Bill "Hoss" Allen was a pioneering rhythm and blues and gospel disc jockey who worked in radio for more than 40 years. During the 1950s, ’60s and ’70s, his nightly shows on WLAC in Nashville played a pivotal role in broadening the base of R&B and soul music, and he also created the television series “The !!!! Beat,” featuring many of the top R&B stars of the 1960s. Later he hosted a long-running gospel radio show. Although he worked almost exclusively with African American music, he was white. William Trousdale Allen III was born in Gallatin on Dec. 3, 1922, and was brought up in his grandfather’s household, where the family’s maid introduced him to African American gospel music by taking him to her church. His nickname came from his grandfather, who called him “My hoss and saddle.” He attended Vanderbilt University in 1941 and ’42 before joining a USO band as a drummer during World War II. After the war he resumed classes at Vanderbilt, but in September 1948 left to become an announcer on Gallatin’s new local station, 1,000-watt WHIN. On April 10, 1949, he moved to Nashville’s 50,000 watt clear channel station, WLAC, where he sold airtime and ran promotions while occasionally filling in for Gene Nobles. After Nobles’ retirement in 1955, Allen took over WLAC’s nighttime slot. The station’s signal reached from Alaska to Jamaica, and his delivery and choice of music led many listeners to assume he was African American. He developed cross-cultural appeal and built a strong following for R&B among white teenagers. Among the artists he helped to launch were James Brown and Otis Redding, and artists including Bob Sefer, The Band, and Waylon Jennings later cited his influence. He developed or adopted catchphrases for sponsors, including “It’s git down time,” which became part of vernacular speech. In 1960, after the Congressional Payola Investigations began limiting the freewheeling climate in radio, he took a job with Chess Records in record production and promotion. In 1963, WLAC asked him to return to host a nighttime gospel show. Outside radio he joined several business ventures, including a partnership in Nashville’s Pro-Sound Studios, the founding of several record labels, and concert promotion. Most memorably, he hosted and booked 26 episodes of “The !!!! Beat,” filmed in Dallas and designed for syndication, though it failed to attract sponsors. Its featured artists included Etta James, Freddie King, Otis Redding, Percy Sledge, Sam and Dave, and Louis Jordan. After a change of ownership, WLAC canceled his shows in 1978. He then worked for Nashville television station WZTV, but returned to WLAC in February 1980 and continued hosting his gospel show there until 1993, when it was the station’s only non-talk show. He died on Feb. 25, 1997. In 1994, he and two other pioneering WLAC disc jockeys were inducted into the Blues Hall of Fame, and in 2010 he was inducted into the Gospel Music Hall of Fame.