Remember When a St. Louis Radio Station Ditched Easy Listening and Brought the Counterculture to the Midwest With a Jefferson Airplane Classic?

On this day (November 7) in 1967, KSHE 94.7 FM, which broadcasts in the Greater St. Louis, Missouri, area, changed formats. It started as a classical music station in 1961. A year later, it started playing mostly easy-listening music. Then, after six years on the air, the station underwent a drastic change. “White Rabbit” by Jefferson Airplane marked the birth of the rock station that is still going strong today.

Ed Ceries spent 20 years as an engineer with St. Louis-based KSD and KSD-TV, according to the St. Louis Media History Foundation. Then, he invested everything he had into starting a station of his own. He even built some of the original broadcast equipment himself. Initially, he ran the station out of the home he shared with his wife. All of the station’s first announcers were women, so the call letters KSHE were fitting.

[RELATED: Remembering When Grace Slick Joined Jefferson Airplane and Brought Two Huge Hits With Her in 1967]

While the station quickly gained loyal listeners, advertisers weren’t interested. Most were reluctant to invest in FM stations at the time. They were especially wary of stations that played classical music. As a result, Ceries chose to add easy listening or “middle of the road” programming.

The Change at KSHE Happened Gradually

Howard Grafman purchased KSHE in the mid-1960s. His conservative middle-of-the-road station with a broadcast schedule that included The Lawrence Welk Show and a weekly German-language show was making very little money. Eventually, he decided to follow in the footsteps of revolutionary San Francisco-based DJ Tom Donahue. He hired Harvey Sheldon as his new station manager and told him to make the new format work. They then brought on Ron Elz. He traveled to the West Coast, listened to KMPX, and formulated a plan.

However, they couldn’t change KSHE overnight. “We can’t afford to lose our audience that we have right away,” Grafman told Elz. He also informed the new PD that there was no budget for new records. That wasn’t a problem. Elz worked with local record distributors to build a new library.

They hired new DJs and announcers with on-air names like Brother Love, the Musical Pumpkin, and Prince Knight. Elz took the moniker Johnny B. Goode. At the same time, they started adding more rock music to the rotation. Longtime listeners called to complain. Younger listeners who were tired of the format and music they’d heard their whole lives fell in love.

By November 7, 1967, the format change was complete. Jefferson Airplane’s “White Rabbit” marked the dawn of a new era.

Still Rocking 59 Years Later

Over the next few decades, KSHE became a hub for great new music. The station played full albums by bands like The Who, Arlo Guthrie, and Iron Butterfly. Additionally, it helped launch Midwestern bands like REO Speedwagon, Cheap Trick, and Styx by showcasing their music. Obscure foreign bands also appeared in the station’s rotation, further expanding listeners’ musical horizons.

Fifty-nine years later, KSHE is the oldest continually operating rock station. Today, it’s a classic rock station. As a result, it’s still playing some of the music that made it the Official Rock Radio Station of Missouri.

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