John R. Pepper II, 91; launched 1st nationwide radio station for blacks
John R. Pepper II, 91, co-founder of the first nationwide radio station with programming targeting a black audience, died Monday at St. Francis Hospital in Memphis, Tenn., after an extended illness.
Still one of Memphis’ top stations, WDIA-AM was the first in the South with an all-black on-air staff. Clear Channel Broadcasting Inc. now owns the station, which reaches five states.
Pepper and Bert Ferguson, both white, founded WDIA in the 1940s. The careers of B.B. King and Isaac Hayes, among others, were launched there. Hayes was a member of the station’s “teen-town singers,” and King, whose real name is Riley King, picked up his stage name while working as a WDIA disc jockey from 1949 to 1955. He was known then as the “Beale Street Blues Boy” and later as simply “B.B.”
By the time Pepper and Ferguson sold the station in 1957, they had increased its signal to 50,000 watts.
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