Getting a radio station on the air was never a quick and easy process, but the story of KSAY appears to have been more complicated than most.
The station was the brainchild of veteran broadcaster Grant Wrathall, who made his first application to the Federal Communications Commission for a license to broadcast at 1010 on the AM dial in the spring of 1950. The station finally went on the air more than seven years later.
During the lengthy process, the station’s call letters were changed from KRUZ to KPOO and then back to KRUZ and back again to KPOO before Wrathall and his family settled on KSAY. KPOO, by the way, would eventually show up on the Bay Area radio dial as the listener-supported “Poor People’s Radio” at 89.5 FM.
It wasn’t just the call letters that changed. While the station would eventually transmit from a site near the Bay Bridge toll plaza, Wrathall had originally pursued a transmitter location in Richmond. That site on Nicholl Knob is within today’s Miller-Knox Regional Shoreline. FCC records show numerous changes in proposed studio locations as well; in 1955, offices for the station were opened on the corner of Geary and Van Ness in San Francisco, with plans to include studios at that location. By 1957, however, the operation was moved downtown to 1550 California Street.
During the long run-up to actually going on the air, the station’s FCC approval status went from the 1,000-watt daytimer that Wrathall had originally envisioned to a 10,000-watt full-time license with a three-tower directional antenna array. It was one of those towers that would topple into the Bay in a fierce April 1957 storm, adding one more delay to the lengthy journey for the station finally known as KSAY.
When KSAY finally hit the airwaves on September 2, 1957, it was broadcasting a format targeting the local Black population with music, news and commentary. An Oakland Tribune article about the station’s launch took note of the fact that the station would have an all-Black announcing staff and would focus on what was known at the time as “Negro music”.
That air staff worked hard. 1957 newspaper radio listings show disc jockey “The Bruce” Raymond held down Bruce’s Roost from 6 to 9 a.m. and from 1 to 3 p.m. on weekdays, while also pulling a Saturday shift. Colleague Willie Bryant filled the 9 a.m. to 1 p.m. weekday slot and also worked both Saturdays and Sundays!
One gambit by KSAY management failed to pay off, but it did attract attention in the daily newspapers. In the summer of 1957, the not-yet-on-the-air station’s general manager Walter Conway offered a job to Willie Mays. Yes, that Willie Mays, whose New York Giants were finishing their final season in New York City before moving to San Francisco for the 1958 season. Mays, of course, was known as The Say Hey Kid, and Conway must have figured he’d get some mileage for KSAY whether Mays responded to the offer or not.
Early in 1959, Clair Halverson took over as the station’s general manager. In February 1961, KSAY switched to a Country and Western music format. Grant Wrathall’s son Larry would work as an announcer in the early ’60s before launching a lengthy career in radio engineering.
KSAY stuck with the country format until the Wrathall family sold the station to James Gabbert’s San Francisco Wireless Talking Machine, Inc., in March 1974, at which time it became KIQI.
