Tom Rounds (June 6, 1936 – June 1, 2014) was an American
radio broadcasting
Radio broadcasting is transmission of audio (sound), sometimes with related metadata, by radio waves to radio receivers belonging to a public audience. In terrestrial radio broadcasting the radio waves are broadcast by a land-based radio ...
executive, founder and chief executive officer of
Radio Express
Radio Express is an independent radio syndication company based in Pasadena, California, whose main focus is in markets outside the United States, U.S. The company was founded by Tom Rounds, one of the creators of ''American Top 40''. Radio Expres ...
in
Burbank, California
Burbank is a city in the southeastern end of the San Fernando Valley in Los Angeles County, California, United States. Located northwest of downtown Los Angeles, Burbank has a population of 107,337. The city was named after David Burbank, who ...
.
Biography
Early years
After first entering the broadcasting profession at the campus radio station of
Amherst College
Amherst College ( ) is a private liberal arts college in Amherst, Massachusetts. Founded in 1821 as an attempt to relocate Williams College by its then-president Zephaniah Swift Moore, Amherst is the third oldest institution of higher educati ...
in
Massachusetts
Massachusetts (Massachusett: ''Muhsachuweesut Massachusett_writing_systems.html" ;"title="nowiki/> məhswatʃəwiːsət.html" ;"title="Massachusett writing systems">məhswatʃəwiːsət">Massachusett writing systems">məhswatʃəwiːsət'' En ...
in the late 1950s, Rounds then worked at
WINS (AM)
WINS (1010 kHz) is a commercial AM radio station licensed to New York, New York, owned by Audacy, Inc. It features an all-news format known as 1010 WINS, with the call sign phonetically pronounced as "wins". WINS's studios are located in ...
in
New York City
New York, often called New York City or NYC, is the List of United States cities by population, most populous city in the United States. With a 2020 population of 8,804,190 distributed over , New York City is also the L ...
as a newsman in 1959 before agreeing to travel to
Honolulu
Honolulu (; ) is the capital and largest city of the U.S. state of Hawaii, which is in the Pacific Ocean. It is an unincorporated county seat of the consolidated City and County of Honolulu, situated along the southeast coast of the island ...
with the station's general manager to work at station KPOI.
While in Hawaii, Rounds—hoping to gain publicity for his new position as a
disc jockey
A disc jockey, more commonly abbreviated as DJ, is a person who plays recorded music for an audience. Types of DJs include Radio personality, radio DJs (who host programs on music radio stations), club DJs (who work at a nightclub or music f ...
—set the world record for sleeplessness. The period of 260 hours awake was attained while Rounds was sitting in a
department store
A department store is a retail establishment offering a wide range of consumer goods in different areas of the store, each area ("department") specializing in a product category. In modern major cities, the department store made a dramatic app ...
window display. The record was broken in 1964 by
San Diego
San Diego ( , ; ) is a city on the Pacific Ocean coast of Southern California located immediately adjacent to the Mexico–United States border. With a 2020 population of 1,386,932, it is the List of United States cities by population, eigh ...
high school student
Randy Gardner.
Rounds became a regional celebrity following the stunt, and eventually rose to lead the station as
program director.
KFRC San Francisco
Ron Jacobs had been program director at KPOI before moving to
KHJ in
Los Angeles
Los Angeles ( ; es, Los Ángeles, link=no , ), often referred to by its initials L.A., is the largest city in the state of California and the second most populous city in the United States after New York City, as well as one of the world' ...
under influential radio programmer
Bill Drake
Bill Drake (January 14, 1937 – November 29, 2008), born Philip Yarbrough, was an American radio programmer who co-developed the Boss Radio format with Gene Chenault via their company Drake-Chenault.Douglas, Susan, "Listening In: Radio and the ...
. Drake was seeking to install his signature
Boss Radio
Boss Radio was the name of two radio programming formats, both launched in the early 1960s: One in the United States, and one in the United Kingdom. Although the names were the same, the formats were quite different.
The word "boss" was early 196 ...
format in the
Bay Area
The San Francisco Bay Area, often referred to as simply the Bay Area, is a populous region surrounding the San Francisco, San Pablo, and Suisun Bay estuaries in Northern California. The Bay Area is defined by the Association of Bay Area Gov ...
in 1964; Jacobs recommended Tom Rounds for the position at
KFRC in
San Francisco
San Francisco (; Spanish language, Spanish for "Francis of Assisi, Saint Francis"), officially the City and County of San Francisco, is the commercial, financial, and cultural center of Northern California. The city proper is the List of Ca ...
