Airchexx.com

So I’m thinking, maybe we should have waited till after Thanksgiving to post the Christmas holiday airchecks, no? Back to the day after Christmas, 1983 for a great, original recording of Uncle Johnny (WZOU) at play on Q107. Listen for plenty of overplayed CHR stiffs, like Shannon’s “Let The Music Play”, Billy Joel’s “Uptown Girl” and more… only the intros, gang, to keep us out of hot water with the copyright police.

Unique, if not plastic sounding jingles, dead segues and the talent of Uncle Johnny… A real mix of music on a station that today blandly calls itself “Mix”. In so many ways, a breath of fresh air from today’s sameness… from 1983, HitRadio Q107!

In 1985, WRQX was one of a number of stations which today are playing in the Adult Contemporary world but then were hot CHR stations. Courtesy of contributor Robyn Watts, we have an original recording now of Celeste Clark, working away part of her four day Christmas Holiday (and probably wishing she was returning gifts with half the city).

Noteables here, for those who listen for the tiny details… There’s a few dead segues, and listen for Wham’s “Last Christmas” – except for the All-Christmas stations, who plays Christmas songs AFTER Christmas day? Listen for some unique Q107 jingles and notice that their commercial production is outstanding… in a day when they still used a reel to reel machine and a razor blade.

It’s short, but a pretty good scope of one of Washington’s great CHR stations of the past!

Here’s one that will make you go WOW!… Terry Knight on WEAM – this sounds like a big station, and being that it is in the now-Washington Metro market, it probably was back in ’67. But at only 1,000 watts, who woulda thought?

Big town sound on the station that later would become WMZQ, Washington’s Country station. This relatively flea powered AM served the suburb of Arlington Virginia.

Apparently pulled right off the master reel, this comes to you in stunning audio quality for such an old aircheck. Runs about 5 minutes.

Our newest contributor fits right in on this powerhouse CHR station. It’s vintage 80s on one of DC’s most legendary 80s stations!

Here’s one of our favorites – Tom Kent, heard elsewhere here on WLS & G98, serving up some high-energy Top 40, with all the fixin’s! WAVA is in the early stages of CHR here, once having been a big Rock station. We all know what this station preaches today… but way back when (over 20 years now), this was THE station to listen to in the Washington DC area!

From the late-70s (I’m guessing 1977) when Jimmy Carter was still president and the Nation’s Capitol still had music on AM, here’s Oldies WDON. Alex Mitchell sounds excellent in this, a very AC sounding Oldies-based station.

WDON bills itself as “Washington’s Gold Rush”. Well, this is unique. You’ll never hear The Partridge Family played on any of the remaining Oldies stations today!

This is Musicradio WPGC! From sometime in the 70s, a really GREAT morning show featuring lots of elements to make you smile. A Gong Show type contest at just before the hour… Dan O’Day and “Choose Your News” (some may remember this feature at WLS Chicago), and more!

Overall, this apparently right out-of-the-skimmer tape is fantastic! WPGC would eventually morph into an Urban station in the 80s, but untl then, what an amazing Top 40 station this was!

The beginnings of format fragmentation. The end of traditional Top 40. Whatever you call it, this is how it sounded when Disco stations popped up all over the country.

This is an interesting sounding station. Apparently from 1978, or so we’d guess, 93-KYS calls itself the all disco station, but the playlist is not exclusively disco. You’ll hear a portion of “Love Won’t Let me Wait” by Major Harris… that’s a bit slow for this format… and you’ll also hear KC & The Sunshine Band and a few mainstream disco crossovers in this format. Overall, it sounds good, but your webmaster remembers when Ritchie Balsbaugh launched WXKS-FM (Kiss 108) in Boston back in late ’78, and there wasn’t a slow song in rotation at that station. Also, 93-KYS runs NBC network news, as you’ll hear at the end of this aircheck.

This is a much different sounding station than the Urban flavor that WKYS evolved into, but it’s very interesting and very laid-back for a Disco station. Definitely worth your quarter-hour!

Here’s a short look at the AM side of WWDC from approximately the mid-1970s. While the exact date is unknown (we’ve had good luck with listeners doing research of their own for us – so have at it and post it in the ‘comments’ section below, if you wish), we think this is from a time when there were just two Top 40 AM stations in the nation’s Capitol. The other was the more recognizable WPGC.

This was apparently an ABC O&O station, featuring news from the “American Contemporary Radio” network, and jocks like Lou Katz and Jack Casey. You’ll hear a promotion for the WWDC ‘Something Special’ contest, a few full length commercials and part of a network newscast.

Included on another tape in the ‘annonymous’ donation from Christmas ’04, this is part of the sign off of WPIK Alexandria VA. It invites listeners to tune to their FM station for more Country music all night.

A bit of research turns up that WPIK was on 730 in Alexandria VA, the Washington DC market. Signed on in 1945 and changed call letters to WPKX in 1980 (and those calls have been on 97.9 in Springfield Mass since 1989). You can research the entire AM band history in Washington by going to this website.. Thanks to Thomas A. White for the information.

Very few stations sign off at midnight anymore, but years ago, it was common practice for class C AMs to go off the air at midnight, or at dusk, if they had to protect a clear channel (FCC Designation, not the company) AM station’s night contour. Even some FM stations would sign off at Midnight thinking there wasn’t enough audience to support the light bill during the overnight. So, we bring you a signoff as a part of radio history not often repeated anymore.

Guessing here on the exact year of this aircheck, here’s an interesting look at a station which, were it not for all the Country music, would simply be a great MOR station. If one of our listeners can nail down an exact date, I’ll edit this post appropriately.

