The Story
This adventure of Radio that took place on KQED FM for almost ten years in 1975 really started a year before on a small radio station in Los Gatos, near San Jose, California.
This project, 50 years later, in now on www.KWMR.org, a small radio station located in Marin County North of San Francisco.
Always with the same format of playing French Pop music, it had a few different names through out the years
THE BEGINNING
“Could you take over my show?,” said Bryan, a friend of mine, “I have been accepted to college back East.” This was in June of 1974. He had a one hour program called “La Belle Vie” playing current French pop music of Jacques Brel, Barbara and the like on a small radio station in Los Gatos. I had never done radio before.
He took me to the station, he showed me the mixing board with eight channels, the pots for the mike and the two turn tables, I watched him cue the records to the right track backing it up 1/4 turn to start the song at the right speed, I watched him sliding the pots up and down, I watch him reading a script but not sounding like he was reading, this was magic!
“But I only have eight records!” I told him. “Not to worry, ask the listeners to bring you some to play, they’ll be jazzed to see the studio and share their collection”. Actually, I could also borrow some from my 2 brothers in San Jose at the time but I had to watch out for scratches on their records.
“Chante la France” was the name of the show on KRVE (These call letters now belongs to a station in Louisiana) 95.3FM in Los Gatos, a Portuguese language station, now [in 2024] a contemporary Christian station called KJLV.
The show where I started in Los Gatos was picked up by another student, Jean Paul when I left for KQED. He called his show “The French Connexion” (notice the "x" the correct French spelling). In April of 1977 he passed it to a business woman who had a Courrèges store in San José and called the show “Rendez vous en France avec Françoise” until February 1979.
There was already another one-hour radio program produced by Alain Efron on Sundays 6:30PM out of KBRG FM San Francisco (Alain stopped about 3 months after I started mine on KQED). He was playing French rock.
And at the time, you needed a license to operate solo on the air which I got in August of that year prior to go on the air.
KQED FM
On May 12, 1976, I negotiated a spot on KQED 88.5 FM for Wednesday night at first and then moved to Saturday afternoon, at 4:30pm at first then at 6pm soon after. The three major players in this new venture (besides my wife-to-be that I met at the French Consulate while looking for material to be broadcast) were KQED FM Music Producer and Program Director Gene Parrish, the French Consul Adjoint Bertrand Rault and the producer and engineer Sedge Thompson who was at the console behind the glass rolling the tapes and spinning the records. It was said at the time that my shows had a potential of 40,000 listeners in a 50 miles radius. Later on, I was told by KQED that I had an audience of about 8,000 people listening to at least 10 minutes to the show, mainly due to the fact that my show was following a very popular program "All things considered".
“Radio à la carte, to present you French pop music from France, Belgium, Quebec, Louisiana and other French speaking countries.”
You could read in “France Amérique”, a weekly paper published in San Francisco, that “Radio à la Carte was the 17th French radio program in San Francisco in the past 10 years and the only one who stayed on the air more than a year and a half!”.
Always looking for new and relevant material to play on the air, I finally, in July of 1978, made progress toward that goal. I had enough of “high level French dignitaries” promising me records, tapes, cassettes, etc. I went, with a recommendation letter from the San Francisco French Consulate, to the Foreign Affairs office [Quai d’Orsay] in Paris who had no idea how to help me, “go see the cultural office” I was told. I then went to the offices of Radio France, Maison de la Radio, a huge eight floor circular building with long circular hallways all around. This is where I saw boxes and boxes of recorded interviews, productions and concerts piled in these hallways. The were shows that were already aired in France. “Yes, you can have them but we have no budget to send them to you”. I went back to the French Government offices to negotiate that I’d be sent 5 to 10 large reel to reel 10” tapes via the weekly “Valise Diplomatique”. They were called “pancakes” because they didn’t have a spool, just tightly wound.
From August 1979 till July 1980, I was also on live television show called “Disc à la Carte” on Fridays at 7:15AM (and the studios were way up by Sutro Tower): while I was holding the cover of records [2 per show], I would say something about the singer, the songs, some background and play one of the songs.
I was able to purchase from AT&T the phone number 415- EMMANUEL [415-366-2683] and get the PO Box 1001 SF 94101, a great success in my promotional years…
Throughout the years, I was able to convince some French teachers to give my show as an assignment to their class where they would then discuss one of the songs. I also started a listener’s club ($10/year) with monthly bulletins and a pin representing the French logo, a map of France in the shape of an US outlet.
Above, my recording studio created in our home of the Bay Area in the mid seventies, with two turn tables, a TEAC 10" reel to reel, a cassette player/recorder/duplicator, a 16 channels mixing board, two mikes, etc.
The current "The French Touch" on KWMR, 90.5 Point Reyes Station and KWMR.org started in December 2015 after five training sessions covering the sations' mission, values and missions as well hands on the mixing board and various players, conducted by the Program Manager at that time, Lyons Filmer. Because of the internet, I have listeners all over the world with frequent contact with listeners in France, Spain, Australia, Oklahoma, etc. The show is first broadcast on Fridays at 4p.m. Pacific Time, with a repeat at 9a.m. Paris Time on Wednesday. It is always available for two weeks on archives by clicking on my mustache on the HOME page of this website.
