Jack Gale graduated from Forest Park High School in West Baltimore. He began his radio career in 1944 at WBOC, Salisbury. In the late ‘40s he worked briefly at Baltimore’s WSID.
Gale later worked at radio stations in other markets including WSRS Cleveland. This was during the time that Alan Freed had begun playing R&B music and referring to it as “Rock and Roll.” During the early ‘50s Gale worked as program director at WTMA Charleston, SC where he founded his Jalo record label. In 1957 he returned to Baltimore finally fulfilling his lifelong dream of becoming a popular air personality on WITH.
From 1957-63 Jack delighted Baltimore audiences with crazy on-air antics, his array of voices, and his characters including the famous “Hound Dog Kingdom,” a character based on Alan Freed’s “Moondog Matinee” program.
In addition to his on-air work Gale was responsible for many local artists getting their music released on record. One of his first record productions was in Cleveland by Don Howard. The single “Oh Happy Day” was a huge local (Cleveland) hit on his Triple-A label and subsequently issued on Essex Records and becoming a national hit. Other artists that released records on Triple-A included Clarence James, Frank Malcomb, Ginny Wright, and a novelty record by Jack credited as by Val Boyer.
The Triple-A label was supposed to be “AAA” so that it would be the first listing in the directory…
In 1955 while working in D.C. he produced what has become a highly collectible R&B group record by the Five Kids “Carolyn” (Maxwell 101). Some of the Baltimore labels that Jack was affiliated with were Jalo, Jaloda, Monitor, Rescue, Town, Snake, Sport, Trojan, Y-R-S, Foxie… In Baltimore he had two publishing companies Jalo Music (“Ja” for Jack and “Lo” for Lovey, his wife), and “Jeanic” Music. Many of the recordings and masters were sold to major labels.
In the ‘50s and ‘60s Gale sponsored teen dances which usually featured local live music including many appearances by the Legionaires. Amateur nights were staged at local clubs including the Ambassador Club on Fayette Street, and Carl’s Musical Bar in Hampden where one particular young lady frequently came to sing. Jack remembered her as “a fat girl that insisted on singing. She was very pushy and nobody liked her, but she showed up most of the time. We all poked fun at her. Her name was Cassandra Elliott. Years later I picked up a Billboard magazine, and there was a picture of Cassandra with three other people in a new singing group that had made it big. You guessed it… there was Cass Elliott… better known as Mama Cass with The Mama’s & The Papa’s!” Comedian Tubby Boots was also a regular at many of the shows.
Teen singing phenom Johnny Cymbal was managed by Jack. Johnny was originally from Scotland. He had arrived in Cleveland where he was referred to Jack via Cleveland DJ Sid Lawrence. Sid also sent other Cleveland groups the Blen-Tones, the Spinners, Tom King & the Starfires (later known as the Outsiders of “Time Won’t Let Me” fame), Jimmy Faraday (“Cricket Call” on Decca). Sid and Jack recorded the parody of Wink Martindale’s “Deck of Cards” as “High School Deck of Cards” and released it on Jack’s Trojan label. The background music was taken from a 1959 instrumental single by the Skyscrapers on Alden Records. Jack and Sid also collaborated to record “The Rescue of Tom Dooley” b/w The Experiment” as the Jesse James Singers (Rescue 101). The B-side “The Experiment” was another novelty by Jack and Sid as the Scientists.
Gale was also involved with the Baltimore R&B group the Kings producing records by them on local labels as well as selling masters to RCA, Lookie, and Epic. Other artist affiliations on national record labels included Chavis Brothers (Big Top), Howards (ABC-Paramount), Vitells (Decca), Ronnie Dove (Decca), Spinners (End), Blentones (MGM), Mary Small (Capitol), Gar Bacon (Okeh), RPM’s (Port), Kenny Bass (Decca), Crew Cuts (Mercury)…
Jack’s studio band for most of his records consisted of ‘Chews’ (guitarist of the Kings), Al Knight (bass – of the Untouchables), Lionel Jiggetts (piano), Mike Mitchell (sax -Joyriders), Billy Holmes (drums – from Ronnie Dove’s Beltones), Joe Liberto (drums), and backing vocalists on most all of Jack’s Baltimore records included Pat Ritter and Jay Ritter (known on record as Jennie & Jay).
