Joseph Deighton Gibson Jr. was born on the 13th of May 1920, but the true birth of his legacy occurred on a specific day when a bell rang inside a Chicago radio station. That sound triggered the creation of Black appeal radio, a format that would eventually dominate the airwaves and reshape the music industry. Before this moment, Gibson was a student at Lincoln University in Jefferson City, Missouri, earning a bachelor's degree in science between 1940 and 1942. He entered the radio world under the mentorship of Al Benson, a legendary figure known as the Old Swingmaster. Benson, born Arthur Bernard Leaner in 1920, had transitioned from being a pastor to a secular disc jockey after being prohibited from selling airtime. He pioneered the use of Black southern accents and street slang on air, creating a bond with Black migrants moving to northern cities. When Gibson joined Benson at WJJD, the ringing bell became the auditory symbol of a new era. Gibson adopted the persona of Jockey Jack, straddling microphones and turntables in jockey silk outfits to play to a Black audience. This was not merely entertainment; it was the first time a station played hit urban blues records on air, selling airtime and proving that a specific demographic had immense commercial power. The station became immensely popular, setting the stage for a format that would eventually be called Black appeal radio.
The Voice Of The First Black Station
In 1949, Gibson left the bustling airwaves of Chicago to found WERD in Atlanta, Georgia, marking a historic milestone as the first radio station owned by a Black person. The first voice heard on WERD was that of Jockey Jack, who, along with Jesse Blayton Jr., flipped the switch on a money-losing big-band station to play the new Rhythm and Blues. This genre was a mix of gospel vocal styles, swing-band instrumentals, and electrified urban blues, a sound that Benson had helped popularize after World War II. While R&B was outselling jazz in the Black music market, other Black-themed stations refused to play it, preferring the big-band format. Gibson and his contemporaries used back home street patter and R&B music to connect with youth culture, a style considered gangsta and a bit obscene by the mainstream. This movement was part of a larger wave of rhyming and signifying African-American culture that hit American urban centers. Pioneers like Lavada Durst, known as Doctor Hep Cat, and Holmes Daylie, the rapping bartender, created a hipster idiom that Dizzy Gillespie credits for popularizing modern jazz. These DJs did not assimilate the culture; they were populists broadcasting music and speech that Black folk used in the street, setting the stage for the birth of Black appeal radio stations in the post-war era.The Architect Of Black Radio