First, let me share a quick memory. Around the time this was recorded, perhaps earlier, I was driving down the NJTP, headed back to Norfolk, VA. The radio in my Buick Skyhawk was a Delco AM Stereo model, which had one problem with it. The FM Stereo mode burnt out. As in, FM would play in mono. Out of sheer irony, the AM side was superior, and for stations that were in AM Stereo, simply phenomenal.
WPAT (AM) 930 was in AM Stereo. I mention this for those who are unaware that this was the case, or for those who forgot. WPAT was an AM/FM simulcast for much of the 80s and when I needed to listen to something soothing, instead of my normal fare of Whitesnake or Van Halen, I did go to WPAT. Usually when I was suffering one of my frequent blinding migraines.
I told you that, just to go to the old description I wrote about this aircheck. I wrote this eight years ago when I had the Contributor’s handwritten notes in front of me. Here’s what I wrote:
Contributor Ray Bozzanca sent this in some time ago. The source recording was obviously made for someone wanting the music only, as the tape was a 40 minute reverse-scope with most of the deejay talk and imaging removed… but what remains of this station’s identity is presented here. This is from a short period in the history of WPAT-FM, which at the time was still an AM/FM simulcast. WPAT had then recently gone soft AC out of a longtime Beautiful Music format, and was programming to New York City proper, from its signal in New Jersey. Later in the 90s, WPAT AM and FM would each get separate Spanish Formats and leave the English language audience permanently.
Madonna – I’ll Remember was from 1994, so I’m guessing this was also from 1994 or 95.
That was *definitely* **MID-’90’S**, as WPAT’s still employed a Beautiful Music format in the late 1980s. The station didn’t switch its format completely to Adult Contemporary until late 1994. (Hence, the station’s (final English-language) nickname, “Today’s 93.1.”
Any one have a Today’s 93.1 FM logo to post?
The heading above should really read “Today’s 93.1 FM WPAT Paterson, NJ-Mid-1990’s,” as the station was full-time soft adult contemporary from October 1994 to January 1996. (It gradually transitioned its beautiful-music format [which had already increased its MOR and soft-AC vocals circa 1985] in late ’92/early ’93 into an approximate 70/30 or 80/20 if not three-fourths/one-fourth mix of lush instrumentals/middle-of-the-road vocals and soft rock, respectively. Then circa very-early 1994, it became hybrid soft AC/beautiful music, with the (by then) occasional string-orchestra instrumental being the only remnant of its full-time BM/EZ format. That October, as mentioned above, the latter genre was finally 86’d, and, to rid itself of its Beautiful Music format even further, WPAT Easy 93 rebranded itself as “Today’s 93.1-Today’s Favorites from the ’80s and ’90s” (soft rock hits from the 1980s to the then-present [adult-contemporary [soft rock] hits from the mid- and/or late 1970s were later added to the playlist]).
My bad. WPAT actually became hybrid soft AC/Beautiful Music in the spring or summer of 1994. (By the first quarter of ’94, it was still BM/EZ-albeit, as I posted above, mixed in with MOR [traditional pop] and AC [soft rock]. The occasionnal string-orchestra instrumental, was (as I also posted) the only remnant of when it utilized a Beautiful Music format full-time.
