Otis Redding appeared in the finale. In the 1960s WLAC's television sister had a similar late-night show on Fridays. Night Train featured many of the artists Allen and his colleagues played on their radio shows. Noble Blackwell, an African-American jockey on a rival Nashville radio station, hosted the show. It was one of the first locally-produced programs on a Southern U.S. TV station to feature black musicians prominently. It is believed that Jimi Hendrix made his first television appearance on that program. Surviving the purge In the early 1970s, Allen chose to adjust to new management's direction and moved toward more funk and smooth soul offerings, discontinuing most of the oldies. His longtime cohorts Richbourg and Nobles decided to quit rather than change their programs. New management wanted the station schedule to conform to a pop hits format. By early 1975, "the Hossman" was the lone jockey working at WLAC who had been there as long as five years. After a brief absence from the airwaves, Allen reformatted his show as Early Morning Gospel Time With The Hossman, a showcase for national and regional black gospel acts. In addition, he moved the show from late evening to the pre-dawn hours of the morning. Since he had been taping his programs since about 1970, he did not have to adjust his personal schedule. For about ten years, Allen had a lower public profile than in the show's 1950s/1960s heyday. In off-station time, he worked as a music producer for several local acts. In the mid-1980s, WLAC's sister station, WLAC-FM (now WNRQ), used Allen's voice in a promotional campaign. As such, his memorable drawling sound was brought back to public consciousness in the Nashville area. Local ad agencies enlisted Allen to supply voiceovers on various radio and television commercials. For several years, this became a quite lucrative sideline. Allen continued his gospel show until 1993, which was a favorite among his longtime African-American listeners. This was more than a decade after WLAC dropped all other music in favor of a news and talk format in the daytime and paid religion in the evening hours. Although in 1986 and 1987 Allen made an attempt to revive his R&B/soul/blues show on Saturday evenings, the show failed due to lack of promotion and pre-emptions by Vanderbilt football and basketball coverage, the rights to which WLAC held at the time (the station regained the rights in