. While at KFRC, Rounds began promoting large multi-act concerts to benefit charity and gain publicity for the station and the bands it featured. After holding the
Beach Boys
A beach is a landform alongside a body of water which consists of loose particles. The particles composing a beach are typically made from rock, such as sand, gravel, shingle, pebbles, etc., or biological sources, such as mollusc shell ...
Summer Spectacular at the
Cow Palace
The Cow Palace (originally the California State Livestock Pavilion) is an indoor arena located in Daly City, California, situated on the city's northern border with neighboring San Francisco. Because the border passes through the property, a por ...
in 1966, Rounds and KFRC conceived of a large outdoor festival featuring a fair atmosphere similar to the popular
Renaissance Pleasure Faire
The Renaissance Pleasure Faire of Southern California (RPFS) is a Renaissance faire that takes place in Irwindale, California. It opened in the spring of 1963 and has been an annual event since then. Presently owned by Renaissance Entertainment P ...
. The KFRC
Fantasy Fair and Magic Mountain Music Festival
Fantasy is a genre of speculative fiction involving magical elements, typically set in a fictional universe and sometimes inspired by mythology and folklore. Its roots are in oral traditions, which then became fantasy literature and drama. ...
was held in the second weekend of June 1967 at
Mount Tamalpais State Park
Mount Tamalpais State Park is a California state park, located in Marin County, California. The primary feature of the park is the Mount Tamalpais. The park contains mostly redwood and oak forests. The mountain itself covers around . There ar ...
in
Marin County, California
Marin County is a County (United States), county located in the northwestern part of the San Francisco Bay Area of the U.S. state of California. As of the 2020 United States Census, 2020 census, the population was 262,231. Its county seat and ...
, to support the Hunters Point Child Care Center. Featuring
Jefferson Airplane
Jefferson Airplane was an American rock band based in San Francisco, California, that became one of the pioneering bands of psychedelic rock. Formed in 1965, the group defined the San Francisco Sound and was the first from the Bay Area to ac ...
,
The 5th Dimension
The 5th Dimension is an American popular music vocal group, whose repertoire includes pop, R&B, soul, jazz, light opera, and Broadway.
Formed as the Versatiles in late 1965, the group changed its name to "the 5th Dimension" by 1966. Betwee ...
,
The Doors
The Doors were an American Rock music, rock band formed in Los Angeles in 1965, with vocalist Jim Morrison, keyboardist Ray Manzarek, guitarist Robby Krieger, and drummer John Densmore. They were among the most controversial and influential ro ...
and many other acts, it drew nearly 60,000 attendees. The Fantasy Fair produced by Rounds is considered the first
rock festival
A rock festival is an open-air rock concert featuring many different performers, typically spread over two or three days and having a campsite and other amenities and forms of entertainment provided at the venue. Some festivals are singular even ...
in history, preceding the more well-known
Monterey Pop Festival
The Monterey International Pop Festival was a three-day music festival held June 16 to 18, 1967, at the Monterey County Fairgrounds in Monterey, California. The festival is remembered for the first major American appearances by the Jimi Hendrix ...
by one week.
Rounds left KFRC in the Fall of 1967; his decision to move beyond the restrictions of AM radio was documented on the front cover of the first issue of
Rolling Stone
''Rolling Stone'' is an American monthly magazine that focuses on music, politics, and popular culture. It was founded in San Francisco, San Francisco, California, in 1967 by Jann Wenner, and the music critic Ralph J. Gleason. It was first kno ...
magazine, with the headline "Tom Rounds Quits KFRC" on the upper right beside a large photograph of
John Lennon
John Winston Ono Lennon (born John Winston Lennon; 9 October 19408 December 1980) was an English singer, songwriter, musician and peace activist who achieved worldwide fame as founder, co-songwriter, co-lead vocalist and rhythm guitarist of ...
.
