At just over 2 minutes this is definitely a QuickCheck – but seriously folks, with the massive amount of reverb we sure wish this was longer! Includes a couple of song intros, lotsa commercials and the start of a newscast (legal ID included!).
WBBF Rochester | June 14, 1967
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This IS the late Jessica Savtich, who became an NBC News reporter/anchor, and whose rapid rise and tragic fall has been chronicled in two books. This aircheck is quoted in one of them– “Almost Golden” by Gwenda Blair.
Remember Rochester’s little Top 40 giant BBF well
This is the station I grew up with, Where I heard the hits first…
I remember Jessica Savitch even more for the
TV commercials she used to do for Hadlock’s house of paints….
I wish somebody had more of these types flashbacks…Ferdinand J, Lanny Frattare(who moved on and still is the voice of the Pittsburgh Pirates) Larry White, Jerry Carr, Ron DeFrance,
Jack Palvino or Tim Griffen….
Anyway, this was a great slice
What brought the good times of Rochester radio back to life, was a short stop a couple of years back on a Buffalo station WKBW 1520. They had taken a 50s/60s format, and brought it to life again, until Entercom bought out the station and changed the format to a left wing format (wrong move!) Since that time I had descovered WBBF was tried on the FM, but not as it was in the 60s.
I remember as a kid going back & forth between WBBF & WAXC. I remember Ferdinand Js show which was live on BBF, while WAXY had Wolfman Jack via syndication.
I remember Larry White, but don’t know where he landed. Jerry Carr was still around as I entered into broadcasting in the 80s. I last heard him on either WEZO or WRMM. Ron Defrance I remember hearing on BBF, and then seeing him on what was WOKR, now WHAM-TV13. Jack Palvino I remember most. I remember waking up with Palvino in the morning as WBBF was giving it a last ditch effort to gain its shares back in the market. I recall the last show with Jack Palvino & Dick Tobias on The AM dial, and then The start of both on the FM dial as WVOR-100 made it’s mark in Rochester.
I still believe that if a station was to re-create a format alike WBBF, the way it was back in the 60s, it would sell better than some of the classic oldies stations we have on the air now.
Dave, Entercom owned WWKB before the switch TO the KB Klassic format. I must agree with you however, that they could have found something better than the left wing trash they put on 1520 when Real Oldies didn’t work out.
Its tough, my friend… the AM dial is now virtually a barren wasteland of junk signals, with maybe one or two good news and information type stations in a market. I’m not sure Entercom really had much else they could have done with KB, except PROMOTE the damn format and maybe just updated the music. Even that would have been difficult, as they never would have beaten WHTT. So, that’s reality, format choices are quite limited on AM…. but I agree with the sentiment – it was too bad Entercom had to dump the Oldies format. It was nice while it lasted.
Dave,
Thank you., it’s nice to be remembered. Those were great days to be in radio. It was always exciting with the latest music from the Motown groups, The Beatles, The Stones, etc.
I ended my 19 years in Rochester with Jack Palvino and others at WVOR in sales. Later the company transferred me to Buffalo where I spent seven great years as the VP/General Manager of what became Buffalo’s number one FM station, WBUF.
I left the day to day radio business in April ‘91 and now do commercial voiceovers for clients across the country from my home recording studio.
All the best,
Larry White
Hi me again. Nice to see Larry White Checked in!
I would love itif someone actually put together a
WBBF tribute sight like KB, CKLW, WABC,KHJ and even WOLF in Syracuse I think the “BBF of the 90’s” morning man Alex Feaster made an effort to do so but it never got off the ground. Is there any hope??? Anyway, radio has changed largely because of automation…”Robot-radio”…songs don’t skip anymore but along with eliminating the “risk” of things going wrong technically,comes erasure of the human element has also almost exterminated good spontenaity…
I have moved from Rochester to Atlanta GA and now there is a national format called The True Oldies channel..it is a throwback in personality AND the actual music it plays…many songs there were Top 40 staples but neveror barely cracked the Top 15..I am impressed with the variety-
I love reading all the history of radio in Rochester and Buffalo. I grew up with it as well. I’d also like to mention station WSAY also. Personally, I listened to that one more than the others, except for KB. In my opinion both AM and FM is nothing but a wasteland these days.Once they stopped being locally owned, that was the nail in the coffin.I used to converse with Jack Armstrong from WKBW, ( God rest his soul) and , well just say, he was not a happy camper when KB was axed. The only way to hit these big companies in the pocket book is just to quit listening. If companies arn’t buying advertising time because no one is listening, then maybe they’ll listen. Until then, they could care less what you think.
I remember going to the WBBF Zoofest at Seneca Park Zoo as a kid. Those were some good times. Does anyone remember those years they were held.
Wasn’t it the same time the use to have the Hike For Hope in Rochester. Does anyone have any pixs of these events ?
Billy Don’t Be A Hero
Little Willy
Seasons In The Sun
I remember Zoofest. My father was affiliated with volunteer work at the Zoo ( I think he was like the President od the Zooilogical Society or something like that, it’s not like it came with any cool perks or anything). My brother actually came up with the name Zoofest (that certainly didn’t come with any extra anything). Foreigner played there before they made it big since Lou Graham is from Rochester. This had to be the early 70’s. I can find out the years. Don’t think there were any pics that we have.
