The musicians milling around were sometimes an annoyance to ECA, who had a light placed at his door to warn people whether or not he was receiving visitors.

His office was in the left hand rear of the main studio complex as viewed from the street (near the auditorium). Its a shame that building wasn’t able to be saved before the school board tore it down.

You are right about KFI-TV being channel 9 (in your comments on the ECA tribute). It wasn’t until it was sold to Don Lee that channels 9 and 2 were swapped.

While we’re telling stories, at the time the Vermont Avenue studios were sold to the Korean-language newspaper I was involved in an English-language Korean newspaper in LA and was able to get a tour. He was about to remove all the legacy gear, and I asked him what he wanted for it.

He told me to make him an offer, so I did: $500, which made him notoriously angry.

Apparently the realtor never told him that 500 ohm balanced mixing consoles with tube amplifiers in racks were state of the art in the 30s and early 40s, but not worth much in the solid state era.

I don’t know what happened to the gear, but I don’t imagine its been saved.

KFI in its heyday certainly did have musicians associated with the station. Before its NBC affiliate dsys it regularly scheduled school and church choral groups in the early twenties. Station owner and early NAB President Earle C. Anthony was himself a player in the Packard 5 band on the station circa 1926-28 (he was also the California Packard distributor). Later KFI had an in-house organ in its Vermont Ave studio, as well as an award winning boy’s choir.

From the beginning KFI and other stations festured big band remotes. They had to – pre-WW2 recording quality didn’t play well on the air. If a station did music it had to be live in those early days. Edison is quoted as having said that if a phonograph really as bad as rendered on radio he would disown his own invention. KFI’s co-chief engineer Headly Blatterman spent many hours in the KFI research lab at the La Mirada transmitter developing recording heads and techniques to improve the situation.

Even after recorded music became practical live music continued – and by union rules frequently with on-air homage to James C. Petrillo, president of the American Federation of Musicians. You can find out more about him on Google.

Live music? Certainly – but an entire orchestra on standby? Sorry – an urban legend.