Don Sherwood Calls the Boss

Don Sherwood (1925-1983) was perhaps the single most memorable radio personality in Bay Area history. A San Francisco native who was known as “The World’s Greatest Disc Jockey” during his years of ratings dominance at KSFO, Sherwood was the bad boy who listeners couldn’t do without.

Sherwood was inducted into the Bay Area Radio Hall of Fame as part of its inaugural class in 2006.

This artifact was found on a small reel of 1/4" audio tape labeled "Phone call to Al Newman, Soundscriber Dub".

Allan "Al" Newman was the program director at KSFO during its heyday in the 1960s into the 1970s.

A "Soundscriber", in this case, almost certainly refers to a low-speed audio tape system used in radio stations as a "logger" system to capture 24 hours worth of broadcast content on a single tape. At some point after this segment aired, it was apparently dubbed (copied) from the Soundscriber tape to a standard 1/4" audio tape.

The 3" reel of tape, in a cardboard box suitable for mailing, is held in the archives of the Bay Area Radio Museum and Hall of Fame.