George (“Hound Dog”) Lorenz

Music lovers in more than a dozen states along the Eastern Seaboard in the 1950s tuned in to “the Sound of the Hound,” George (“Hound Dog”) Lorenz, who broadcast on 50,000-watt WKBW in Buffalo, New York. Lorenz began in Buffalo radio in the late 1940s; in 1953 he moved to Cleveland, Ohio, where the Hound Dog went up against the King of the Moon Doggers, Alan Freed. Freed moved on to New York City, but Lorenz returned to Buffalo and became an institution on the “Big KB.” He often did his show from the Club Zanzibar, a nightclub with a predominantly African-American clientele; there he hosted visiting artists such as Little Richard, who credited Lorenz with being one of the first white deejays to carry black music all over the United States.