Joe Cunningham, WHLO Akron | May 30, 1970
Feb 01, 2009 
6 Comments
Someone commented on another exhibit that it was so nice back in the old days of AM music stations to be able to travel from one city to another and be able to tune into local and regional, live stations, staffed by talented jocks and newsmen. Looking back, these guys put together a sound that sounded great. Perhaps that’s how you’ll feel listening to this aircheck of Newsman Dave Lieber and Deejay Joe Cunningham on the Big 64.
What I find interesting about this is not so much the format, are the songs in the playlist. These are NOT the same junk tunes we hear over and over ad-nauseum on today’s Oldies or Classic Hits stations. Webmaster’s disclaimer: Full length songs are edited out to comply with copyright law. You only hear a few seconds at the beginning and end.
Included: A partial report on the 1970 Indy 500 in progress that day in a rain delay, and live commercial reads (who does that anymore?)
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Good point on local AM radio back in the day. What fun it was driving into different cities big and small to hear live local programming and deejays an music different from town to town. Now AM is the same whereever you go, syndicated talk, sports talk, religion and spainish. No live jocks. You cant even get a weather forecast on weekends! And on the FM dial oldies and Classic Rock play the same beat up top 10. On this aircheck is the Fortunes “Same old Feeling”. When is the last time you heard that song on your” Good times, great oldies syndicated satellite oldies channel.
Love it, I was the engineer playing the records for Joe at Maddox Furniture. Sure brings back memories. Sad to say that Joe passed awaw a few years ago. He was a good friend. Just fyi. It’s Dave Libereth not Liber. If any other alumni of WHLO for this period 60′s to ’80′s sees this, would love to hear from you.
Fred, former CE.
I remember growing up listening to WHLO “Hello Radio”. Bobby Harper starting the show Sunday at eleven in the morning. Joe Cunningham signing off by saying, A smile on my face and a song in my heart for you.” “Goodnight everybody.” Those were the good days of AM radio.
I remember old studio in O’NEIL store building in 1960′S I visited there many times to see dj’s on air viewing from the glass and getting top tune survey sheets.
Remember station going off air at 745 PM in winter and 11PM in summer due to KFI in LA CAL 640
I am now 63 years old still live in AKRON I have old airchecks from 1963.
I remember station going on air at 6 am
Good old days of AM radio
From longtime listener WHLO AND WHKK
I just found an old window advertisment – “TEEN_AGE DANCE featuring WHLO Disc Jockey every Wednesday 8:00 to 11:00 pm MINERVA ROLLER RINK Admission 75@ ” Any idea what years they were held ?? Super old nostalgia from the good ole days !! Thanks for any help !!
I used to listen to the WHLO Top 40 Countdown Shows. They put a usable signal into Southwest Cuyahoga County. Used to keep my own list of different stations’ Top 40, or in the case of CKLW, Top 30 list. Todd “Turkey” Taylor hosted many of these shows. I remember songs that I only heard on WHLO. Do you? Here are mine:
“PISTOL LEGGED MAMA” by TOMMY ROE.
This was one of WHLO’s “Pick Hits of The Week”, meaning a new song they thought had a good chance of making a big splash. This was one of Tommy’s last ABC records. It bombed. As you might think, it was an upbeat bubble-gum Rock song.
“CHILD OF DECEMBER” by Larry Sanders.
Now, here’s something that won’t happen much, if at all, on your local CHR station… the playing of a local area record. This was mid tempo soft rock piece. It was on the Stone Head Records label from Mansfield Ohio. The song got a second life as the very last track on the Climax album that featured their smash hit “Precious and Few”.
“WE’RE ALL PLAYING IN THE SAME BAND” by BERT SOMMER. Bert was a critic’s fave who everybody had high hopes for. I think he was the first artist to play at Woodstock. This is a medium-upbeat acoustic pop-rock tune that attempts to be a fun sing-a-long type tune.