There were many humorous stories throughout Jack’s career. One such prank included the hype that he directed toward Buddy Deane about a record that didn’t even exist. Since some records were distributed at that time in a way that they were exclusive to a particular station – and sometimes even to an individual DJ, Deane began searching to find this great new song. Meanwhile Gale gathered his studio musicians together and recorded and pressed the song “Sneakin’ Away” b/w “The Snake” as by the Y-Dells on the Snake label. For years it was never revealed that it was a hoax. Also during the time that “The Madison” was the rage, Jack had been directing his usual insults toward Buddy on his radio program, he found an instrumental record from the WITH library and began vocalizing his parody version of “The Madison.” Calls started coming into the station for him to perform it again, so Jack went to the studio and recorded “The Sloppy Madison.” A Columbia Records rep was in town and heard it. He took the tape and released it as a single.
Another of Jack’s radio hoaxes involved a Western novelty song that Jack had written and produced called “Marshall Marshall” (Okeh 7115) sung by Philadelphia recording artist Gar Bacon. Insisting that even though he had written the song and it was a conflict of interest to play his own records on the air, and that the listening audience was requesting it to be played. Jack continued to play the song repeatedly until the station manager (Dick Covington) interrupted it and fired Jack on the air. The firing prompted hundreds of calls by concerned and upset listeners of his firing. He was offered numerous jobs and actually worked several days waiting on cars at Alan Ameche’s Drive-in. Jack was rehired by the station after a week (as planned). It was revealed years later that it was all a hoax.
One contest that did’t go quite as planned, Jack was going to appear at the Edmondson Drive-In and he would give a cash award to the first person who spotted him. He dressed as a woman, and was immediately discovered as he drove into the lot.
Jack had many stories of on and off-air antics. Every day was Jack’s birthday on his morning show and there was always a celebration with listeners calling in birthday wishes. Jack ran a daily soap opera called “Life Can Be Miserable” – a parody of the CBS show “Life Can Be Beautiful.” Characters were all voiced by Jack: Dawson Belles “the Poet Unlauriat” read poetry while Mother cackled in the background until Belles was thrown out of the studio every day. “The man in the third” row interrupting the program. “Lowell Pressure” with the whiney voice who did the weather report and told the stupid riddle of the day. Many characters and sound effects that made the studio sound like it was a full house.
In the early 1960s Gale also worked briefly at WWIN doing an afternoon show.
In 1963, Jack had gotten as far as he thought he could in the Baltimore radio market. On the strength of the smash hit “Mr. Bass Man” Jack left Baltimore to concentrate on the management of singer Johnny Cymbal. Johnny’s popularity eventually waned and went into a downward spiral of substance abuse. Jack eventually went on to work at radio stations in Boston ,MA (WMEX), Charlotte, NC (WAYS) where he won the prestigious “Gavin Award” for “Program Director of the Year” in 1969 and Billboard Magazine’s first annual “Disc Jockey of the Year” Award the following year. He later worked at WPDQ (Jacksonville, FL), KPGA (San Luis Obisco, CA – station owner), and WHNE (Norfolk, VA).
In 1982 Jack teamed with Ronnie Dove to form Playback Records and the subsidiary Gallery II label. The label got its start by offering greatest hits packages by former stars such as Frankie Laine, the Platters, and a Ronnie Dove Greatest Hits album. These records were initially sold on the up-and-coming cable TV networks. Dove soon sold his share of the company in order to continue touring and performing. Jack and his wife Lovey took notice that most big Nashville country labels would not sign older acts, so they began to sign them. Playback released records by many young unknown artists as well as established stars such as Tommy Cash, Jeannie C. Riley, Del Reeves, Johnny Paycheck, Tina Turner (a country album!), David Frizzell, Sammi Smith, and many others. They also released an album by Tiny Tim. By the late ‘80s Playback once had 4 records simultaneously in the C&W Top 100 singles charts and won awards as top independent label. Eventually the masters were sold to K-Tel Records in 1996 and the Gale’s got out of the record business.
Even in ‘retirement’ Jack continued to record voice-overs and commercials in the ‘00s for ad agencies with national contracts. Baltimore / Washington area listeners have heard him locally on ads as a voice for Ourisman Chevrolet.
Gale attended the WYST sponsored classic Baltimore DJ’s reunion where he was asked to return to Baltimore and do a morning show. “The Jack Gale Hour or Two” was broadcast remotely from his home studio in Florida.
His memoirs were self-published in a book “Same Time… Same Station” (publish date unknown).
Recordings featuring Jack Gale include the following:
19** Trojan 101 High School Deck of Cards / Rushin’ Home
1962 Columbia 4-41665 The Sloppy Madison / The Medicine
As The Jesse James Singers b/w The Scientists:
19** Rescue 101 The Rescue of Tom Dooley / The Experiment
As Ralph Smedley & Breathers / Bubbles:
19** Gasp 123456789 Suffocate / Drown
As Bill Fern:
19** Sport 505 The Big Game / Stolen Bases
