KGRB (defunct)

KGRB (900 AM) was a 500-watt radio station in West Covina, California. The station featured Big Band music & Swing music from the original 78 rpm recordings. Among the notable disc jockeys over the years were Lyman Jay, Bob Stone, and Tom Murphy.

The station was put on the air by former KTLA-Channel 5 engineer Robert Burdette and his wife Gloria on September 25 1963. Indeed, the station's call letters are derived from her full name, "Gloria R. Burdette." In 1957 Burdette bought an FM station in West Covina and named it KBOB after himself. It was a sister station to KGRB.

In 1994, after Burdette suffered a stroke and went into a coma, both stations were put into a conservatorship. Steve Ray (who had worked at KIST, KLIT, KMPC, and KRCI) was brought in to manage the stations. He made KGRB an NBC affiliate, renaming it "AM 90 NBC", and was in the process of acquiring the KNBC-AM call letters when the conservators bowed to the demands of Burdette's daughter and sold KGRB to a Hispanic broadcast group. In 1995 KGRB began simulcasting KMQA (the former KBOB). Today it is owned by Multicultural Broadcasting and is known as KALI, "Radio Zion."cite news |work=Daily Breeze |title=Radio AM to FM: June 13, 2003 |url=http://members.cox.net/rwagoner/columns/2003/jun1303.html |date=2003-06-13 |first=Richard |last=Wagoner]

References

External links

* [http://www.socalradiohistory.com/kgrb.html Steven M. Ray's history of KGRB]
* [http://news.google.com/archivesearch?q=KGRB+West+Covina KGRB at Google News]