XPRS 1090 Wolfman Jack Soul Express Show from the early 1970's

Описание: I remember listening to the Wolfman on my realistic Patrolman AM radio as a kid. The big, powerful Mexican AM transmitters known as Border Blasters could be heard all over the country. Studio was in LA. The Wolfman (January 21, 1938 -- July 1, 1995) was king of the airwaves back then.

According to his biography, by 1971 Wolfman was making a profit of almost $50,000 a month. The Mexican company executives that leased XERB noticed this and got greedy. They wanted to throw him out and make all the money themselves.

Wolfman and the Border Blasters

So, the owners bribed Mexican officials into politically squeezing Wolfman off the air. The Mexican government did this by passing a law that stated there could be no more Pentecostal or religious programming on Mexican airwaves.

Since XERB made most of its profits from airtime sold to the prayer-cloth preachers there was no way Wolfman could continue to make payments to the owners each month. "That was it." Wolfman remembers, "In one stroke they cleaned out 80 percent of all the money we were expecting to make." So, he and business partner Mo Burton had to turn control of the station back over to the Mexican owners.


With Wolfman out of the way, the station owners tried to duplicate his successful formula. Since Wolfman owned the call letters, XERB, they changed the letters to XPRS and programmed soul music, calling the station "The Soul Express." Wolf still broadcast for over a year while under the new ownership, but left soon afterwards. April 4, 1972 was the last day Wolfman ever held sway over the Mexican border airwaves.