Joseph Deighton Gibson Jr.

• 1. Introduction

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  Joseph Deighton Gibson Jr. once declared of Black appeal radio: 'I slapped this baby's bottom and brought it to life!' Gibson was born on the 13th of May, 1920. By the time he died in 2000, he had spent eight decades reshaping what American radio sounded like. His industry nickname was 'Jockey Jack.' His annual convention went by the name of the Jack the Rapper Family Affair. The questions his story raises go beyond biography. Who shaped him, what exactly did he build, and why did his greatest creation eventually collapse under its own growth?

• 2. The Old Swingmaster's School

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  Al Benson, born Arthur Bernard Leaner in 1920 in Jackson, Mississippi, arrived at Chicago radio in 1943 as a pastor. Church prohibition on selling airtime pushed him toward a secular role as a DJ. Known as the 'Old Swingmaster,' Benson built his audience at WGES and WJJD through a distinctive style. He drew on the 'mushmouth' street slang of Black migrants who had come north to Chicago. He was the first DJ to broadcast with a Black southern accent. That idiom came from his earlier work as a Works Progress Administration interviewer. His bond with listeners ran deep because he spoke the way they spoke.

  Benson played swing and Be-Bop jazz between stretches of that patter. His success at selling airtime made the station immensely popular. He was also the first DJ to play hit urban blues records on air. When Gibson came to work under him at WJJD, the 'Jockey Jack' persona was born. In publicity stills, Gibson was pictured straddling a microphone and turntable in jockey silk outfits, and he gained a following among Black listeners.

  The orbit Benson created extended beyond Gibson. Lavada Durst, a former Negro League baseball announcer known as Doctor Hep Cat, broadcast on KVET in Austin, Texas. He published a pamphlet called 'The Jives of Doctor Hep Cat,' which included his radio rhymes and a dictionary of jive talk. Doctor Hep Cat ruled the late-night in Austin for much of the 1950s and into the 1960s. Holmes 'Daddy-O' Daylie conducted his entire show in rhyme. Dizzy Gillespie credited Daylie for popularizing the Be-Bop hipster idiom among jazz listeners in the 1950s and 1960s. Gibson also had parts in Destination Freedom. That radio anthology series, written by Richard Durham, was dedicated to retelling the lives of notable figures in the Americas.

• 3. WERD and the R&B Gamble

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  In 1949, Gibson left WJJD to help found WERD in Atlanta, Georgia, alongside Jesse Blayton Jr. They turned a money-losing big-band station into the first radio station in America to be owned by a Black person. The first voice heard on WERD was 'Jockey Jack.'

  The format they chose was Rhythm and Blues: a combination of gospel vocal styles, swing-band instrumentals, and electrified urban blues. R&B was outselling jazz in the Black music market at the time. DJs at other Black-themed stations still preferred the big-band format. WERD stepped into that gap. The 'back home' street patter and R&B music appealed to younger audiences, though the style was considered 'gangsta' by some and a bit obscene.

  During 1951-1953, both Gibson and Dean were working at WLOU in Louisville, Kentucky, home of the Kentucky Derby. Gibson played bugle calls from the track in a Derby-inspired style and talked about 'riding the hits.' By 1953 he was program director at WMBM, and then at WFEC. Those positions gave him a view of Black radio from the inside. Between those roles and his stints at WERD, he was building an institutional understanding of the industry. Black radio had no national body of its own.

• 4. NATRA, Motown, and Mello Yello

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  In 1955, Gibson founded the National Association of Radio Announcers specifically for Black DJs. In the 1960s it was renamed the National Association of Television and Radio Announcers, or NATRA. Gathering the disparate voices of Black appeal radio under one institutional roof placed Gibson at the center of an industry he had helped create.

  In 1963 Gibson joined Motown Records as a public-relations manager. His roster of mentees included the Supremes, Marvin Gaye, the Jackson Five, and Stevie Wonder. As Director of International PR, he often provided these artists with their first introductions to the public on stage. In 1969 he moved to STAX Records, where he remained until 1972.

  In 1976 Gibson began publishing a two-sided trade pamphlet about the radio industry called 'Mello Yello.' It grew into 'Jack the Rapper's Mello Yello.' That publication became the oldest and largest-circulated Black radio and music trade publication in America. Stevie Wonder's records would be at the center of a very different kind of campaign that Gibson would lead in the 1980s.

• 5. The Family Affair

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  Colony Square in Atlanta could not hold the Jack the Rapper Family Affair past its third year. Influential figures in Black urban radio had been gathering there to hear what record companies had to offer. The event had simply outgrown the space. The convention moved to Peachtree Plaza in 1979 and 1980. 'After that we moved to the Marriott,' Gibson later noted. Performing live at a Family Affair could launch a new act's career. Established musicians like Prince and Whitney Houston used the convention to affirm their continued presence.

  As rap emerged in the 1980s and 1990s, newer acts arrived in growing numbers. Many confused the name 'Jack the Rapper' with the genre, and an element arrived with them that put hotel venues on edge. Gibson relocated the 1994 Family Affair from Atlanta to Orlando, Florida, specifically to deter incidents that had troubled recent conferences. By that point the convention drew over 5,000 attendees and claimed to bring $13.8 million in annual economic activity to Atlanta. Tickets were being sold on-site to people who wanted to be near celebrities. The crowds overwhelmed organizers and security alike.

  There were seminars where industry professionals exchanged ideas and returned to their jobs with fresh approaches. Many artists who first performed at a Family Affair went on to careers of national prominence. But the show was over. Extra security failed to hold the situation. The archive of books, records, and photographs Gibson had gathered over those decades of conventions would prove more durable than the conventions themselves.

• 6. Activism and Legacy

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  In 1985, Gibson organized a campaign around South Africa's ban on Stevie Wonder's records. The ban had been imposed after Wonder accepted an Academy Award in the name of Nelson Mandela. Some 230 radio stations joined the effort to salute the singer on his birthday. The Smithsonian Institution honored Gibson for his work promoting Black radio in 1986.

  In 1987, Gibson learned that soul singer Jackie Wilson had been buried next to his mother in an unmarked grave. He launched a crowd-sourced fundraiser for a marker and mausoleum for both of them. A prisoner in Kansas donated 50 cents. By May, donations had reached an estimated $10,000, often given in $1 increments. The headstone inscription for Wilson read: 'And now, no more lonely teardrops.'

  In 1989 Gibson was inducted into the Black Radio Hall of Fame. His first wife, Sadye Gibson, to whom he had been married for 47 years, died in 1990. His second wife was Elsie Harris-Gibson. In 1996, the entirety of his books, records, and photographs was donated to the Archives of African American Music and Culture at Indiana University. That same year Gibson was named to the Entertainment Committee for the 1996 Olympic Games in Atlanta. In 1998 he was inducted into the Nevada Broadcasting Hall of Fame. Gibson died of prostate cancer on the 30th of January, 2000, in Las Vegas, Nevada, at age 79. The collection at Indiana University preserves materials from a career that stretched from the Be-Bop era to the rise of hip-hop.