Music video and rock festival pioneer
Upon resigning from KFRC, Rounds joined Amherst classmate Peter Gardiner in a new video production company based in Los Angeles called Charlatan Productions. The company is acknowledged as being among the first to focus exclusively on the use of cinematography and music together in the form that is now ubiquitous among major music acts, the
music video
A music video is a video of variable duration, that integrates a music song or a music album with imagery that is produced for promotion (marketing), promotional or musical artistic purposes. Modern music videos are primarily made and used as a m ...
.
Rounds led the company to successfully produce several dozen "artist-promoting films" for acts such as
Jimi Hendrix
James Marshall "Jimi" Hendrix (born Johnny Allen Hendrix; November 27, 1942September 18, 1970) was an American guitarist, singer and songwriter. Although his mainstream career spanned only four years, he is widely regarded as one of the most ...
,
Steppenwolf and
The Animals
The Animals (also billed as Eric Burdon and the Animals) are an English rock band, formed in Newcastle upon Tyne in the early 1960s. The band moved to London upon finding fame in 1964. The Animals were known for their gritty, bluesy sound and ...
, working with many record companies to produce the early videos.
The company also included Ron Jacobs, and with him Rounds continued to be involved with the promotion of large scale music events in markets associated with Bill Drake. In 1964, Rounds and Jacobs had joined with another Honolulu entertainment entrepreneur, Tom Moffatt, to form Arena Associates. This company was responsible for bringing mainland music acts to the newly built
Blaisdell Center.
Mel Lawrence
Mel Lawrence (May 17, 1935 - November 5, 2016) was an American film director and producer and former concert and festival promoter. He is best known for his role as the Director of Operations at the Woodstock Festival, his work on the ''Qatsi'' ...
, who had co-produced both the Fantasy Fair and the Monterey festival the following week was also involved with the company.
Chief among the financial backers of Arena Associates was Tom Driscoll, heir of the family that owned the
Driscoll's
Driscoll's is a California-based seller of fresh strawberries and other berries. It is a fourth-generation family business that has been in the Reiter and Driscoll families since the late 1800s. In 2017, it controlled roughly one-third of the $6 ...
berry producing agricultural group. With the heavy backing of Driscoll, Rounds and Arena Associates produced several concerts.
The most prominent of the events was the
Miami Pop Festival, held in December 1968 at
Gulfstream Park
Gulfstream Park, owned by The Stronach Group, is a Thoroughbred race track, casino and outdoor entertainment and shopping destination in Hallandale Beach, Florida. Thoroughbred horse racing occurs year-round, defined by three distinct race meets ...
, a horse racing venue in
South Florida
South Florida is the southernmost region of the U.S. state of Florida. It is one of Florida's three most commonly referred to directional regions; the other two are Central Florida and North Florida. South Florida is the southernmost part of th ...
. The festival, organized by Rounds, Lawrence, Jacobs, and a substantial promotional team, was hailed two weeks later in the
New York Times
''The New York Times'' (''the Times'', ''NYT'', or the Gray Lady) is a daily newspaper based in New York City with a worldwide readership reported in 2020 to comprise a declining 840,000 paid print subscribers, and a growing 6 million paid d ...
as "a resounding success in both organization and programming, making it the first significant major pop festival held on the East Coast". Times reviewer Ellen Sander noted that the Miami festival truly represented the full spectrum of popular music acts, rather than relying on the presence of a few headlining acts to generate revenue.
Watermark and ''American Top 40''
Strawberry mogul Tom Driscoll was also involved in the formation of another of Rounds's businesses. In 1969, again with backing from Driscoll, Rounds and Jacobs formed
Watermark Inc., a radio production and syndication company that created a variety of programs which it then distributed to radio stations throughout North America.
[ The most widely recognized of the programs Rounds headed at Watermark was '']American Top 40
''American Top 40'' (previously abbreviated to ''AT40'') is an internationally syndicated, independent song countdown radio program created by Casey Kasem, Don Bustany, Tom Rounds, and Ron Jacobs. The program is currently hosted by Ryan Seacr ...
'', which featured the team of announcer Casey Kasem
Kemal Amin "Casey" Kasem (April 27, 1932 – June 15, 2014) was an American disc jockey, actor, and radio personality, who created and hosted several radio countdown programs, notably '' American Top 40''. He was the first actor to voice Nor ...
and producer Don Bustany
Donald S. Bustany (August 10, 1928 – April 23, 2018) was an American radio and television broadcaster.
