Remembering the Wolfman

By Murray Montgomery - Staff Writer

In my junior and senior years (1960-61), I was attending high school in the little town of Angleton, Texas. If you’ve ever seen the movie “American Graffiti;” that was Angleton - only on a much smaller scale, population-wise, than Modesto, California, the city depicted in the film.

Like in the movie, we would cruise up and down main street in our “rides” only stopping long enough to grab a Coke or Dr Pepper, and maybe an order of fries, at one of the local fast-food joints; we had more of them than traffic lights.

As my buddies and I cruised along in my ’55 Ford which was all decked out with fender skirts and moon hubcaps, the AM radio was blaring out rock and roll music. There was also a good mix of soul tunes as well. We listened to KILT radio out of Houston; I don’t recall listening to any other station. In those days, and even today, I loved the “Motown Sound” – The Temptations, Smokey Robinson, Stevie Wonder, and many more.

Several years after I graduated, one man was becoming a legend in rock-and-roll radio. He was featured in American Graffiti. Known only as the Wolfman or Wolfman Jack, he wasn’t a singer. The Wolfman was a disc jockey and once you heard that distinct, raspy voice say his favorite line, “Have mercy;” there was no mistaking to whom you were listening.

Encyclopedia Brittanica includes the following about the Wolfman; “Born Robert Weston Smith in 1938, he grew up in New York City and later became a country music deejay. However, it was as Wolfman Jack that he became a cult figure and icon of rock-and-roll radio. George Lucas typecast him as a mysterious deejay in his coming-of-age film American Graffiti (1973), and the Wolfman went on to host television’s Midnight Special—featuring popular rock, soul, folk, and country performers—and to achieve success in syndicated radio. He died on July 1, 1995.”

Smith’s first real radio job was at WYOU in Newport News, Virginia.  It was here, in 1960, that he met the love of his life, Lucy “Lou” Lamb.  They were married and quickly had two children. Although he had several radio jobs after WYOU, his claim to fame would come after he developed the Wolfman character in 1963.

He managed to get the new Wolfman Jack show on the powerful Mexican radio station, XERF, a massive 250,000-watt station with a signal that covered all of North America. It was said that a person could drive from New York City to Los Angeles, listening to the Wolfman, without ever losing the signal. One source claimed that the Wolfman Jack Show could even be heard in the Soviet Union – that claim was never verified.

The Wolfman began to gain popularity across the country. Newspaper articles were being written about him – Time Magazine, Newsweek, and Life Magazine all wrote feature stories about the mysterious DJ. However, Bob Smith took a hit when, without warning, the Mexican radio station took his show off the air. This was financially devastating because he had recently bought an office building where he built a new studio. In desperation, Wolfman took a job at radio station KDAY in Los Angeles for a mere pittance of his former salary. 

In 1972, Smith’s luck would change for the better when he was hired to be the announcer, interviewer, and co-host of NBC-TV's late-night music series, “The Midnight Special.” Then, in 1973, George Lucas, who grew up in Northern California, as a fan listening to Wolfman’s show, cast Wolfman Jack in his classic film “American Graffiti,” which was a huge hit.  As a gift, George Lucas gave Wolfman a small percentage of the film’s profits.

Bob Smith was commuting from California to New York twice a month to do the Midnight Special show. The routine became too stressful for him and he gave it up. After several moves, he wound up in Belvidere, North Carolina. It was there that he died of a heart attack on July 1, 1995.

At his peak, Wolfman Jack was heard on more than 2,000 radio stations in 53 countries. According to the Wolfman Jack Radio Show website, about 5 years after he died Wolfman Jack Licensing was formed and began to digitize Wolfman’s radio show tapes from his vast, personal archives. The website claims that “The Wolfman Jack Radio Show is still on the air, every night, somewhere in the world!”