Shelly Davis counts down the top hits of 1969 on WRCP Philadelphia | January 1, 1970
Description by contributor John Hendricks:
WRCP overnight personality “Good Guy” Shelly Davis starts the countdown of the top 40 country songs of 1969 just after midnight (and a “Mummers” rendition of “Auld Lang Syne”) from the “Rittenhouse Ranch” (their studios near fashionable Rittenhouse Square in center city). WRCP was Philadelphia’s first city-signal country station from 1967 to 1981.
This tape starts at a couple of minutes past midnight on New Year’s Day (so we’ve missed Auld Lang Syne). Notice the top 40 approach - were this pop music instead of Country, WRCP probably could have competed well against WFIL or WIBG, but this is Country music in the east back in 1970 - not exactly the most popular combination! Still, all the old Top 40 formatics are there including some decent jingles.
Its scoped, and it’s Country, but this is worth listening to for many reasons - it moves right along.
If you know the history of WRCP, we’d sure like you to post your comment below and tell the rest of our listeners… Thanks for sharing your knowledge!
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I worked at WRCP just after this period doing weekend shifts. Have fond memories of the studio in a rowhouse in Center City Philadelphia.ould love to hear from other jocks from back then.
GB
This is fascinating for several reasons. Note that because 1540 was an international clear channel, WRCP(AM) was a daytimer, with a directional 50kw. This midnight show (as the legal ID indicates) therefore was only on WRCP-FM 104.5. Imagine the obscurity of a streamlined, modern country music format on FM in a big Eastern city in 1970. The overall sound is almost prototypically that of an East Coast Top 40, with reverb, jingles and a lively but disciplined personality. WFIL-560 and WIBG-990 were slugging it out in CHR and WRCP sounds like a combo of both stations and nearby WCAO-600 in Baltimore, with a dash of WPGC, WABC and WMEX. Some of the jingles heard here were indeed used on WCAO, and this personality sounds very much like specific 1970’s jocks at WCAO & WPGC. In the late 1960’s and early 1970’s several country stations tried what painfully were called ‘countrypolitan’ formats that sounded like this although not usually executed this well.