Boss Jocks: How Corrupt Radio Practices Helped Make Jacksonville One of the Great Music Cities

“‘Kickbacks from government vendors, jobs for cronies, sweetheart deals for contractors’ were commonplace—‘It may have been the most corrupt city in America.’”

What happened when greedy promoters ran radio stations and the local concert scene? They brought the Beatles to Jacksonville, but they also brought payola, greed, and corruption.

This article appears in the 2011 Music issue of Southern Cultures.

Southern Cultures is published quarterly (spring, summer, fall, winter) by the University of North Carolina Press. The journal is sponsored by the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill’s Center for the Study of the American South.