Robert "Wolfman Jack" Smith

Robert Weston Smith, known as Wolfman Jack was an American disc jockey.

Robert Weston Smith was born in Brooklyn on January 21 1938, the second child of Anson Weston Smith and Rosamund Smith. The Smith Family lived in a stylish townhouse at 680 West End Avenue. His sister Joan was ten years older. While just a child she served as a model and hostess at the Golden Globe Awards. Later she would win "Miss Stardust" in a beauty contest.

Weston was a smart business man and talented writer. At one time he had almost been a millionaire only to see most of it disappear with the crash of the stock market in 1929. A driven man Weston struggled to regain what he once had. At first he sold shoes but would later at a magazine called the Financial World as well as the Wall Street Journal/. Financial struggles along with Weston's obsessive working eventually Bob's parents to divorce. Each married others that weren't as right for them as each other set Bob up for many conflicts with their new mates would ultimately turn Bob into what then called a juvenile delinquent.

They lived on 12th Street and 4th Avenue in the Park Slope section. His parents divorced while he was a child. To help keep him out of trouble, his father bought him a large Trans-Oceanic radio, and Smith became an avid fan of R&B music and the disc jockeys who played it, including "Jocko" Henderson of Philadelphia, New York's "Dr. Jive" (Tommy Smalls), the "Moon Dog" from Cleveland, Alan Freed, and Nashville's "John R." Richbourg, who later became his mentor. After selling encyclopedias and Fuller brushes door-to-door, Smith attended the National Academy of Broadcasting in Washington, D.C. After he graduated in 1960, he began working as "Daddy Jules" at WYOU in Newport News, Virginia. When the station format changed to "beautiful music", Smith became known as "Roger Gordon and Music in Good Taste". In 1962, he moved to country music station KCIJ/1050 in Shreveport, Louisiana, as the station manager and morning disc jockey, "Big Smith with the Records". He married Lucy "Lou" Lamb in 1961, and they had two children.

In 1963, Smith took his act to the border when the Inter-American Radio Advertising's Ramon Bosquez hired him and sent him to the studio and transmitter site of XERF-AM at Ciudad Acuña in Mexico, a station whose high-powered border blaster signal could be picked up across much of the United States. It was at XERF that Smith developed his signature style (with phrases like "Who's this on the Wolfman telephone?") and widespread fame. The border stations made money by
renting time to Pentecostal preachers and psychics, and by taking 50 percent of the profit from anything sold by mail order. The Wolfman did pitches for dog food, weight-loss pills, weight-gain pills, rose bushes, and baby chicks.

XERB was the original call sign for the border blaster station in Rosarito Beach, Mexico, which was branded as The Mighty 1090 in Hollywood, California. The station boasted "50,000 watts of Boss Soul Power". It was located only ten minutes from the Tijuana–San Diego border crossing. It was rumored that the Wolfman actually broadcast from this location during the early-to-mid-1960s. Smith left Mexico after eight months and moved to Minneapolis, Minnesota, to run station KUXL. Even though Smith was managing a Minneapolis radio station, he was still broadcasting as Wolfman Jack on XERF via taped shows that he sent to the station. Missing the excitement, however, he returned to border radio to run XERB, and opened an office on Sunset Boulevard in the Los Angeles area in January 1966. The Wolfman recorded his shows in Los Angeles and shipped his tapes across the border into Mexico, where they would then be beamed across the U.S. It was during his time broadcasting on XERB that Smith met Don Kelley, who became his personal manager and business partner for more than 20 years. It was Kelley who saw the potential for Wolfman Jack to become more than a radio personality. Kelley started to work on a strategy to transform Smith from a cult figure to a mainstream entertainer in film, recordings, and television. He promoted Smith to the major media and formed enduring relationships with key journalists.

In 1971, the Mexican government decided that its overwhelmingly Roman Catholic citizens should not be subjected to proselytizing and banned the Pentecostal preachers from the radio, taking away 80 percent of XERB's revenue. Smith then moved to station KDAY 1580 in Los Angeles, which could only pay him a fraction of his former XERB income. However, Smith capitalized on his fame by editing his old XERB tapes and selling them to radio stations everywhere, becoming one of the first rock and roll syndicated programs (as the tapes began to age, they were eventually also marketed to oldies stations). He also appeared on Armed Forces Radio from 1970 to 1986. At his peak, Wolfman Jack was heard on more than 2,000 radio stations in 53 countries. He was heard as far off as the Wild Coast, Transkei, on a station based there, Capital Radio 604. In a deal promoted by Don Kelley, The Wolfman was paid handsomely to join WNBC in New York in August 1973, the same month that American Graffiti premiered, and the station did a huge advertising campaign in local newspapers stating that the
Wolfman would propel their ratings over those of their main competitor, WABC, which had "Cousin Brucie" (Bruce Morrow). The ads proclaimed, "Cousin Brucie's Days Are Numbered", and thousands of small tombstone-shaped paperweights were distributed that said, "Cousin Brucie is going to be buried by Wolfman Jack." After less than a year, WNBC hired Cousin Brucie, and Wolfman Jack went back to California to concentrate on his syndicated radio show, which was carried on KRLA-Pasadena (Los Angeles) from 1984-1987. He moved to Belvidere, North Carolina, in 1989, to be closer to his extended family. In the 80s, he did a brief stint at XEROK 80, another border blaster station that was leased by Dallas investors Robert Hanna, Grady Sanders, and John Ryman. Ryman then moved Smith to Scott Ginsburg-owned Y95 in Dallas, Texas. Film, television, and music career.

In 1973, he appeared as himself in George Lucas's second feature film American Graffiti. Lucas gave him a fraction of a "point", the division of the profits from a film, and the extreme financial success of American Graffiti provided him with a regular income for life. He also appeared in the film's 1979 sequel More American Graffiti, though only through voice-overs. In 1978, he appeared as Bob "The Jackal" Smith in a made-for-TV movie Deadman's Curve based on the musical
careers of Jan Berry and Dean Torrence of Jan and Dean. Smith appeared in several television shows as Wolfman Jack, including The Odd Couple, What's Happening!!, Vega$, Wonder Woman, Hollywood Squares, Married... with Children, Emergency!, and Galactica 1980. He was the regular announcer and occasional host for The Midnight Special on NBC from 1973 to 1981. He was also the host of his variety series The Wolfman Jack Show, which was produced in Canada by CBC Television in 1976 and syndicated to stations in the US.

On July 1, 1995, Smith died from a heart attack at his house in Belvidere, North Carolina, shortly after finishing a weekly broadcast. He is buried at a family cemetery in Belvidere.