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Wolfman Jack -
Howling radio disc jockey who was the announcer
for the Friday night music program THE MIDNIGHT
SPECIAL/NBC/1973-81.
The Wolfman (actually Brooklyn born Robert
Weston Smith) learned his trade by working at a
number of radio stations. One day in 1960 he
took a job south of Del Rio, Texas in the
Mexican border town of Via Cuncio at station
XERF.
Unfettered by the regulation of American
stations, he laid the ground work for his now
famous radio persona, aka "The Wolfman," an out
of control deejay who howled and growled over
the airwaves of a 250,000 watt radio station
that broke through the night to entertain
truckers, and teenagers all over North America.
As described in the "Encyclopedia of Culture"
(HarperPerennial, 1992), the Wolfman was "an
outlaw voice in the night...invisible,
untouchable, and with all the taboo thrill of
rock and roll."
Wolfman later came to the attention of all
Americans when director George Lucas cast him to
play himself in the movie American Graffiti
(1973) about teenage life in the 1950s.
On July 1, 1995 Wolfman Jack died of a heart
attack at his Belvedere, North Carolina home.
Before his death he was promoting his
autobiography "Have Mercy: The Confession of the
Original Rock 'n' Roll Animal" (Warner Books,
1995).
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