Akron disc jockey Cliff Rodgers was country when country wasn’t cool.
As a guitar-strumming, cowboy-crooning host at WHKK radio in the 1940s and 1950s, Rodgers was a respected, influential broadcaster who ranked in the Top 10 in national popularity polls, emceed sold-out concerts at Ohio halls and introduced legions of listeners to the twangy harmonies of up-and-coming stars.
The radio format officially was known as “country and western,” but Rodgers preferred to call it “hillbilly.”
“With rock and roll music sweeping the country today, I’m proud to be a hillbilly man,” Rodgers told the Beacon Journal in 1956. “I used to feel a little guilty when I’d tell anyone I was a country disc jockey. Not any more.
“When I started in this game, a lot of people would listen to hillbilly music in secret — ashamed to admit that they liked it. Now I receive letters from persons in all walks of life who say they are proud to listen to these folk tunes.”
Amiable and outgoing, Rodgers was 29 years old in 1945 when he joined the staff of Akron’s WHKK, a new station that aimed to compete with WADC and WAKR. The 1,000-watt station, a forerunner of today’s WHLO, was at 640 AM and had its studios at 51 W. State St. at the back of the downtown O’Neil’s parking garage.
A Kentucky native, Henry Clifton Rodgers grew up in Springfield, Ill., and found his life’s passion at age 17 in 1933 when he attended auditions at WTAX radio. The station hired him to play guitar and sing.
Rodgers joined the U.S. Army in World War II and landed in Special Services, the military’s entertainment branch, where he hosted a 30-minute radio show, Goof-Up, three times a week over the American Forces Network, and traveled to England, France and Germany. The blue-eyed, sandy-haired emcee looked as famous as the singers he touted.
After the war, Rodgers landed an early shift at Akron’s WHKK, where his responsibility was to sign on the station at 6 a.m. six days a week. His first day on the job was Christmas 1945. He was the only driver on the dark, deserted streets when he arrived for work downtown.
Rodgers began to write and produce a fill-in show at 7:20 a.m., Visit With Granpappy Doozer, in which he played himself, supplied the voice of a cantankerous grandfather, strummed the guitar and sang.
WHKK recognized Rodgers’ talent and gave him two regular programs: Cliff’s Morning Jamboree at 6 a.m. and Melody Round-Up at 2:25 p.m. They started out as 30-minute shows, but listeners liked them so much that the station expanded the morning program to one hour and the afternoon show to three hours.
With his job secure, Rodgers and his wife, Hazel, bought a home at 645 E. Park Ave. in Barberton.
The deejay spent an hour each morning deciding which hillbilly records to play that afternoon. There was no corporate pressure, no focus group, no demographic study. He stacked the platters in the order he wanted to play them.
“I don’t care who the artist is or whose label he is on,” he once explained. “If it’s a good record, it’s my duty to my listeners to play it.”
Rodgers championed country acts and invited them into the studio for interviews when they came to town. He also emceed big concerts at the Akron Armory, Summit Beach Park and Akron Palace Theater.
Among the singers he welcomed to Akron were Johnny Cash, Red Foley, Marty Robbins, Kitty Wells, Pee Wee King, Hank Snow, Minnie Pearl, Faron Young, Ray Price, Hank Thompson and Slim Bryant. Rodgers sometimes strapped on a guitar and served as an opening act with his backup bands, the Royal Akronites and the Jamboree Gang.
He recorded a couple of songs on the Donnett Hit Records label in Toledo — Will Ya’ or Won’t Cha and Harbor of Broken Hearts — but they didn’t make much noise.
The deejay conducted an annual poll in which Akron listeners voted for their favorite country performer. Winners included Eddie Arnold, Lefty Frizzell, Hank Williams and Hank Snow. Rodgers presented each one with a plaque at the Grand Ole Opry in Nashville.
The WHKK star had grown popular himself. In magazine polls at Billboard and Country & Western Jamboree, readers voted him as one of the Top 10 country deejays in the nation.
Rodgers played a poignant role in music history when he was scheduled to emcee two concerts by Hank Williams on Jan. 1, 1953, at Canton Memorial Auditorium. Williams died of heart failure at age 29 in West Virginia while being chauffeured to Canton.
According to biographer Susan Masino, a somber-faced Rodgers broke the news to a waiting crowd of 4,000.
“Ladies and gentlemen, I’ve been in show business almost 20 years, and I’ve been called upon to do many difficult things in front of an audience, but today I’m about to perform the most difficult task I have ever done,” Rodgers said. “This morning on his way to Canton to do this show, Hank Williams died in his car.”
Many in the audience chuckled, thinking it was some kind of twisted gag.
“Ladies and gentlemen, this is not a joke,” Rodgers said. “Hank Williams is dead.”
The crowd gasped and some wept. Opening act Hawkshaw Hawkins led the auditorium in a tearful rendition of Williams’ 1948 song, I Saw the Light.
After Rodgers was promoted to program director in 1954, he sponsored WHKK Day at Summit Beach. Listeners were invited to write the station for free tickets to rides at the amusement park. More than 10,000 people responded.
The broadcaster also was known for collecting Ohio Sales Tax stamps to raise money to assist widows, disabled children, wounded workers and other needy people. Listeners donated hundreds of thousands of stamps for the campaigns.
As rock ’n’ roll swept the nation, Rodgers remained in the country saddle. He didn’t like it when country artists tried to sound like pop stars.
“I can’t see using a saxophone for anything in country music,” he said. “What happened to the fiddle?”
After nearly 12 years at WHKK, Rodgers signed off in 1957 to join the Jessop Advertising Agency and to operate his own publishing firm, Magnus Music Publication, in Barberton. He emceed the Jamboree series on WAKR-TV.
Rodgers also operated Zipp Records, a small label with offices at 1492 S. Main St. Among the artists who recorded there were the Cimarrons, Dug Stover & the Hollidays, Bobby Rutledge, the Play Boys, Wayne Perdew and Jonni Sue.
The owner couldn’t resist recording new versions of Will Ya’ or Won’t Cha and Harbor of Broken Hearts as Cliff Rodgers and His Buckeye Pals.
In the early 1960s, Rodgers was hired as advertising manager for the Clarkins store chain and retired 20 years later as assistant vice president. In his spare time, he liked to sing and play guitar for service clubs and senior groups.
Many fans probably didn’t notice the little obituary in June 1982 after the former deejay died at age 66 in Barberton. The death notice listed his birth name of Henry.
Buried at Greenlawn Cemetery, the former disc jockey went to his grave as a proud hillbilly man.
Copy editor Mark J. Price is author of The Rest Is History: True Tales From Akron’s Vibrant Past, a book from the University of Akron Press. He can be reached at 330-996-3850 or mjprice@thebeaconjournal.com.