Month: January 2012
Nick Summers, “Hit Music 104” KZZP Phoenix | June 11, 1984
Courtesy of the folks at AircheckDownloads.com, here’s a short, 3 minute scope of the old “Hit Music 104” KZZP out of Phoenix. It’s called “Kiss-FM” today, but go back with us to the Summer of ’84 when this was a personality-oriented top 40. Comments are most welcome.
Motor City Gold – Detroit-Area Radio, Circa 1971, Part 2
In October of 2004, in our second year on the web, we posted a series of aircheck tapes entitled “Old Gold”. The series was called that based upon one of the Oldies formats at one of the Detroit area stations. There were 12 actual tapes in the series, but for some odd reason we only posted six. And we had consolidated four of what we though were only 10 tapes into the six that we posted. Recently, I came across two envelopes containing two more of these Detroit area scopes. The tapes are old, dusty and the oxide is worn off much of the tape surface. But they do play, and we’re now going to present these final two Gold tapes in a four part series that we’d like to call, “Motor City Gold” You’ll hear plenty of banter, bits of news, commercials and lo...
Jim Maddux, 1580 KDAY Los Angeles | March 15, 1976
Despite it’s years as a mainly R&B and Soul station, 1580 KDAY would earn it’s place in the sun as what could be termed the very first “Rock 40” format – some 8 years before WLS Chicago earned the format title. The format was relatively short lived, two or three years, from what I remember people telling me, but in some ways, KDAY became legendary, if not for the Rock 40 format, for it’s ‘first in the nation’ Rap format which followed on from roughly 1977 through the 1990s. This recording is from the end of the Rock 40 format. Not knowing much more about the background of this station, I’ll once again invite our West Coast ‘expert’ to share his thoughts, and perhaps you have some personal memories of this AM Rocker that...
Motor City Gold – Detroit-Area Radio, Circa 1971, Part 1
In October of 2004, in our second year on the web, we posted a series of aircheck tapes entitled “Old Gold”. The series was called that based upon one of the Oldies formats at one of the Detroit area stations. There were 12 actual tapes in the series, but for some odd reason we only posted six. And we had consolidated four of what we though were only 10 tapes into the six that we posted. Recently, I came across two envelopes containing two more of these Detroit area scopes. The tapes are old, dusty and the oxide is worn off much of the tape surface. But they do play, and we’re now going to present these final two Gold tapes in a four part series that we’d like to call, “Motor City Gold” You’ll hear plenty of banter, bits of news, commercials and lo...
“Jumpin’ Jack Flash”, 94.1 WOGY “Froggy 94” Memphis | June, 2000
Perhaps one of the better known ‘themed’ radio formats around the U.S. is the ‘Froggy’ brand of Country music stations. Animal names seem to dominate Country stations, some of the better known brands being “The Wolf” – KPLX Dallas, “Cat Country” (there’s a couple we know about, Cat Country 98.1 WCTK Providence, RI and Cat Country 98.7 Jacksonville FL…), but perhaps due to the uniqueness of a ‘FROG’ – how memorable!… well, more than a few stations have taken up the Froggy name. Pittsburgh has one. Jackson, TN has not only ‘Froggy’, but the old WOGY call letters used in Memphis until January 2001. There’s one in Scranton PA, and a couple elsewhere in the country. But for many years, fr...
Rick Dees in the Morning, 102.7 KIIS-FM/1150 KIIS-AM Stereo Los Angeles | Summer, 1985
Rick Dees began his career sometime in the early 1970s in the state of Mississippi. His first claim to fame occurred in Memphis, at 56 WHBQ, that powerful Top 40 station which was home to many legendary deejays, including George Klein, Wink Martindale and others. Following his phenomenal success at WHBQ with his sidekick, Terrance McKeever, Dees left for California. Being that WHBQ was an RKO station, Dees was essentially called up to the big leagues from the brass at RKO, and sent to 93 KHJ. When KHJ began to implode due to a number of factors, Dees found himself unemployed… for two, excruciating years before finally landing the morning show at KIIS-FM. There, Dees found himself presiding over the number one radio morning show in Los Angeles, a place where he would stay until he was...
