WVON
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Lucky Cordell: The Baron of Bounce… and Chicago Radio Royalty.
Moses Lucky Cordell was born July 28, 1928 in Mississippi. His mother died when Lucky was three, and his family moved to Chicago. Cordell graduated from Dunbar High School in 1946, and went on to a long career in Chicago Radio, initially as a disc jockey (known as the “Baron of Bounce”). By 1970, he…
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Don Cornelius: made Soul a household name.
One of the most amazing things about the life of Don Cornelius (and to be clear, this post is about his life… not his death) is the trajectory of his rise to prominence as an ambassador of Soul. Starting out as a radio journalist here on Chicago’s WVON in the early 1960s, he built important…
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Hey, White Girl! Susan Gregory’s Chicago Story
The intersection of race and class. In Chicago. In the late 1960s. That’s the backdrop of a memoir (rather cheekily) titled “Hey, White Girl!” written by Susan Gregory (Norton, 1970). In the book, teenage Susan transfers from well-heeled, suburban New Trier High School to attend infamous-even-then Marshall High School on Chicago’s West Side for her senior year.…

