On 17 Dec 2004 18:09:15 GMT, BucketButt
wrote:
On Mon, 13 Dec 2004 18:10:40 +0000, Mike Terry wrote:
"What AM Station do you miss the most? Think broad: It could
be a station on the air currently, but you miss its prior format, or
it could be a set of call letters long gone from the dial."
If I had to narrow it down to one station, I'd have to say WLS/Chicago
during the 1960s. Like most teenagers in mid-America I tuned in every
night because they had the Top 40 hits days before my local stations; but
as much as I enjoyed the music, I loved the disc jockeys even more! Those
were the days of "personality" deejays who understood how to entertain the
audience between records, but without forgetting that the music itself was
the reason they were there. Dick Biondi, Ron Riley, Art Roberts, Clark
Weber -- these were the heroes of my youth, and instrumental in my getting
into radio myself.
I suppose if I had grown up a little closer to New York I'd have felt the
same way about the WABC Good Guys -- but WABC just didn't get into West
Tennessee all that well, while WLS boomed in.
MEDINA???
I can't believe it. I just started reading this group again after
being too busy for many months.
I also was raised in west Tennessee, Crockett County. I was a
musician as a teen and enjoyed late-night driving in west Tennessee
after a gig. On clear nights, I would listen to this great station
from Cincinnati, I think it was WLW. All easy-listening (AM) and no
announcements regarding the music, just a station ID and an occasional
spot. But for AM, WLW was VERY laid back in the late 1960s/early
1970s. The other station I enjoyed was WWL from the beautiful Blue
Room, high atop the Roosevelt Hotel in downtown New Orleans. Similar
music format. Great signal to west Tennessee.
There was "Music 'Till Midnight" on WREC AM60 in Memphis. What a
great show. The founder of the station, Hoyt B. Wooten, tried to give
WREC the finest sound technology would provide. He was famous for his
underground bomb-shelter, so large that he used to throw parties
there. And WREC had a fabulous "sound" compared to other AM stations.
Then...there was Dolly Holiday and "Holiday Inn's Nighttime" The
first "rock" FM station in Memphis, FM-100 WMC would play the
Beatles's "Good Night" at midnight, then ole Dolly Holiday would come
on for the next 5 hours or so, playing Jackie Gleason, Bobby Hacket,
Mancinni and all of the other slurpy, mushy music that I really loved.
In the early 1970s, I did a few "live shows" with her for some group
at the main Holiday Inn on Lamar in Memphis. One day, we went back to
her office, down the hall in one of the buildings of the Holiday Inn
headquarters. Before I knew where we were going, I looked up through
the double glass windows of a "radio studio." It was her studio where
she recorded the program. Looking back now, I kick myself for not
nurturing that relationship, bringing a camera and taking some good
photos.
That was back in the day that 7/11 stores opened at 7am and closed at
11pm.
Thinking out loud
Gosh, I wonder where her record library is now? As far as that goes,
I wonder where the WKBJ-FM record library is now???
/Thinking out loud
I used to work at WKBJ-FM in Milan, easy listening from those
wonderful LPs. AM played country-music with too many cheap
commercials and sounded terrible!!! FM was "easy listening" and
played only 1 or 2 spots per hour. This was in 1969, before they
automated in 1970.
Just a few weeks ago, I began experimenting with my own BEAUIFUL MUSIC
Internet Radio station. Give it a listen.
http://ct1.fast-serv.com:8314/listen.pls
I have over 1000 LPs of just the easy-listening/beautiful-music genre.
It takes a while to record them into the computer, in real time. But
the music can't be beat. I am working on this project a little at a
time.
I have been in Dallas for 22-years and have seen a few changes even
here. Occasionally (which is not very often) I will be away from the
city at night, away from the interference and the thick, overloaded
local AM band. Usually, that is on one of my trips back to Tennessee.
I still try to tune in those good old stations. But radio is not what
it used to be. I can never find an AM station, playing that type of
music at night. So I listen to tape-delays of the talk-guys, still
not too bad. But...even with digital, stereo satellite broadcasting
static-free entertainment directly from the sky to your car radio,
nothing will be quite the same as a summer-night's ride on the dark,
rural highways, with the full-moon shining and music coming from far,
far away, from WLW or WWL with their easy listening, or even the great
jocks at WLS in Chicago.
Duke, Duke, Duke, Duke of Earl, Duke, Duke, Duke of Earl, Duke, Duke,
Duke of Earl, Duke Duke...well you get the idea.
Check out Beautiful Music Radio, built by a Tennessean and enjoyed by
the world!
http://ct1.fast-serv.com:8314/listen.pls
Nostalgic Don in Dallas
www.airstreamfm.com
www.calldon.com
"We ain't gone be po no mo."
- - Pastor Greg Powe, Atlanta