Frank Kingston Smith; Norm Nathan & Jordan Rich “Morning Magazine”, 68 WRKO Boston | May 28,1981
By 1981, music on AM Radio across the U.S. was well in decline. Stations at RKO General were typical of many ownership groups of the time and most of their AM stations had either already abandoned their highly successful Top 40 formats of the previous two decades or were in the process of doing so. This aircheck was recorded on Memorial Day, 1981. At the time of this recording, WRKO was a very different sounding radio station than just a few years prior. As had occurred in Philadelphia at WIBG (which changed call letters with its format), WRKO had become a rather sleepy, personality oriented Adult/Contemporary station. Furthermore, the broadcast day was split in half, with the AC Music format being aired during the day, but then shifting to talk shows evenings and late night, most notably,...
Steve West, WMBZ 94-1 The Buzz Memphis | February 2001
From the ashes of Country station WOGY ‘Froggy 94’ arose this Modern AC station called “The Buzz”. This one jock who started a classic radio website poured his heart and soul into the 7-12 night show, back before live evenings became a thing of satellite feeds and pre-recorded voice tracks. It’s early on in the year 2000, the Buzz is only two months old and as far as I can tell, this is the only known aircheck of WMBZ. Looking back, this format had serious potential, however, Entercom brass wanted to take the format in a different direction – eventually backing off on the Rock and watering down what now sounds like a Rock-Based top 40. We’ll talk about what happened to this station, which as of this writing is known as Classic Hits 94-1 KQK. On a p...
John Burwell & WTMA (Charleston) Music Machine Blooper
Courtesy of Mike Raub, here’s an aircheck that proves the worth of 5 second delay. WTMA didn’t have one, apparently. This speaks for itself….
Steve Sawyer, 1390 WCAT Orange, MA | March, 1983
Twenty-Nine years ago this March, I recorded this cassette on a skimmer in the studio of the old WCAT. In doing the research to find one of the old station logos, I was shocked to realize that there’s no logo, no graphic, picture or anything left of the station that I got my start in radio. One would think that something survived, and yet, even though P&S Broadcasting finally sold out in the 1990s, One can’t find ANYTHING on the original facility in Orange, Mass. With that background, I’ll do the till-now unthinkable, and violate the six-degrees-of-separation rule. I mean, why not? This whole website is about the history of radio and what’s more historic than telling the story about a long lost, forgotten AM station – one which is so telling about where r...
Eight Minutes with Q-106 – KKLQ San Diego | November 15, 1996
Out of the newly minted Doug North Collection comes this just-over-eight-minute scope of the old KKLQ Q106 San Diego. Q106 is another one of those West Coast stations that stands out due to it’s popularity and the jocks who passed through on their way up (and sometimes down) their radio careers. During the period of time that this was recorded, Q106 would have format competitors KHTS “Channel 933” and XHITZ 90.3 (From just across the Mexican boarder in Tijuana). Sometime after 2004, KKLQ flipped to Spanish Language programming under the call letters KLNV – La Nueva 106.5. That format continues as of this writing. Interested visitors and station fans of Q106 are cordially invited to comment below. Please, fill us in on what you know of this aircheck or station.
Chris Edwards, WDEN (AM) Macon GA | 1970
This is the Grady Spires show, and filling in here is Chris Edwards. We don’t know much about radio in Macon, GA, much less WDEN AM and FM. But it’s obvious that someone went to a great deal of trouble in making a professional scope of this Country music station. We’re guessing the year on this to be 1970, although fans of Classic Country could probably pinpoint this down via the hit songs played. Jingles are used frequently, although we can’t identify what company they are from. Most interesting is the network affiliation with “Information Radio News”. Apparently this was one of the services of American Information Radio. My first guess without asking the powers that be would be to think this might have been the forrunner of what is now IRNUSA Radio ...
