Joni Caryl on Robert W. Morgan, Charlie Tuna and a Life in Radio

Joni Caryl put in her first radio shift at 2 a.m., on a country station in Yuma, Arizona, knowing almost nothing about the music she was playing. In a new video interview with the USA Radio Museum, she retraces a career that ran from that overnight slot to KHJ, Magic 106 and K-EARTH 101, and through partnerships with Robert W. Morgan and Charlie Tuna.

Caryl concedes the station call letters fade faster than the people behind them. "I remember the people," she says.

How did she get into radio?

The route began with an advertisement on KEZY in Anaheim promoting a broadcasting school taught by working disc jockeys. The appeal was bluntly practical. "They would put you on the air at 2 in the morning," she recalls. "But then you had an aircheck."

She graduated, mailed out cassettes, and landed at KVOY in Yuma — overnights on a country format she did not know, plus the chore of changing reel-to-reel tapes for an automated FM station. Yuma also delivered Guy Davis, the station's morning personality, whom she later married. The two worked as a husband-and-wife morning team at KERN in Bakersfield: he did the disc jockeying, she read the news.

That pairing taught her the skill she considers central to her career — conversation across a microphone. "You're right, it's tricky," she says of finding rhythm with a partner. "And certain people you have it with, and certain people you don't."

Who brought her to Los Angeles?

Two men, in sequence. Program director Rick Scarry heard her while driving along the coast and hired her at KHJ during its "Car Radio" era. Robert W. Morgan, the legendary morning man, was also listening. He brought her in to audition at Magic 106 with a simple plan: a news bit on the Los Angeles Olympics, his wisecracks, her laughter.

Her own wit arrived fast. "I come from a long line in a family of jokesters and smart alecks," she says. Morgan gave her the job.

Their exchanges ran conversational, not scripted. Morgan set the direction of a bit; Caryl listened for the opening. She is candid about his temperament — "I'm not gonna pretend that he didn't make me cry sometimes" — and equally firm about the other side: "He also could be the kindest person." The laughter on air required no acting. "I didn't have to fake a laugh," she says.

A format change ended their Magic 106 run. Caryl moved into programming on the Central Coast, and at Magic 106 in Santa Barbara she built promotions and took the station into the community. Then Morgan called again, this time for K-EARTH, wondering whether she would give up being a program director. Her answer: "I'll be there yesterday."

What does her account add to the record?

It names a remarkable bench. After Morgan's departure from K-EARTH, Caryl worked with guest hosts including Dan Ingram, Dave Diamond, Tom Murphy, Frazer Smith and Charlie Van Dyke, plus morning partner Jim Carson. "Wow, I've hit the lottery," she remembers thinking. Of Charlie Tuna, her KBZT partner in San Diego until another format change, she says plainly: "Charlie Tuna was a gem."

The interview also covers syndicated projects, Christmas features and LA Express, a program for listeners in Japan that broadened her musical range. On being a woman in radio, she credits timing: "I think I had perfect timing," arriving as stations began opening doors.

Her view of the present is cooler — consolidation, fewer slots for local announcers, a crowded digital field in which personality radio feels uncertain. Whether that format survives, the interview documents how it was built: "I always knew how lucky I was," she says.