On Mon, 20 Dec 2004 08:32:20 +0000, Don wrote:

MEDINA???

Yep, grew up here and moved back several years ago.

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.

I listened to them back then too ... well, maybe a couple of years
earlier, since I enlisted in the Army in 1968. Don't remember a lot about
WLW, but I'll never forget those "King Edward cigar-time" timechecks on
WWL. I listened more to WKYC (now WTAM) in Cleveland ... and WLS, as I
mentioned earlier.

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.

Like so many AM stations today, WREC is a Clear Channel-owned talker.

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.

I had forgotten that FM100 aired Dolly Holiday's program! Following a
progressive-rock format with "Holiday Inn's Nighttime" always seemed a bit
strange, but somehow the people at FM100 kept the transition from being
too jarring. Sadly, the riverboat-whistle ID hasn't been heard on that
station in a long time. Scripps-Howard sold the WMC-AM/FM/TV operation a
number of years ago; Infinity owns the two radios, and I think Raycom
still owns WMC-TV5. (All three still carry the WMC call letters.)

Gosh, I wonder where her record library is now? As far as that goes, I
wonder where the WKBJ-FM record library is now???

I think Bill Haney and (the late) Larry Dunphy divided it between them.
Wish I had been around to ask for Nancy Sinatra's "Sugar" album -- that
album cover, with Nancy wearing the pink bikini, used to sit in the
control room window when I was working FM. (Hey, I was just a teenager
.... and Nancy Sinatra was wearing that pink bikini .... )

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.

You had commercials? I was there in 1968, and we almost never had
commercials on the FM side; just three breaks an hour for weather and one
at the top for news. AM paid the FM's expenses most of the year, but FM
made money each fall and winter with Milan High School football and
basketball broadcasts.

Today the old WKBJ-FM is all grown up. Changed owners in 1983; callsign
changed to WYNU in 1984; went from an ERP of 28,500 watts at 160 ft. HAAT
to the full 100kw at 1,050 ft. Current owner is Clear Channel, and it's
playing classic rock. The AM is dark, sadly.

--
Walter Luffman Medina, TN USA
Amateur curmudgeon, equal opportunity annoyer
When you see Dan Rather, you CBS

BucketButt wrote:
Today the old WKBJ-FM is all grown up. Changed owners in 1983; callsign
changed to WYNU in 1984; went from an ERP of 28,500 watts at 160 ft. HAAT
to the full 100kw at 1,050 ft. Current owner is Clear Channel, and it's
playing classic rock. The AM is dark, sadly.

Actually, the AM is back, kinda. It's moved to Lakeland (a Memphis
suburb) and resurfaced as religious station WMQM with 50,000 watts
daytime, 35 at night. Most winter days I can hear it here in Cheatham
Co. all day long.
--
Doug Smith W9WI
Pleasant View (Nashville), TN EM66
http://www.w9wi.com