Dale Franklin, KWEM radio revivalist, passes away

Dale Franklin, KWEM radio revivalist, passes away

Musician, historian remembered fondly by friends

news@theeveningtimes.com

Dale Franklin, the man who helped resurrect KWEM, the radio station that gave Johnny Cash, B.B. King, Howlin’Wolf, Elvis Presley and other music giants a chance to be heard on the air in the 1950s, has passed away.

Franklin had been in deteriorating health in recent months and died over the weekend following, according to friend Dr.

Glen Fenter.

“Dale was a very talented individual,” Fenter said.

“He was a fantastic musician who was very interested in the history of music and especially how it related to the Delta. He did a great deal of work getting the KWEM story put there and in a position to be understood and really revered worldwide.’ KWEM hit the airwaves in 1946 in West Memphis as a 1,000 watt daytime radio station and gave many unknown and little known black and white singers a chance to perform live on the air. It helped launched the music careers of B.B. King, Johnny Cash, Howlin’ Wolf, Ike Turner, and more than 200 artists during its hey day, even Elvis Presley, who sang his hit “That’s All Right” on KWEM.

Franklin stumbled on to KWEM back in 2009 while doing research for a documentary on the history of West Memphis and later bought the call letters and brought it back as an online station over the Internet.

Franklin told The Evening Times in 2014 that KWEM is the most important radio station in history because it gave birth to the electric blues and started the rockabilly revolution that led to rock ‘n’ roll and put Memphis on the map.

“It’s the untold story of rock ‘n’ roll,” Franklin said. “Most people are not aware of its importance to music history.”

Franklin later sold the station and several artifacts to MidSouth Community College, and in 2014 helped the college bring KWEM back as a lowpower FM station that serves as a laboratory for students in the college’s new Digital Media program.

“He worked hard getting the story put together and finding folks to help tell the story,” said Fenter, who was MSCC president at time. “That’s where our relationship began, back in the early days of KWEM.

He uncovered things about that station that were not well known and to some were unbelievable, but later was all verified and substantiated. He was very much a pioneer in that regard.”

Franklin also played bass with Fenter in the band The Snearly Ranch Boys.

Larry Manuel, whose father, Jerry Manuel, was a big country music star in the 1930s, hosted KWEM’s “Saturday Night Jamboree,” said West Memphis and music historians owe Franklin a huge debt of gratitude for all of the research he uncovered about KWEM, most of which was lost to time.

“That radio station was really a special project in his life,” Manuel said. “He told me the reason he bought KWEM was because of all the history there. B.B. King was driving a tractor down in Mississippi and would take the bus up here on weekends to do a broadcast.

Johnny Cash did his first broadcast on KWEM. His daughter Rosanne found a tape after he died of his first broadcast on KWEM.

She said that was very special to her dad. She made a copy and sent it to Dale.”

Manuel said Franklin became interested in his father’s career and was working on a book about KWEM.

“When they had that grand opening of KWEM there were only two people they could find who broadcast live on KWEM in the studio. One of them was B.B. King. The other one was me,” Manuel said. “I played the accordion in my dad’s band and it was all live radio back them. And when they had that opening, people as far away as Europe were talking about it because of Dale. He did a lot of things that put West Memphis in a good light because of that story.” Funeral arrangements for Franklin have not yet been made available.

By Mark Randall