performers of later years, such as johnny winter, and the allman brothers, duane and greg, have credited the station as being a valuable source of inspiration for their artistic development. according to levon helm, robbie robertson listened to wlac in toronto. as a teenager, robertson would stay up all night to hear blues from deejay john r. a strange irony about the phenomenon was unknown to most listeners of that time: all four disc jockeys were in fact middle-aged white men, not african-americans, as their southern, gravelly, drawling voices suggested. richbourg and allen in particular made frequent use of colloquialisms most familiar to their audience, thereby convincing many that they were "soul brothers," as a common expression of that day would have had it.