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Tom Donahue

From Terrence M - In browsing your "Ask Mr. Pop History" page, I was intrigued about the first FM rock station. WOR-FM might have been the first, but Tom Donahue's KMPX-FM in San Francisco seems to get most of the attention. Do you know why?

Mr. Pop History - Yes, I have to agree. KMPX-FM gets a lot of pop history mentions. Perhaps it was because the station was in the center of all that great San Francisco rock, Haight-Ashbury and that whole scene back in 1967. Donahue's progressive rock format debut in April of 1967, just as all this was happening. I dug around and came up with something published in August of 1967 from, I believe, the Washington Post. What a great article and it gives you a perspective of KMPX-FM and Tom Donahue's baby. This is not the complete article, but the perspective shines through. KMPX-FM was truly the station for San Francisco hippies:
From November of 1967, writer Nicholas Von Hoffman says that "Radio station KMPX-FM is the San Francisco station that all the heads listen to; it is Radio Free Hashbury, the only station in the world where you'll see hips, frozen in the lotus position in the lobby. The Haight comes there every evening to chat, to ask for announcements, to be put on the air, or listen to the music and use the crayons and paper supplied by the management for the itinerant speed freaks who have to do something with their hands. Most of all, the Haight comes to watch Tom Donahue, the 350-pound program director and disk jockey who broke with the top-40 idea to play albums, mostly dope music."

Continues von Hoffman - "This huge, bearded man with a strand of beads, a sinister face and a tiny old lady named Rachael, who rolls his joints and takes care of his correspondence, has made a seeming success out of the FM station." Hoffman says that KMPX plans to buy another FM station in Los Angeles and "the same format of institutionalized dope music and service to the drug community will be used there."