Hey, Larry White failed to mention that after he left WBUF, the station never had the ratings they enjoyed while he was there. Nor did WAXC. Come to think of it, neither did WBBF. I had the pleasure of working with ‘Lar a couple of times in my career…and it was a sad day for radio when he left the day to day business. I also worked at WSAY, WBBF in the early days and had a pretty exciting 3 month run at WUHF TV (before “Ranger Bob”.) “Robo Radio” isn’t the problem these days, it’s “Robo Owners” trying to run radio from a long distance. But I digress. It was fun being part of what we did on the radio-We did the first “Bear-A-Thon” at the Seneca Park Zoo..as I recall it was Dick Tobias’ idea to do something to raise money for a new polar bear enclosure. It ended when one of the Zoo Fests held an impromptu wet t-shirt contest. At WAXC, we did “Hike For Hope” for many years-always a huge success. The most exciting part of WSAY was when the transmitter actually came to life every morning. One Sunday morning, Midtown Tower had a power failure -and we had to broadcast from the Clinton Avenue transmitter building. Because I lived close, and I had done a “hop” the night before I brought over all my Albums, 45’s and turntables (the ones in the emergency studio had no needles)-and we broadcast there for 8 hours. We ended up traveling back to Midtown to get some cart machines – carrying them up and down the 8 floors-and finally contacted a local mobile DJ to set us up for live operation (after Casey Kasem’s American Top 40 aired from a Garrard Record Changer-at the wrong speed)-and the Mobile DJ turned out to be Bernie Kimble, the PD of competitor WCMF.
I go all the way back to WARC and the ARC Light Parade broadcasting from the Seneca Hotel. But I do fondly recall WBBF and people like Nick Nickson who spun the records. I remember him introducing Eartha Kitt -”C’est si bon” and Lolita – “Seeman”. My that was a long time ago.
I remember visiting and saying hi to Jessica downtown when she was doing a van remote. It was kind of strange to visit a girl DJ back then and I do remember a bit of sadness in her face. WBBF was the first station I listened to in Rochester. I have a WBBF hit list from that era with Jessica the honeybee’s picture.
I also liked WSAY and it’s progressive rock juxtaposed with the Rosary. They were the only station in town that used to play a demo tune by the Mojo Men with the approximate words, “Baby I should go away, but what good would it do”. The song had a lot of feeling.
Then there was WCMF 96.5. This was my first FM station. I don’t remember the DJ around 1970-71, but he kept playing the Moody Blues. I loved the music, but did have to switch around the dial due to the repetition. The early days of WCMF had local advertisements that were listenable.
Some great memories here. For whatever reason Larry White stands out as a jock I liked back then. For a time, as I recall, there was a Larry Black doing mornings on WAXC and Larry White doing afternoons. Jim Rivers on WBBF was pretty special. I spent a lot of my youth in the hamlet of West Chili near the exit on 490 and BBF’s signal was crappy there and almost non existant after hours. KB out of Buffalo was a real option. KB was the cool station. Later I moved to the eastside and no one I knew had known of KB 15. WKBW had a weird signal in Rochester at night but I hear in some other, more distant areas, it packed some heat. Daytime in Rochester’s western suburbs WKBW, and there great jocks, blasted in. FM 99 was another station I’d check out and it’s signal boomed into my neighborhood from the WHAM tower. I remember on the FM side picking up WGRQ out of Buffalo better than WCMF right next door and WBEN-FM was one of the more stronger signals at 102.5.
In the end it was Stan Roberts out of WGR 55 I remember most. Dad liked the “Chicken Rock” format and WGR came in clear all day, but disappeared at night. Hey when you’re 10 or 11 you don’t have much choice stuck in the car with the old man and Roberts was great. I liked him. Palvino and WBBF just didn’t have the signal and the appeal compared to Roberts and others. I got to know Jack Palvino later and thought he was a nice guy although I hardly knew him. I spent summers working at Oak Hill and he was cordial yet cold. Sounded warm on the radio however but I ended up working for the competition that beat him by the mid-80’s. Palvino was a star on the eastside but almost unknown in Chili, Gates, Churchville etc. I’d never heard of him till I moved. WBBF’s signal sucked, except down south and over the lake.
Why can’t I get the WBBF Rochester, June 14, 1967 composite to download? I’m frpm Rochester and would love to hear it.
The memories come back. Again. I guess my last post-a year ago-seems like 25 years ago. Who has the ‘BBF memorabilia? All I can find is an old “First Aid Kit” the station gave away in the early 60’s. It was cheap, but a lot better than the trinkets stations give away today. Not quite sure who gets all the credit for ‘BBF, but Robert S. Kieve was the GM back in the early 60’s. In the old days, I’d visit the studios when they were on Clinton Avenue. Any time Mr. Kieve was around, I’d hide. I did e-mail him a few months back to thank him for his early work in Rochester. He’s still going strong (at 80) at KLIV in San Jose. While I was at WSAY, Jessica was dating a high school buddy of mine’s brother and she came to visit the ‘SAY studios once to meet him there. That was on French Road. (see a pic at http://www.fybush.com) needless to say talking for those 15 minutes was next to impossible. ‘BBF was probably the best little dynasty in the country at the time.
Growing up in Rochester & listening to great radio in the 70s was a treat. Jack Palvino in the mornings at WBBF and Larry White in the afternoons on WAXC. Let’s not forget the emergence of WDKX-FM, Rochester’s first R&B station that played many tunes before they became hits. In 1983, Larry White gave me my first break in radio at WVOR-FM, where he hired me to be a studio operator for Dan Guilfoyle’s “The Glory That Was Grease” oldies show (probably THE best oldies show that ever aired!). Larry and Mr. Palvino were great mentors who were always there showing this radio guy the do’s & don’ts of the biz. I just want to say “thank you” to these great radio folks for sharing their knowledge and teaching me never to settle for less than excellent.
Kevin Goins
WLMX-FM/WXCE-AM
Amery, Wisconsin