"When you were about 7 weeks old, we went to see Roby and Michelle (his wife at the time) at a motel in Palm Beach County. It was the first time Roby ever saw you. When he held you, dad told him your name and said, 'Roby, I'd like you to meet little Roby...' and Roby (the older one) started crying..."

While growing up, I often wondered if people mispronounced his name as much as they do mine. Given, his obvious popularity, I seriously doubt it :)

Popularity, Ratings and Rivalries

WQAM was crushing WFUN in the ratings and Roby's career and popularity were still riding high.

• Click here for a short, but funny story, told by Roby and John Paul Roberts, about how the station rivalry affected the WQAM DJ's.

 

Roby's Raiders

One night at the 10th Street Auditorium on Miami Beach, Roby happened across a band called the "Visions".He loved their Paul Revere and the Raider covers so much, that offered to manage them. Here's the story as told by their lead singer, Mark Rogers:

[Roby] invited me to his home the next week and decided to manage us and we changed our name to Roby's Raiders. We played all the local venues during these days and he also got us gigs on the west coast of Florida.

One on the awesome things at the time is that he somehow had us play charity events on the west coast of Florida and somehow had the charity, or City that was involved charter a DC3 to shuttle us from place to place. In those days most of the bands were playing close to home and we were in wonder as a teen age band to travel by plane to play events. In one case the mayor of Ft. Meyers met us at the airport for an event he was a part of.

He was a terrific guy, with a keen sense of humor. He never took a dime from us and always plugged our band where ever he was.

Most Handsome DJ

Some students has submitted Roby's picture to Teen Life Magazine for their "Most Handsom DJ in the World " contest. Roby's Entry read:

If you tune into WQAM Radio, Miami Beach, Florida between the hours of 3 PM and 6 PM every day, ROBY YONGE is the guy you'll hear. Born 24 years ago, Roby has brown hair, brown eyes and is still a bachelor. He loves singing with local bands and has an ambition to do serious acting in film, Loves reading and swimming.

Roby's Career Takes Another Leap

Roby not only placed in the Most Handsom DJ Contest (he was third), he also gained the attention of Rick Sklar, WABC's program manager at the time. Rick saw Roby's picture and attempted to get in touch with him. The funny thing was, Roby didn't return Rick's calls initially (He thought his buddies were playing a prank on him).

Click here to hear Roby's reaction to being contacted by Rick Sklar / WABC.

Eventually, Roby got in touch with WABC and accepted a job offer around October 1967. Roby would not be able to start at WABC for several months, however, due to a heated union strike and some last minute shuffling at the station.

In January 1968, after months of delays, Roby officially became an official "employee" for WABC. In his farewell article in December issue of "The Insider" Florida newspaper , he wrote:

"It is with a heavy heart and dinged-up surfboard that I write these words, for this is the last regular surfing column per se that you'll see by your old friend Roby Kahuna. (How do you write a column with a dinged-up surfboard? A typewriter would be better.) Anyhow, I am leaving South Florida to continue my career in one of the nation's largest markets. (No, I'm not gonna be a bag boy a Publix)

I have been offered a job in New York City, and I have accepted. It was a very hard decision to make. How can you leave a city or area where the surf is not always up, but at least it's warm? And so is the climate. And so are the people."


Two days after arriving in New York, a heavy snowstorm moved through the city, making it impossible for anyone to make it to the station. Roby, who wasn't supposed to actually start for another two weeks was told to come in.


Roby made his first on-air appearence at WABC by filling in for Charlie Greer in his overnight A.M. timeslot. Roby was only 25 at the time, making Roby the youngest Top 40 DJ in the Big Apple.



Click on the following links to hear some clips from Roby's WABC days:

• What does Roby Yonge look like?
  
• Roby's First Night (filling in for Charlie Greer)
  
• More of Roby

Roby Takes Over WQAM (sort of)

While working at WABC, Roby managed to make it back to Florida for visiting friends and family. During one such visit on Jan 7th, 1969 Roby "dropped by" and took over Clark Moore's overnight radio show on WQAM. Click on the links below to hear some clips of Roby's hijinx:

• "Taping In Case of Lawsuit"
• Roby Describes His Takeover, Disables Mic Warning
• "Coffee Coffee Coffee"

 

The Paul McCartney Incident

Roby continued to flourish at WABC but, unfortunately, it wouldn't last. On Oct. 21, 1969 at about 12:40 AM, with two weeks until his contract with WABC was set to expire, Roby broke format on the legendary music station, right after playing "Suspicious Minds" by Elvis Presley, and started speculating on rumors that Paul McCartney was dead.


Roby relayed to his audience that thirty Indiana University students working on a research project pertaining to this rumor cited examples from the Beatles' Sgt. Pepper and Abbey Road albums that revealed this secret.

Roby explained that the walrus, a pagan symbol of death, was holding its right hand above McCartney's head.

He also instructed his listeners to play "Strawberry Fields Forever" at 45rpm so they can hear the words, "I buried Paul." He then claimed that the song "I Am the Walrus" contained such phrases as "Services for Billy" and "Is he really dead?" while "Revolution No. 9" played backwards would reveal the phrase, "Is he dead?"


"Why is he (McCartney) in a black suit with bare feet on the cover of Abbey Road?" asked, Roby "Do you know that's what they bury people in in England?"


