Billy Parker a Country Music Mainstay with 20+ Charted Singles, but Most Influencial In His Roll As Radio Disc Jockey.
Billy Parker A country music mainstay with 20+ charted singles, but most influencial in his roll as radio disc jockey. Chapter 01 – 1:40 Introduction Announcer: While Billy Parker was a mainstay on country radio, his claim to fame was as an influential disc jockey, not as a performer. Ionically, for all of the Top 40 Country Hits he spun over the course of his decades on the air, not one of them was his own. Born July 19, 1939, in Tuskegee, OK, he began playing guitar as a child and by the age of 14 had made his professional debut on the Tulsa radio program Big Red Jamboree. A few years later, he began performing in clubs and in 1959 landed his first DJ work. By 1963, Billy was the regular daytime disc jockey on KFDI in Wichita, Kansas and also hosted a Tulsa television program. In the same year, he cut his first single, and was named “Mr. DJ U.S.A.” in a nationwide poll, which helped land him at Nashville, Tennessee’s WSM. After his 1966 release “I’m Drinking All the Time”, Parker began playing with Ernest Tubb’s Troubadours in 1968, staying with the group for three years, when he joined Tulsa’s KVOO. Billy was named Disc Jockey of the Year by the Academy of Country & Western Music in 1975 and he won the award again in 1977, 1978, and 1984. In 1976, he scored his first chart hit with “It’s Bad When You’re Caught (With the Goods),” from the album Average Man.
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