Biography
Bustany was born in Detroit to Lebanese-American parents. He and radio host/voice actor Casey Kasem were childhood friends, and la ...
. The program was popular in large markets and also allowed small market stations to present a three-hour national music chart
A chart (sometimes known as a graph) is a graphical representation for data visualization, in which "the data is represented by symbols, such as bars in a bar chart, lines in a line chart, or slices in a pie chart". A chart can represent tabu ...
countdown show at nominal cost that nevertheless produced good ratings and helped generate advertising revenue. The program reached audiences at over 500 radio stations in the United States by the 1980s. In 1990, Rounds announced the introduction of ''American Top 40'' syndicated programming into the Soviet Union
The Soviet Union,. officially the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. (USSR),. was a transcontinental country that spanned much of Eurasia from 1922 to 1991. A flagship communist state, it was nominally a federal union of fifteen national ...
, adding that country to the list of seventy where the program was heard at the time. The show is still in syndication, hosted by Ryan Seacrest
Ryan John Seacrest (born December 24, 1974) is an American media personality and producer. He is the co-host of ''Live with Kelly and Ryan'', as well as the host of multiple media shows including ''American Idol'', ''American Top 40'', and '' ...
and distributed by Premiere Networks, a division of the American media
Media may refer to:
Communication
* Media (communication), tools used to deliver information or data
** Advertising media, various media, content, buying and placement for advertising
** Broadcast media, communications delivered over mass el ...
conglomerate iHeartMedia
iHeartMedia, Inc., formerly CC Media Holdings, Inc., is an American mass media corporation headquartered in San Antonio, Texas. It is the holding company of iHeartCommunications, Inc. (formerly Clear Channel Communications, Inc.), a company fou ...
.[Durkee, Rob. ''American Top 40: The Countdown of the Century''. . New York City: Schirmer Books, 1999.]
Radio Express
After Watermark was absorbed into the American Broadcasting Company
The American Broadcasting Company (ABC) is an American commercial broadcast television network. It is the flagship property of the ABC Entertainment Group division of The Walt Disney Company. The network is headquartered in Burbank, Cali ...
in the early 1980s as ABC Watermark, Rounds became responsible for the promotion and syndication of ''American Top 40'' and other programs outside the United States. His independent company Radio Express was created in 1985 and currently produces and syndicates World Chart Shows hosted by Lara Scott and PJ Butta, among other programming. The company also handles syndication outside the US for American radio programs such as ''The Rick Dees Weekly Top 40
''Rick Dees Weekly Top 40'' (sometimes known as ''The Weekly Top 40'') is an internationally syndicated radio program created and hosted by American radio personality Rick Dees. It is currently heard on over 200 radio stations worldwide. It is d ...
'' and ''American Country Countdown
''American Country Countdown'', also known as ''ACC'', is a weekly internationally syndicated radio program which counts down the top 40 country songs of the previous week, from No. 40 to No. 1, according to the ''Billboard'' Country Airplay cha ...
'', as well as for major international special events such as the ''Live 8
Live 8 was a string of benefit concerts that took place on 2 July 2005, in the G8 states and in South Africa. They were timed to precede the G8 conference and summit held at the Gleneagles Hotel in Auchterarder, Scotland, from 6–8 July 200 ...
'' and ''Live Earth
Live Earth was an event developed to increase environmental awareness through entertainment.
Background
Founded by Emmy-winning producer Kevin Wall, in partnership with former U.S. Vice President Al Gore, ''Live Earth'' was built upon the beli ...
'' concerts. Rounds continued to head the company, which claims on its website to have established relationships with over 5,000 radio stations in 140 countries, until his death following complications from surgery on June 1, 2014 at the age of 77, two weeks before the death of his former associate Casey Kasem.
References
External links
Obituary
from the Forest Lawn Memorial-Parks & Mortuaries
Forest Lawn Memorial-Parks & Mortuaries is an American corporation that owns and operates a chain of cemeteries and mortuaries in Los Angeles, Orange, and Riverside counties in Southern California.
History
The company was founded by a group o ...
website
{{DEFAULTSORT:Rounds, Tom
1936 births
2014 deaths
American radio executives
American Top 40
Amherst College alumni
Music promoters
People from Stamford, Connecticut