Notables: You’ll hear a newscast at 6pm with Dianne Kepley (where did she go from here?), a 98-MZQ Editorial with GM Mike Cohen (when was the last time you heard a station do that?) called “What’s Bugging Us?”, and a full length classic commercial for the Bank of Maryland. Hearing “We’re the Bank” sung over and over becomes irritating but, it’s only a one-minute spot!

One thing of note to our listeners. Second song into this aircheck, the song is garbled and unreadable… don’t quit listening – it was the cart machine at WMZQ not our aircheck which went haywire… or as Jim Randall says, ‘it’s the Italian version…’

Naturally, this is a scoped presentation – but that’s, perhaps, a good thing… many of these old Country songs weren’t too notable, except for Larry Gatlin and the one from George Jones & Tammy Wynette. This is PRE Urban Cowboy Country radio, and surprisingly enough, WMZQ used a Top 40 sounding jock who sounded very much like KHJ’s Charlie Tuna – only two octaves lower!

How long has it been since The Greaseman was DC-101′s morning guy? Courtesy of Matt @ Big Apple Airchecks, this will surely bring back fond memories of the man who had a million stories (or so it seemed). We sure miss hearing Doug Tracht and here’s why.

Here’s a real personality – someone who was a shock jock long before that term existed! Nothing and nobody was off limits, even on his local radio show before syndication.

This starts out with Greaseman taking calls from people who are bulking up – weight lifters who wish to get a bit of advice from Grease himself. The show just goes downhill from there. You’ll hear news, traffic and weather (the morning airstaff consists of he, him and hisself – all under different names!)… and he does play songs in the morning (all of which are scoped, of course), but for an AOR station – check out the variety!!! Smokey Robinson on a station which played Rush & Van Halen as staple artists in 1988? Wow!

Greaseman, as he’s known, was heard for a long time in Jacksonville, Florida on the legendary “Mighty 690″ WAPE in the 70s. His show was later syndicated out of WJFK Washington after his gig at WWDC-FM. It’s been many years since ol’ Grease was heard on a major radio station, which is too bad – he’s one of the greats!

Okay, WAVA Alumn Chris Taylor promised this to me over a year ago… he’s been way too busy, sooo, let me introduce the very FIRST official contribution from airhcexx.com’s crack engineer Lance Venta! Thanks, man!

What more can be said about the final hour? This is the FINAL segment of a five-hour scoped aircheck we featured some time ago which is still available here at airchexx.com by clicking here. WAVA was simply amazing! A great CHR station, one of several during that time period including WRQX Q-107 and WBSB Baltimore B-104. It’s all gone now, with WPGC-FM being Urban, WRQX HotAC and 104.3 just through so many format changes it’s hard to keep up.

The final hour of this great station, like the few I’ve heard done, is really enough to make a WAVA fan cry. One of the best ‘farewell’ hours ever recorded!

Back to the incredibly fabulous and huge Robyn Watts collection for this OUTSTANDING 30 minute composite comparing morning shows in the DC area!

This starts out with Don & Mike’s morning show on WAVA and moves on to Q-107 and WPGC-FM, then cycles through those same stations in order again later in the broadcast day. It sounds great, the audio is crisp, and it’s just wonderful! So listen, dang it!

Jon is these days a national voiceover artist – just go to his website and see what services he has to offer. But, while Jon is definitely a contemporary voice, he’s also definitely one of US – Just listen to these SHORT, but wonderful microscopic-sized QuickChecks from Jon’s days in 70s and 80s-style Top-40 radio!:

* 1977 – Musicradio 68 WMPS Memphis
* 1983 – “All Hit 105″ WAVA Arlington
* 1984 – “Hot Hits” 94.5 WZOU Boston

… more to come from John “Rock & Roll” Anthony shortly!

Back to 1990 when Washington’s WRQX was still CHR – and in some ways playing second fiddle to crosstown WAVA (Arlington VA). In fact, so hot was the competition that you’ll notice how close Danny Wright and Don Geronimo’s voices are (no comparison on this tape but just go listen to Geronimo on WAVA here on airchexx.com)!

Wright is a HOT jock, doing love lines and playing the hits on this Summer night in the nation’s Capital!

The End is always a sad event, but here, the outgoing airstaff at WAVA had a party and took the Washington market’s legendary CHR station out in style!

Instead of writing about the night, you should just listen… I do have a ‘surprise’ that I’ll add into this presentation a bit later… so bookmark this aircheck.

This features the last night from 6 – 11pm, but does not include the last hour staff goodbye and format change… that’ll come later.

Click HERE to Listen!

Here’s another aircheck of Howard Stern before the ‘King of All Media’ returned to New York and subsequent syndication. He’s just as outrageous here as you remember.

Click HERE to Listen!

Compare this with Stern’s debut on 66 WNBC in 1981, and see just how far he had come to this point. Course, at DC-101, he was still playing music.

WPGC today is an Urban station, but back in 1980 it was a very hot top 40 station… and on FM no less! Here, Don Geronimo sounds great, after a stint in New York on 99X. He would later end up at WAVA, along with the likes of Tom Kent and Chris Taylor, among others.

This station was somethin’ else! WAVA was Washington’s hit station for about 7 years and during that time they did plenty of innovative and creative things on the air.

Sadly, it all came to an end many years ago when the station was purchased by a religious broadcaster and turned into a 24/7 preaching outlet.

Return with us to 1985, and this slice of DC radio history with Don Geronimo on All-Hit 105 WAVA!

Click HERE to Listen!