Going back several years ago when Andy Bologovsky sent in a bunch of WAVZ CDs for us, here’s a recording that’s a bit confusing. Its labelled August 1974, and for some of the promos heard in this, it is likely from that date. However, we hear Ron Foster in the middle of the Top 100 countdown of 1969. No idea where that came from but we’ll include it here since it apparently was intended to be a part of this presentation.
We’ll also hear Brian Phoenix, a promo for the movie “Walking Tall”, more Ron Foster in a live remote broadcast. A promo for the movie “Black Godfather” and a spot for Edward Malley’s (a store in New Haven).
This is labelled “Tape 46”, apparently of our Contributor’s own collection. Originally sent in a couple of Summers ago, we return to our vast archives and add this gem to the growing collection of wonderful radio sounds of the past. Enjoy it, John Long’s WAVZ kicked serious ass in a world where AM was king and there was no internet, or personal computers, for that matter!
Music intensive … not an iota of personality … even less than a Drake or Drew station.
Lot of forced, affected and, sometimes, screaming voices.
Station is fine for what it is.
Why did so many stations back then refer to the weather as “environment”?
The V/O guy on “The Black Godfather” spot sounds like Rosco Mercer to me.
Tony
I think that the lack of personality on this aircheck has more to do with what I had to work with. The source tape was obviously chopped up, the contributor having started and stopped his recorder when he heard something he liked. This is NOT what WAVZ typically sounded like. True, lots of screaming jocks, but it really depended upon what jock was on. For instance, when John Long was on, it truly was a work of art. There were other guys, veterans of WAVZ who were real communicators. Ron Foster (I’m sure that wasn’t his real name) here, is mainly a screamer – which was something pretty much in vogue in ’74 – but there was always more to the station than screaming.
This is very reminiscent of KCBQ San Diego’s approach, and back then, that’s how it was done on most Top 40 stations worth their salt, with the exception of ABC stations (WLS, WABC) and every station in the RKO chain and their legendary formats and deejays. Each group owned station had its own sound. Take Westinghouse, for instance. All personality, and no hard rock music, with an emphasis on News and nighttime Talk shows (local, at that!). Listen to KDKA or WBZ as perfect examples of the opposite approach to stations like WAVZ.
13 Waves evolved from the shouting into a very tight, shotgun Top 40 station WITH personality by the late 70s when Kopps-Monahan passed the baton from WAVZ to KC-101 FM. Listen to this aircheck of Judge Harrigan from 1978 and get a feel for what WAVZ became. Or, from where WAVZ came from from 1968 in this aircheck of Bill Beamish on what they then called “Lucky 13” WAVZ was, as most great stations were, more than the sum of its parts. This recording was just chopped up and I made an attempt to try and re-splice things in such a manner as to make the format make sense. Perhaps thats why I waited till now to post it, thinking I could repair a rather poor edit done by whomever recorded it (presumably the contributor). Perhaps that explains it.