Skip-Groff-Oral-History-Interview.Pdf
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SkipGroffInterviewFinal Skip Groff Interview 0:00:00 to 1:25:33 ________________________________________________________________________ [start at 00:00:00] Davis: My name is John Davis. I’m the performing arts metadata archivist at the University of Maryland. I’m speaking with Skip Groff. Skip, throughout your career, throughout your life, you seem to have worn many hats—DJ, record store owner, record label proprietor, album promoter. Many things. And I’d like to just talk to you about that today and get your story. That’s essentially what I’m here for today: Tuesday, September 19th, 2017. Groff: [laugh] Davis: So, basically I just want to get your story from the beginning. Groff: Well, the beginning in terms of music for me started in 1964. I went to Suitland High School in Prince George’s County, and I never listened to music, radio, anything, other than for Washington Senators games. It just was nothing that was part of my life at all. I was never exposed to it as a kid growing up in Japan. There was nothing that I had heard that made me want to listen to music. And it wasn’t until February of 1964, when The Beatles were going to be on Ed Sullivan, that Sunday, for their first appearance—all these kids in high school were talking about this great new group from England that was going to be on the show that Sunday. I was in the tenth grade, and as a warm-up to watching the show that Sunday, I started listening to the local station, WPGC, and heard so many things that sounded great besides the Beatles stuff, that I started listening to the other stations. WEAM was the main station I could pick up from where I lived, besides WPGC. But at night, I’d start listening to the out-of-town stations that played a lot more obscure and local groups at that time. KYW in Cleveland, and WCFL in Chicago. CKLW in Windsor, Ontario, which was a Detroit station for all intents and purposes. And from that moment on, it all started for me, in terms of being involved in music, being interested in music, and snapping up as much information as I could find about these various records that appealed to me. It was like a whole new world had opened up to me. So that’s where it started for me, in high school. And as soon as I got to the University of Maryland as a freshman, the local campus radio station, WMUC, which was an AM-only station at that point in time—650 on the SkipGroffInterviewFinal dial—they had an introductory thing for new students, in the student union dining hall area. And I met Bob Duckman and Eddie Sacks. Bob Duckman was the station manager that year. 0:03:02 Eddie Sacks was the program director. And although I had no experience in radio at all at that point in time, they immediately sussed out that I knew a lot about music and records, and they needed a music director. My first job was a record librarian, but within a matter of weeks, I became the music director as well. So that started it for me, with them. Davis: Where did you go to buy records back then? Groff: In District Heights, where I lived at that time, when I went to high school, and the first year of college, there was a place called Clark music store in District Heights. They had a lot of things where they had not sold well, and they’d put them in the three-for-a-dollar pile. So just exposed myself to a lot of stuff. I would be buying records from that pile of stuff, because I was just a kid with a small allowance. So when I got in radio, it was a different story. [laugh] I could pretty much pick anything I wanted to. But as far as the University of Maryland knows, I paid for everything I ever took. Davis: [laugh] Groff: But that was really the only place that—I never drove until I was 24, so I didn’t have much ability to go anywhere to buy records unless somebody else was going. Davis: Do you still have some of those records? Groff: Oh, yeah. Yeah. Yeah, I told a story on Facebook the other day about how in 1964, when I first started listening to radio, I used to listen to Kerby Scott on WCAO, and he had a show every afternoon called the Liverpool Hour. And one day, he played a record called “Kiss Me” by Marty Wilde and the Wildcats. And it just was such a great record. I was very much into Billy J. Kramer & The Dakotas at that point in time, and it had that kind of sound. But I couldn't find the record anywhere. And it wasn’t until ten years later that I found it from a collector in New Jersey who sold it to me. And I still have that record. Davis: Was there a record store on campus at the University of Maryland? Groff: Not at that point in time. Later on, there were stores. I think The Joint Possession in College Park sold bootlegs, at one point in time. And I know that when Dave Grohl interviewed me, he told me that he used to buy records at a shop just off of campus, but I—it had to be something that 2 SkipGroffInterviewFinal developed after I was there. I was only there from ’66 to ’69. I flunked out for the second time at the end of my third year, only reaching junior standing at the time I flunked out. So technically, I only had two complete years of college. But I was there for three full years. Davis: What did you do when you were out of college? Groff: When I left college? 0:06:00 Davis: Yeah. Groff: Oh, I was getting ready to be drafted, so you know, that’s what they did in those days. If you flunked out of college, you got drafted pretty shortly after. I had already been working in professional radio at that point in time, both in Baltimore, and in Rockville at WINX. So I continued to work at WINX and I also worked at the Varsity Grille as a DJ in College Park, and worked at S. Klein’s in Greenbelt, as an in-store announcer. I did all those three jobs, part-time jobs, from late ’69 to spring of ’70 when I was inducted into the army. And that was tough, doing all those jobs, just traveling everywhere by bus. It required a lot of coordination. Davis: The in-store announcer—what did that job consist of? Groff: “Shoppers, for the next 20 minutes, we're selling jock straps in the ladies’ garments department.” You know. Davis: And they wanted you to break out the DJ voice for that? Groff: Yeah. Davis: [laugh] And are you from a military family? You mentioned living in… Groff: Yes, I am. My father was a career Air Force man. That’s why we lived in Japan when I was a kid. He was transferred over there. Davis: Coming from that background, what were your thoughts on being drafted? Was it more intimidating, less intimidating? Groff: I was very much against the Vietnam War, and I seriously thought about scooting off to Canada. But again, at that point in time, without a driver’s license, and without a car, I felt that that would be rather unmanageable. And then who knew at that point in time whether you're going to be able to get out, or get back to the country if you did something like that. So I went ahead, and I got inducted in the summer, and went to basic training at Fort Dix in New Jersey. And because of my poor eyesight, and because of my background in journalism and radio, I was able to qualify for public 3 SkipGroffInterviewFinal service jobs in the army. So I never went overseas, but I served my full term of the two years. Davis: Were you able to still sort of have music be a part of your life during those years? Groff: Well, I had worked part-time—one of my part-time jobs before the army was working at Waxie Maxie’s in Congressional Plaza. And while I was in the army, when I was stationed back in Washington at Walter Reed, I got another part-time job at Waxie Maxie’s in Langley Park, and went back to work at WINX part-time on weekends as well. So I was doing all that stuff while I was in the army. And as soon as I came out of the army, I went full-time at WINX and was the program director, music director, and morning announcer. Davis: And WINX was the radio station that was in a house? Groff: Yeah, it was in a house on Stonestreet Avenue in Rockville on Old Baltimore Road. 0:09:04 There were rumors that the house was so old that it was part of Harriet Tubman’s underground railway. But one of the guys who worked for me, who I had to fire, he ended up becoming a big executive at the company that I worked for, United Broadcasting. And he eventually fired my boss and they gave him the station as a going-away present when he retired. And there was a group in Rockville that was trying to get it declared as a historic place so that he couldn't tear it down, but he sold off the property and tore it down, before they could do anything about it.