How Frankie Crocker created the WBLS Sound and Revolutionized Black Radio

Fern Gillespie
The origin story of WBLS-FM is part of radio folklore. Its chief storyteller is Frankie Crocker, the legendary radio mastermind who transitioned the traditional old school format of Black AM radio into a new sophisticated, stylized, stereophonic sound that was seeped in Black culture.

Although WBLS-FM celebrated its 50th anniversary in 2024, its story began in 1971 as WLIB-FM in Harlem. At that time, WLIB-AM was the historic station and Black AM radio programming of WWRL and WNJR were the mainstays for Black radio listeners. “WLIB-FM was the new station on the block with Frankie Crocker, the young program director, who had a vision of delivering, the music in a sophisticated style,” recalled Vy Higginsen, creator of “Mama, I Want to Sing” and the Mama Foundation, was one of the station’s first hosts.

Her elegant voice transformed the way women radio personality would talk on-air. “It was the total Black experience in sound. The format was designed to illuminate all of the musical, genres, gospel, jazz, R&B, blues, and Latin. Each music was a different shade of Black. Some of the most important musical geniuses of our time were featured on WLIB-FM. People who weren’t traditionally heard on the radio were now being featured. And people just loved it.”

Launched just five years after the Civil Rights Act of 1966, WLIB-FM emerged during the Black Arts and the Black is Beautiful movements. James Brown’s “Say It Loud” and Gil Scott Heron’s “The Revolution Will Not Be Televised” were programmed with Shirley Caesar, Sarah Vaughan, Miles Davis, and Motown.

In 1974, a group of investors, Inner City Broadcasting Corp (ICBC), purchased WLIB-AM and WLIB-FM, creating WBLS-FM and becoming New York’s first Black-owned radio network. ICBC was under the leadership of legends Percy Sutton, former Manhattan Borough President and Tuskegee Airman, and Hal Jackson, who in 1939 became the first Black radio personality at White radio station. On the FM dial, WBLS-FM’s style was branded unique.

“Prior to WBLS, Black radio stations had a tempo like WWRL. Where the DJs had a lot of energy, and we’re fast talkers. When Frankie came along, he wanted Vy Higginsen, myself, Ken Webb and Lamar, Renee to Have a conversation and be cool on the air,” said WBLS-FM veteran G. Keith Alexander, founder and producer of Harlem America. Higginsen agrees.

“There was no roadmap,” she said. “So I had to create my own space. We were trained by Frankie Crocker. It was Frankie Crocker’s vision and his hiring audacity to put a woman on the air that changed the course of Radio history.”

Black listeners in the tri-state area embraced the station. “We made Black people who are coming out of the 60s feel like we were somebody now. We were upwardly mobile,” said Alexander. For Higginsen, who holds a degree from FIT, the popularity was rooted in fashion and music. She was part of the emerging Black fashion industry with Stephen Burrows and Willi Smith. “The music on that radio station became fashionable.

We were in an era, and a time when it was Black beauty and it was Black is Beautiful.” Prior to WBLS-FM, she was Ebony Magazine’s first women in sales. “Ebony taught me about the black consumer market. The power of our dollars. In the marketplace, I came into Radio with a high respect for our audience and the black consumer market. I understood that our buying power.”

The hi-fi quality sound of the music on FM made WBLS-FM at the forefront of promoting the new stereo technology. “The whole FM manufacturing business can contribute their success to WBLS because Frankie would tell us to say don’t forget to put an FM radio in your car,” said Alexander. “At the time all the other cars radios were AM.”

The station’s sound began to cross over to Black and white audiences. During the 1970s, the sophisticated sounds of WBLS could be heard from Bloomingdales to disco roller skating rinks. “Frankie came up with a blend of music he called the Urban Contemporary sound where he played not just R&B and a little jazz, he also threw in some Frank Sinatra, and he also debuted a new music like Manu Dibango,” said Alexander.

I remember people used to come from Europe and sit in their hotel rooms with their tape recorders and try to tape the format station so they could take it back to France, England, and places like that.” Crocker consulted other Black FM stations and the Urban Contemporary format was adapted by WDAS-FM in Philadelphia and WGCI-FM in Chicago.

In 1979, WBLS-FM made history as the first Black-owned station to reach #1 and thereby becoming the first Black-owned broadcasting company to reach the Number one position in America. Frankie Crocker was regaled at Studio 54 by riding in on a white stallion walked in by Ken Webb. Today, WBLS-FM is owned by MediaCo, under the direction of Korean-American businessman Soohyung Kim, who grew up in Queens.

The glamour and excitement of the era is still fondly remembered by Alexander. “In 1974 I was sitting in for Frankie during the weekdays and weekends,” he recalled.“I was still the music librarian for the radio station. At the end of Frankie’s show, I would put on that record Moody’s Mood “There I Go,” and then Frankie and I would be in his Rolls-Royce headed downtown before the record ended.”