By Aaron Allen
The Seattle Medium
When you think of Seattle radio, from KZAM, KYAC to KRIZ, you think of Frank P. Barrow or Frank P. as some like to call him. A native of Durham, North Carolina, Barrow grew up in the segregated South. Born January 26, 1945, in the comfort of an independent and strong Black community, Barrow grew up protected and proud of his community during a time when Black pride was being tested. His ties to his family and community helped shape the man and radio personalities we hear on the radio today.
“I grew up in Durham, North Carolina, home of the great North Carolina Central University Eagles, from an area that was the Black Wall Street of North Carolina,” Barrow says proudly. “Here the Black community had four or five grocery stores, Black dentist, and Black doctors.”
Due to the poor health of his father, Barrow at the age of twelve found himself in a position most young children can’t imagine — taking care of your parent instead your parent taking care of you. Barrow stayed home quite a bit in order to care for his father. During those times his father was an advent radio listener. It was in those moments of listening to different radio stations with his father that Barrow fell in love with idea of being on the radio.
“My dad was an invalid so I used to be at home with him all the time and he would listen to the radio a lot and I thought I could hear myself do some of the same things the DJ’s were doing, because I used to imitate them at home.”
During his high school years at Hillside High school in Durham, a young Barrow would hang around a White radio station in the area called WTIK. At the station, Barrow would do odd jobs here and there, but he never believed there were any real career opportunities for him at the station, so in 1960 he began working at the local Black station WSRC.
“For some reason I just felt that I would never make it in White radio because I like Black music and Black folks so much,” said Barrow. “So I started hanging around the Black radio station.”
Throughout his high school years Barrow would continue to find reasons to hang out at the local station, if nothing else to learn the craft of a radio DJ and at the same time spin a few forty-fives at the local parties.
While at the station one afternoon one of the journeymen DJs approached Barrow and decided to give the young man a chance. Calling the young Barrow into the studio, the DJ offered him the opportunity to get on the microphone and show him what he was made of.
“One day I stayed an extra shift to watch another DJ, and he came up to me and said, ‘ok Frank, they called me FP, let see what you can do.’ So I go on the microphone and blew their minds,” recalls Barrow.
“So my career in radio actually started when I was in the 10th grade,” says Barrow with a chuckle.
During his senior year in high school, there was a blind DJ by the name of Gordan DeWitty that Barrow discovered while looking through a Jet magazine that would change the trajectory of Barrow’s life and journey.
When he finally graduated in 1962, Barrow packed his belongings, bought a one-way bus ticket and traveled across the country to Seattle, Washington. Here Barrow set out to establish himself and his dream and began working at KZAM radio one of Seattle’s Black radio stations.
“About two weeks after high school I left for Seattle,” said Barrow.
“I didn’t know anybody; I just rode the bus out to Seattle,” he continued. “That’s when I started at KZAM which used to be a Black station and they were at the corner of twenty-fourth and Union and that’s what brought me to Seattle.”
Throughout what came to be a fifty-year career, Barrow has been invaluable as a pioneer, as a mentor and a teacher in radio. Long-time Seattle radio personality Sergio LaCour remembers the lessons he’d learned while under the tutelage of Barrow.
“Frank was instrumental in my career he gave me my first gig in radio,” says LaCour. “Frank taught you the fundamentals of radio broadcasting. He was excellent.”
As the voice of KZAM, KYAC, KRIZ and KYIZ’s Community Potpourri, since 1963 Barrow’s impact in radio has left an indelible mark on the ears and minds of generations of listeners. Starting in the Pacific Northwest in 1963, he did venture out with stints in places like Milwaukee and Atlanta’s WAOK radio only to return to Seattle.
“When you’re on the radio there are folks out there listening to you and your controlling their life to a degree,” says Barrow. “Your controlling what they listen too, your creating ideas and their enjoying you.”
However, despite the notoriety, It’s not always smooth sailing for radio personalities; they are human just like anyone else. Barrow’s journey had its share of adversity. Working in Georgia, Barrow had two gigs with a seventy-five mile distance, each way; the commute was taxing to say the least. But Barrow was the type of man where work ethic was the key to providing for his family. At one point in his career to help make ends meet, Barrow took on odd jobs here and there.
“Along the way I did do other jobs,” says Barrow. “To keep your family rolling, I’ve been an exterminator, it was interesting, but it’s something I could not have done for a long time.”
Seattle Black radio throughout its history has been a vital component of American African life and community. Radio took the place of the African drum slaves used to communicate back in those days. Black radio and their personalities perform that role today. It is instrumental in providing information and keeping the people informed of the events and issues surrounding them. For fifty years Barrow has been informing, engaging and entertaining this community of ours and at seventy years young you can still hear his voice, giving it to the people.
When Barrow arrived in 1974 Black radio like most other Black enterprises were owned by Whites, KYAC was owned by KING Broadcasting. Barrow’s leadership in a strike against KING ignited and solidified Black radio’s independence alongside Don Dudley who became General Manager of KYAC after the strike, the two men proceeded to establish the first independently ran Black radio station on the West coast, as Dudley, pointed out, “one hundred percent controlled and managed by Black people.”
“I think the world of Frank P. Barrow,” says Dudley. “There would not be Black radio in Seattle if it weren’t for Frank. I am serious, without Frank Barrow Seattle would not have had its own Black radio station. His leadership addressed ownership in Black radio.”
For Barrow, the calling to radio was more than just playing music and having people sing and dance.
“You know it was never the music. I lot of people think it’s about the music, it has always been about radio for me. I love being on the radio, the idea of radio, talking to the people,” Barrow explains.
For decades Barrow and Black radio has provided Seattle community service with altruism and humility. From food drives, toy drives, and clothing drives Barrow’s community service is as committed as his love for his craft.
Former Seattle NAACP President Lacey Steele recalls working closely with Barrow over the years in providing the Seattle Black community compassion and leadership.
According to Steele, “when I was president of the NAACP I worked with Frank, Frank P we used to call him, on several occasions. Frank was always professional, never complained and was at the station always, no matter what.”
“I’ve never met a man who was always positive, always in a positive spirit,” said Steele. “He was a man who had a job, loved his job and does his job, devoted with humility.
“When it came to drives, food drives, clothing drives, Frank was the first one there and the last to leave. If I had a son I’d want him to be like Frank,” added Steele.
Even though he has met the who’s who of the African American community both locally and nationally, Barrow remains humble about who he is and where he comes from.
“I treat people right and I guess that’s why some folks love you today because you treated them right,” says Barrow. “I don’t care if you’re a politician or street sweeper or whatever everybody is the same and treat people right.
“I like to use this term, ‘rich folks don’t impress me,’” says Barrow “I’m going to treat you the same, treating people how you want to be treated.”
