Gene Nobles

Who was Gene Nobles?

Gene Nobles was an American radio disc jockey who attained fame on Nashville radio station WLAC from the 1940s through the 1970s by playing rhythm and blues music.

Nobles was a former carnival barker, bingo dealer, and announcer on several small Southern radio stations. He became the first Euro-American disc jockey on radio to play popular African-American music regularly. He started this practice before early rock-and-roll jockeys such as Alan Freed and before his fellow WLAC announcers "John R." Richbourg, Bill "Hoss" Allen, and Herman Grizzard. The four WLAC announcers produced evening and late-night shows featuring R&B, soul music, and gospel music. They attracted an audience of African-Americans and Euro-American teenagers well into the early 1970s.

Nobles is credited with introducing artists such as Chuck Berry, Fats Domino, and Little Richard, to a wider audience. Before Nobles' breakthrough programming, R&B artists were heard usually by African-Americans only, who attended their performances at nightclubs on the so-called "Chitlin Circuit" and purchased their records in black-owned stores. Some conservative whites opposed the broadcast of such music, but many others purchased the R&B records and danced to them.