Al Anthony is a former Los Angeles

Los Ángeles

Los Ángeles is the capital of the province of Biobío, in the commune of the same name, in Region VIII , in the center-south of Chile. It is located between the Laja and Biobío rivers. The population is 123,445 inhabitants...

 radio personality. Anthony was most well known as a disc jockey for KAFY 550 AM in Bakersfield, California

Bakersfield, California

Bakersfield is a city near the southern end of the San Joaquin Valley in Kern County, California. It is roughly equidistant between Fresno and Los Angeles, to the north and south respectively....

 during the 1950s and later at KFXM 590 AM in San Bernardino, California

San Bernardino, California

San Bernardino is a city located in the Riverside-San Bernardino metropolitan area , and serves as the county seat of San Bernardino County, California, United States...

 during the 1960s, where he was also the station's Director of Operations. In 1958 and 1959, Anthony was the top rated DJ in the United States.

Military service

Anthony is a Korean War

Korean War

The Korean War was a conventional war between South Korea, supported by the United Nations, and North Korea, supported by the People's Republic of China , with military material aid from the Soviet Union...

 veteran, having served as an aircraft technician in the United States Air Force

United States Air Force

The United States Air Force is the aerial warfare service branch of the United States Armed Forces and one of the American uniformed services. Initially part of the United States Army, the USAF was formed as a separate branch of the military on September 18, 1947 under the National Security Act of...

. In 1949, he was on board a Boeing

Boeing

The Boeing Company is an American multinational aerospace and defense corporation, founded in 1916 by William E. Boeing in Seattle, Washington. Boeing has expanded over the years, merging with McDonnell Douglas in 1997. Boeing Corporate headquarters has been in Chicago, Illinois since 2001...

 B-50 Superfortress

B-50 Superfortress

The Boeing B-50 Superfortress strategic bomber was a post-World War II revision of the Boeing B-29 Superfortress, fitted with more powerful Pratt & Whitney R-4360 radial engines, stronger structure, a taller fin, and other improvements. It was the last piston-engined bomber designed by Boeing for...

 named Lucky Lady II for a non-stop, around-the-world flight that was the first such trip for that aircraft model.

Early Radio Career

After his military service, Anthony graduated from Los Angeles State College, where he majored in television and radio broadcasting. He later attended Ogden's Radio Operational Engineering School and earned a Lifetime FCC 1st Class License.

Anthony's first radio jobs were part-time work for KBLA 1580 AM

KBLA

KBLA is a radio station licensed to Santa Monica, California, with an Spanish religious radio format. It broadcasts at 1580 kHz with 50,000 watts day and night. Most of this station's signal is dumped over the Pacific Ocean, however, in order not to interfere with radio station KMIK KBLA (1580 AM)...

 in Santa Monica, California

Santa Monica, California

Santa Monica is a beachfront city in western Los Angeles County, California, US. Situated on Santa Monica Bay, it is surrounded on three sides by the city of Los Angeles — Pacific Palisades on the northwest, Brentwood on the north, West Los Angeles on the northeast, Mar Vista on the east, and...

 and KSPA 1510 AM in Santa Paula. In 1956, Anthony was hired as a full-time personality at KSLR in Oceanside.

AFTRA Strike

On October 25, 1968, Anthony was the Director of Operations at KFXM, Tiger Radio 590, when an AFTRA strike resulted in a walkout of the radio station's on-air staff, including Jim Conniff (son of big band leader Ray Conniff), Charlie Walters, Brad Edwards, Don McCoy (AKA "The Magical Mystery Man"), Jonny Bruce and Craig Denny -- along with the announcing staff over at sister station KDUO-FM. Anthony and other members of the station's management and sales staff immediately took over disc jockeying duties, adopting the mysterious personas of The Jones Boys. Al Anthony went by the alias, Casey Jones, while the other fill-in DJs were similarly referred to as "John Paul Jones" (AKA Dan Daly), "Davy Jones" (AKA Danny Dare), "Lonesome Jones" (AKA Gary Evans), "Tom Jones" (AKA Dave McKay), "Unsinkable Jones" (AKA Bob b. Blue), "Just Plain Jones" (AKA Kim Terry) and "Anonymous Jones" (AKA Al Barnett). There was also a "Pappy Jones", a KFXM/KDUO-FM station engineer. This strategy not only allowed the station to survive the walkout, but resulted in an increase in ratings due to the mystery surrounding the "new" DJs. On July 4, 1969, the true air staff identities of The Jones Boys was finally publicly revealed in a new Tiger Tune Sheet weekly survey format published on that date. Also, the status of the AFTRA strike grievances remained indeterminate at that time. (4)