Happy KLOL sign-on day!
August 7th, 1970 is the day that Pat Fant signed 101 KLOL on the air at 6pm with The Who’s “I’m Free” from the Tommy album! So happy sign-on day to everyone!
“Runaway Radio,” the 101 KLOL documentary, is now streaming on Tubi and available on DVD!
Back by popular demand, “Runaway Radio” has its first scheduled screening of the year at Houston’s iconic River Oaks Theatre on October 1, 2025, at 7:15 pm with co-hosts Jennifer Reyna and Outlaw Dave! [BUY TICKETS]
This will be a cast and crew screening – details coming…
Runaway Radio” won the prestigious Texas Independent Film Award (TIFA) – for the best film made in Texas – at the Houston Film Critics Society’s 18th Annual Awards in early 2025. Director Mike McGuff will be at the River Oaks Theatre screening to accept the award for the documentary from the critics’ society.
To celebrate sign-on day, here are stories that focus on KLOL’s 1970s days.
What We Played
by Pat Fant
It’s not possible to overstate the difference in the music business then and now. K101/KLOL went on the air in the approximate middle of an unprecedented (and still unrepeated) period of creativity and innovation in popular music. While even Dylan, an icon of individuality, was in some ways another product of the music marketing industry, he still rolled his own lyrics, chords and dizzying changes in style. Literally thousands of artists, many of them dreadful, got contracts because the powers of the moment hadn’t a clue what might sell and were willing to try almost anything.
It helps to remember that the station’s target demographic at that time was “18-34” full stop, with none of today’s sophisticated qualifying terms of sub-sub-segment apartheid. That particular crop proved particularly hard to read.
For these and other reasons, new songs and new groups would continue to roll in through the late 70s or so, before the Great Homogenization began. The irony is that the decline of opportunity for all that musical talent coincided with enormous leaps in recording technology through the 80s and 90s. FM programming went from unique and often crudely produced to the most exquisitely crafted, artificially inseminated, digitally enhanced, micro-targeted elevator music ever crafted in just the span of two decades. Now, that’s entertainment!
But back then, we were simple programming organisms, a primitive clan, dazzled by all the new musical trinkets. Here is a list of some of the groups we played at KLOL in those first few months on the air, arranged in the same order we kept the library: alphabetical by first name, sort of. They were all in heavy rotation, all the time.
Pick Several from Column A:
Andy Pratt
The Animals
Arthur Brown (The Crazy World of…)
The Band
The Beatles
Big Brother and the Holding Company with Janis Joplin
Blind Faith
Blue Oyster Cult
Bob Dylan
Buffalo Springfield
The Byrds
Captain Beefheart and His Magic Band
Chicago
The Children
Country Joe McDonald and the Fish
Cream
Creedence Clearwater Revival
Crosby, Stills, Nash and Young
Dan Hicks and the Hot Licks (with the Lickettes)
Donovan
The Doors
Dr. John
Earth Opera
The Electric Flag
Electric LIght Orchestra
Emerson, Lake and Palmer
Eric Burdon and the Animals
Eric Clapton and the Yardbirds
Family
Fever Tree
The Firesign Theater
Genesis
Gentle Giant
Grand Funk Railroad
Grateful Dead
The Holy Modal Rounders
H.P. Lovecraft
The Incredible String Band
Iron Butterfly
It’s a Beautiful Day
Jade Warrior
James Taylor
Jefferson Airplane
Jessie Colin Young
Jethro Tull
Jimi Hendrix
Jimmy Spheeris
Joe Byrd and the Field Hippies
Joe Cocker
John Coltrane
John Fahey
John Lee Hooker
John Mayall
Johnny Winter
Joni Mitchell
Judy Collins
Ken Nordine
King Crimson
The Kinks
Laura Nyro
Led Zeppelin
Leo Kottke
Leonard Cohen
Linn County
Little Feat
Loggins and Messina
Loudon Wainright III
Love
The Mamas and the Papas
Mark-Almond
McDonald and Giles
Miles Davis
Moby Grape
Modern Jazz Quartet
Moody Blues
Mother Earth
Neil Young
The Nice
The Paul Butterfield Blues Band
Pearls Before Swine
The Pentangle
Pink Floyd
Procol Harum
Quicksilver Messenger Service
Rare Bird
Richie Havens
The Rolling Stones
Ry Cooder
Santana
Savoy Brown
Seals and Croft
Shawn Phillips
Simon and Garfunkel
Sly and the Family Stone
Soft Machine
Sopwith Camel
Spirit
Steppenwolf
Steve Miller Band
Taj Mahal
The 13th Floor Elevators
The United States of America
The Who (famously, our first cut, “I’m Free” from Tommy)
The Youngbloods
Tim Buckley
Tim Hardin
Traffic
Van Morrison
Yes
Z.Z. Top
The man who signed on KLOL, Pat Fant, talks about the early days of the legendary rock station.
The KLOL Houston “Music Rap Sheet” from January of 1972 contains lots of music that doesn’t seemed to have survived from the underground version of the station.
The 101 KLOL Houston Music Sheet Number 6 from June 15 to July 15, 1971 offers the artists and album names of the music the progressive – free-form – underground rock station was playing at that time.
101 KLOL and Ozzy Osbourne go way back to 1970, when the Houston rock station signed on and Black Sabbath released its eponymous album.
On October 1, 1975, Crash Collins, sat down and talked about the Houston music scene and KLOL.
DJ Greg Thomas, who worked KLOL back in November of 1979, gives us an aircheck to see what 101 sounded like back then.
In the KLOL Music Sheet number 1, March 15 to April 15, 1971, we see who the on air staff was at the time and the records they played.