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Sounding suspiciously like Jack Armstrong (I know he’s not, but they say imitation’s the best form of flattery), motor mouth Super Shannon speeds through a 2 and a half minute scope of one of my all time favorite stations, WKBW! Not much more can be said of this other than I wish it was longer, mid-70s KB was hotter than a firecracker, as most people who listened up and down the eastern seaboard will attest to.

Here’s a very young J.R. Russ on Buffalo suburban WECK. The recording is distorted, probably due to the receiver being tuned slightly off frequency. It’s interesting to note that this station, while likely not trying to compete with then powerhouse WKBW, is playing some of the same music.

WECK is still around today. RadioTime.com lists it as Classic Country, but in programming notes, the only item listed is for Polkas. How many stations out in suburban areas tried right up till the 80s to program a semi-contemporary music format, only to find that by the early 80s they were pretty much irrelevant, do you suppose? Nonetheless, this is the radio we all remember, for good or bad and frankly, it’s refreshing to remember how many of us got our start in this radio business.

NEWLY REMASTERED 12/2/06

Of all the recordings I kept over the years, only two have survived from the 70s. The first is a Chicago “Greatest Hits” cassette that I got for Christmas in 1976. The second is this aircheck that I recorded one cold winter night – from my home in Massachusetts, about 500 miles from the station.

One of the nice things about AM radio (what some would call annoying) was the nighttime propagation which with even a decent table radio would pull in these powerhouse AM top 40 stations at night. And, it was good quality, too. No computers to throw spurrious buzzes and whirrs all over the spectrum.

So it was that KB Radio was my favorite station, and Al Bandiero was definitely my favorite jock in 1979. It wouldn’t be till years later that I knew he was big at WIFI 92 in Philly, and a hit in New York at Hot 97 WQHT and even now at 103-5 KTU. Just goes to prove, good jocks outlive any consolidation attempts!

Audio notes… I’ve remastered this now, and the source tape has degraded much over the years. Nonetheless, I think it’s a good quality aircheck that scoped, runs 12 minutes. There was so much heavy fading the night I recorded this that I had to use some processing and eq on this, so there’s a bit of compression and white noise which just can not be helped. Sorry about that. I try to leave these in the same condition as they are on the tape but this one was recorded on the cheapest of Scotch brand recording tape and I’m quite frankly surprised it lasted this long.

We don’t do it often, but the audio quality is so good on this that we have to take you back to 1961. KB really WAS the biggest thing to ever happen to Buffalo! This aircheck proves why WKBW took off from it’s earliest inception as a Top 40 station in 1959 to become a legend among its fans right up through the early 80s.

Enjoy newsman Irv Weinstein with “Pulse Beat News”, the old weather reports (it’s 74 KB-grees), real KLASSIC commercials (wow this shows how more ‘modest’ our society was), and those old, OLD jingles! Remember, this is an ORIGINAL recording of WKBW, not a recreation.

Compare this with a much-later recording of Al Bandiero’s night show from 1979.

Current owner Entercom, of course, tried to capture lightning in a bottle a few years ago with its KB-Klassics ‘Real Oldies’ format recreation, but it just didn’t work. We know here… that this timeless radio belongs archived on the internet, right here on airchexx.com!

Another, from Matt @ Big Apple Airchecks!

Here’s a second serving of Al Bandiero on WKBW. The first, from February ’79 can be heard here..

When the archives are fully restored, you’ll be able to hear Bandiero on WIFI 92 Philadelphia and WXLO 99X New York – both airchecks were originally posted on this site in 2003.

Bandiero and KB are both your webmaster’s favorites, and if someone in New York City ever hears him on the air (Last I heard he was at 103-5 KTU doing Part Time), please remember to record him (or Bill Lee!).