He also speculated that McCartney may have died in an automobile accident:


"For instance, in `Revolution No. 9,' you can hear the sound of flames. You can hear crackling. You can hear a car crash. You can hear distinctly, `Let me out!' And the most shocking thing of all is, you can hear, `Turn me on, dead man,' if you happen to play it backwards."

Rick Sklar Pulls The Plug

Since Roby's contract was to expire, he felt he had nothing to lose by broadcasting his speculation about Paul McCartney. Unfortunately, the woman at the switchboard was fielding hundreds of calls from worried listeners throughout the East Coast, Midwest and Northeastern Canada, where the 50,000-watt powerhouse can be heard late at night.

Because of the deluge of calls, the switchboard operator alerted WABC Program Director Rick Sklar of the situation. Here's his story of how Roby was pulled from the air on that fateful evening:


"One night after midnight, I was awakened by a call from the WABC newsroom.   Roby had seized on the McCartney death rumors and was broadcasting them over the air, promising listeners that he would try to get to the truth of the matter.  At that hour of the night the signal of WABC carries over much of the United States, goes up the Canadian coast, rolls down to Guantanamo Naval Base in Cuba and skips across the Atlantic to the African Gold coast.  For the first time, much of the world was hearing that Paul McCartney, the beloved and idolized Beatle, might be dead.  Calls poured in from St. Louis, Ft. Lauderdale, Boston, and as far away as Albuquerque.


I phoned Les Marshak, a relief DJ, and asked him to meet me in the lobby of the ABC building as soon as he could.  I also called security and requested a guard to join us.  Marshak was there in twenty minutes, and we went up to the eighth-floor studios of WABC.  I put Marshak in a small auxiliary studio and had him put on the air.   He began playing songs and doing a normal show, making no references to what had just transpired.


Then I walked down the hall and went in Yonge's studio.  I told him his show had been taken off the air.  We left the building together.  I had no need for the guard.  Marshak continued to do the show until I found a replacement a few months later. "


Roby continuned to work up north, and a few months later, re-emerged at WCBS-FM. He stayed there for a while was actually responsible for introducing the oldies format to the station.

• Click here to listen to clips of Roby on WCBS-FM
  

 

Returning to Florida

Eventually, Roby returned to South Florida's radio waves, jumping from station to station over the next several years including:

• WMYQ [1972]
• WLQY/WHYI (Y-100) [1973]
• WFUN [197?]
• WVCG [198?]
• WKAT [1987]
  
  

Jeff Levine bumped into Roby at WMYQ and had this happy memory to share:

I was hanging around WMYQ in 1972 and that's when Roby was doing a weekend shift there. He actually enlisted me to help with with some "tag team" promos for a concert at the old Sportatorium and I did as best as I could... and sure wish I still had the tape to reminisce over...

Tag-team [in my definition] is when each person announces a lineup act for the concert in rapid-fire succession, such as:

ROBY: The Allman Brothers Band!
JEFF: Jo-Jo Gunne!

Roby said that he didn't have any money to actually pay me for my help, but he'd be glad to treat me to dinner - so I'd venture across the street to Royal Castle and end up with two "Feastburgers" - similar to Whoppers - and I'd pig out (before I ever know how bad choleterol was)...

 

The 80's, Levtiz, WAXY and Loch Ness

In the 1980's Roby was everywhere on the Florida airwaves. He did several TV commercials for Levitz, Thom Mcann Castro Convertibles. Plus, Rick Shaw would also pull Roby back to the WAXY-106 studios every so often to relive their WQAM "Rick and Roby" days and participate in "golden oldie weekends" where the station was essentially taken over by WQAM alumni to share lots of memories, oldies, and fun stories. During these times, I would often go down to the station and visit with Roby or chat with him on the air! It was great fun to see and hear Roby when he was in his element.

Occasionally Roby would be involved with some very interesting WAXY promotions, including one where he lead "expeditions" to search for the Loch Ness Monster and the lost city of Atlantis!

The 90's

In July of 1993 Roby returned to the Florida AM airwaves on WRMZ (790) (formally known as WFUN, one of WQAMs major competitor in the 60's) to do a music / talk show. The Miami Herald ran a story on Roby, heralding his return. Here is what Roby had to say in the article:

"They're giving me total freedom, which is rare nowadays, But I'm just not used to the late-night shift. It's bizarre to play Little Richard at two in the morning. If you're playing Little Richard your head is rattling."

The article went on to say that Roby's show, while still quite popular with older Miamians was also listened to by younger listeners. A North Dade underground station was re-broadcasting his show on FM.

During his run, WMRZ changed its call sign to WAXY (of all things). Roby's advertising and marketing director Jim Marlowe attempted to get Roby's show syndicated in Florida and then across the country, but unfortunately, these attempts were not overly successful and the show was eventually pulled from the air when Metropolitan Morgage, the show's sponsor, dropped its support.

Farewell, Kahuna

On July 18th, 1997, at the age of 54, Roby Yonge passed away.

Fred Hirsch recalls this fateful day:

"Early one morning I turned on the ABC-TV Network morning show, something I had never done before  The host read a story about the Beatles and then mentioned, 'On a related story, Roby Yonge, often called the fifth Beatle died today.'"

As Roby would have said, “It’s cosmic.”