Actually, WPAT-FM’s slogan during its soft-rock “Today’s 93.1” era was “Today’s Soft Favorites *of* the ’80s and ’90s.” (emphasis mine) When the station changed to its current format (Spanish adult contemporary) in January 1996 concurrent to an ownership change, the previous owners of Today’s 93.1 retained its now-former sister station WPAT-AM (and those very call letters, yet!) and not only its soft AC format (simulcast on the FM up to that point), but also the Sunday-morning public-affairs programming, Catholic Mass on Sunday mornings (the latter still on WPAT-AM [and probably the one remaining program from both the stations’ BM/EZ and AC eras]), and afternoon broadcasts of the previous weeknight’s nationally-syndicated audio of “Larry King Live”. The Easy Listening-turned-Adult Contemporary era of WPAT finally ended in April 1996, when an owner other than which took over the FM a quarter-year earlier replaced English-language soft rock (and all of its other aforementioned English-language programs except for Sunday Mass) with a Spanish format. In the late ’90s or very-early 2000s, WPAT-AM flipped to its current multi-ethnic format, adding Danny Stiles’long-running Adult Standards program (also heard on its now-sister station WNSW in Newark [best remembered as R&B station WNJR [where, ironically, Stiles was once a deejay playing R&B in the 50s and 60s, and returning in the 80s to play Adult Standards. He returned to the station the second time to broadcast that genre in ’99, when it became WNSW and an Adult Standards station after new owners flipped it from R&B to foreign-language the first time around seven years earlier [it later reverted to the latter, yet retaining “The Danny Stiles Nostalgia Extravaganza”]]).
And try *this* for trivia: The last songs on Today’s 93.1 were a series of “goodbye” soft-rock songs. I forgot what most of them were, but I do remember that that set of music also included an MOR/Adult Standards tune–“The Last Farewell” by Roger Whittaker (as a tribute to the then-immediately-previous Beautiful Music format [if nothing else, for the song’s chorus, which begins, “For you are beautiful, and I have loved you dearly”]). I also remember that the set concluded with a tribute to New York City in the form of Don Henley’s 1990 hit, “New York Minute”. Three months later, the final soft rock tune on WPAT-AM during its own AC format was “I Will Remember You” by Sarah McClachlan.
Oh–Karen Carson hosted the last AC–and last English-language show–on WPAT-FM, but not the last voice heard in English on the station. (That distinction belongs to program director/midday DJ Ken McKenzie (Mackenzie?), who made a special announcement thanking all who had listened to WPAT-FM all those years for doing so.)
Part of the first comment should have read, “…and, to rid itself of its Beautiful Music image even further…”.
Last year if not late the year before, WPAT-FM switched from Spanish AC to Spanish Top 40, yet retained the AC-ish Spanish-language nickname “Amor 93.1”. (The station was originally branded as “Suave [pronounced “SWA-vay”, as in the Spanish word for “suave”] 93.1″.)
Would any of you happen to know the final lineup for WPAT in 1996? I know Bob Worthington did mornings and Karen Carson did nights. Can’t seem to remember anyone else. I do remember a New York After Hours show as well, but I have no clue who hosted it.
Are you talking about the same Bob Worthington once heard on 97.1 WASH-FM earlier in the 90s? Didn’t know he went to WPAT. Interesting…
I forgot Bob Worthington was on Today’s 93.1. I do, however, remember him from Soft Rock 105/(later) Mix 105 WNSR back in the late 80s. Unless Karen Carson also hosted “New York After Hours”(?), I have no clue who hosted it, either, Joseph.
Bob Worthington is now “Danny Lake” on WLS-FM.
Didn’t know Bob Worthington is now at WLS in Chicago aka Danny Lake!
Great jock btw
I too remember him at WPAT ,Mix 105 and as long time host of Solid Gold Saturday Night.
Oh, SUGAR! That’s RIGHT!! Bob Worthington DID!!! host “Solid Gold Saturday Night”!! In fact, that show’s New York City affiliate was, ironically, WNSR Soft Rock 105/WNSR Mix 105. Did Dick Bartley host that show at one point in at least the time that station carried the show locally in New York?
Does anyone know the name of the string instrumental that was the theme song for WPAT when it was beautiful music format?
If any has a WPAT FM Today’s 93.1 or any other WPAT FM logo of a bumper sticker, please post one here, so we can all see what all of the WPAT FM logo of bumper stickers looked liked?!
I think Bill Worthington worked at Wash 97.1 in Washington while Bob Worthington worked at WQSR in Baltimore.
I swear to God I REALLY miss the ’80’s WPAT.
S***, I miss the ’80’s AND! ’90’s WPAT. The *Beautiful Music* ***AND***!!! AC versions of the ’90’s WPAT!!