John O’Brien Counts Down the Rock & Roll 500 on 102.1 WAQY Springfield | May 30, 1987

21 Years ago this week, John O’Brien was still a weekend and daytime jock at WAQY. Having come from WCCC and WMAS-FM (and, as WJDF PD Jay Deane says, ‘one of the nicest guy’s you’ll ever meet’, O’Brien is counting down the bottom half of the “Rock & Roll 500. The source tape this came from actually starts about 5 minutes earlier, with former night guy from the Top 40 era at this station, Jim Kaye, ending his Sunday Morning Gold Rush oldies show… which woulda been cool to feature but really doesn’t fit this presentation.

WAQY flipped from Top 40 to AOR in August 1981, and has been classic rock ever since the late 80s. During this time period, around 1987, WAQY is till playing a huge variety of Rock with occasional currents… it’s on air slogan was “New England’s Finest Rock, 102.1 AQY”. We think that was a great time for the station… it certainly was great to listen to. Today, just standard Classic Rock fare but John O’Brien is and has been part of the “Bax & O’Brien” morning show for over a decade now.

It’s Memorial Day Weekend… now sit down for a while and enjoy this Nascar(tm) formatted countdown just perfect for steaks on the grill!