The following historical summary is reprinted without permission from MusicRadio77.com.
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1968-1969: Roby Yonge (midday's originally and, later, overnights)

Born in Fort Jackson, S.C., Roby grew up in Ocala, Fla. and got his first radio job when he was 15 years old. Roby's first Miami Florida job was covering the Cuban Missile Crisis of 1962 and hurricanes as a newsman at WIOD, which was then WCKR. Roby then moved to Miami's WQAM and became a disc jockey (where he worked with another Miami radio legend, Rick Shaw). He evolved into a character created out of a cartoon in the back of Playboy magazine. In the "Little Annie Fannie" cartoon, the "Big Kahuna" was a muscular surfer with a deep tan and all the girls. It was a joke because Roby was really the opposite, but the name stuck and he used his "surfer" image to great success in South Florida. He was not terribly athletic but the music he played was for the surfer crowd. At 25, Yonge left Miami for WABC. His first shows on WABC were December 30 and 31, 1967 . He filled in for Ron Lundy before starting his own show on January 1, 1968 with the song "Devil With a Blue Dress On" by Mitch Ryder. His 1-3 p.m. show was short-lived, however. He was shifted to weekends when Bob-a-Loo (Bob Lewis) went over to WABC-FM (now
WPLJ) full-time. He was then shifted to overnights replacing Charlie Greer. Then, unfortunately, Roby went on the air with the Paul McCartney "death" rumor on October 21, 1969 and was immediately taken off the air and fired (you can hear it under the Musicradio WABC Bloopers and Parodies section). He showed up a few months later at WCBS-FM (where he started his show with the Golden Slumbers Suite from The Beatles' Abbey Road album). He stayed at WCBS-FM for a while and actually introduced oldies to the format the station was then using. But, WCBS-FM didn't work out for him either, so he moved back to Florida and did some television commercials. In 1987, he did a morning show at WKAT/Miami. The station changed formats, and Roby went home to Ocala for a while, then returned to Miami in '93 to do a music/talk show on 790 WMRZ, which also lasted a short while. Roby died on July 18, 1997 of an apparent heart attack. He was broke and practically destitute living out of an old motel room. He would have turned 55 a week later on July 25.

Thanks to Allan Sniffen

 
 

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