventually end KDIA’s supremacy in the late 1970s.)
The date is February 22, 1963 and George Oxford is playing records... [ LISTEN ] and Bob White is on-the-air in June of 1966. [ LISTEN ] Two segments with John Hardy spinning records some time during the summer of 1966 [ LISTEN ] and again on July 12, 1966. [ LISTEN ]
In September 1969, John W. Doubleday — “Bouncin’ Bill” — became KDIA’s general manager, a position he held until September 1974, when J. Walter Carroll assumed the role. Mr. Carroll served as KDIA’s general manager until his death on January 20, 1976; Kernie L. Anderson became the station’s GM in 1977.
Lucky 13, July 27, 1971.After the failure of KFYI’s news format, the station went off the air on April 9, 1985, only to be revived under new ownership as KDIA in October of that year. In subsequent years, the station was owned by future San Francisco Mayor Willie Brown and Oakland Mayor Elihu Harris, and by James Gabbert, who had also owned KIOI and KOFY.
Johnny Morris birthday bash, 1974In 1997, Mr. Gabbert entered into an agreement to air the syndicated “Radio Disney” programming format on KDIA in advance of selling the station to ABC, Inc. The station’s call letters were changed to KMKY on January 20, 1998, and ABC purchased the station for $6.25-million in May 1998.
KDIA played a central role in the community during the turbulent 1960s, as Oakland and the Bay Area became a focal point for the Civil Rights movement, the War on Poverty, the rise of the Black Panthers, and social unrest in the wake of the murder of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., and the protests against the war in Vietnam. Beyond its role as a powerful voice in the community, KDIA was also the go-to station for listeners seeking the solid sound of Soul Music – regardless of their ethnicity. Whether it was James Brown, The Supremes, The Impressions, Aretha Franklin, The Four Tops, The Temptations, Otis Redding, Sam Cooke, Wilson Pickett – the list could go on forever – you weren’t cool unless your radio was set to KDIA. KDIA was inducted into the Bay Area Radio Hall of Fame as the recipient of its Legendary Station Award in 2018.
WHO WORKED AT KDIA? Here is the list: Steven Bise, Barbara Oster, Tony Scott, “Big Daddy” Don Barksdale, Belva Davis, Bouncin’ Bill Doubleday, Chuck “Buggs” Scruggs, Jumpin’ George Oxford, Bob Jones, Johnny Morris, Sly Stone, John Hardy, Bill Hall, Bob White, Rosko (William Roscoe Mercer), Roland Porter, Wally Ray, Brother Louis Freeman, Sam Skinner, Marlon Scott (Alonzo Miller), Barry Pope, Alvin John Waples, Lady P.J. Ballard, Doug Cass and Al Moreland.
Some materials found on this page were originally published by the following: The Bay Area Radio Museum, las solanas, Media Museum of Northern California.
