Ron Lundy, WABC New York | July 29, 1970

Courtesy of Matt @ BigAppleAirchecks, here’s Ron Lundy at a very sold out WABC! While this is scoped, the unscoped version still has more commercials than music. You’ll need patience to listen to this, as the source audio as we received it is choppy and a bit muddy, otherwise its a great representation of America at the height of the Vietnam war. Listen for a full newscast including stories about fish with mercury, extreme pollution, a heatwave causing reductions of electricity, and more.

And of course, our memories of Ron Lundy. I tell ya, Heaven’s got one hell of a radio station!

Big Wilson, 66 WNBC New York | April 1969

There’s a lot that’s been said about Big Wilson – he’s a legendary personality on the old WNBC. Problem is, when people think of radio in the 1960s in New York City, the first station that always comes to mind is WABC. So, WNBC was always dwarfed… and never really tried to compete in the Top 40 arena anyway, as NBC, the network, always had features running on air which disrupted the music presentation.

Big Wilson is captured here in a recording that sounds like it was made with a microphone placed in front of a table radio speaker. The audio quality isn’t the best. But its worth remembering Big Wilson and a radio station with more heritage than any other station in America… WNBC. The station has been gone since 1988, but certainly not forgotten.

Howard Hoffman, 77 WABC New York | April 8, 1980

1980 was a year of change for WABC. By the end of the year the music would begin to shift to a more adult sound, but in the early part of 1980, WABC was still a hot Top 40 station, as evidenced by this short scope of the wacky Howard Hoffman show. Hoffman is really out of control on this night. How does one describe the Howard Hoffman show? Well, lets just say that he wouldn’t be allowed on the air with this approach anywhere today.

WABC, with Hoffman in the lineup, is a much different sounding station than that of just over a year prior, when PD Al Brady cleaned house, getting rid of most of the staple WABC jocks except for Ron Lundy and Dan Ingram (who, at the time of this aircheck, was doing mornings). Still, this is Top 40 WABC and the brand with it’s late 70s Jam jingles is still intact.

There aren’t many recordings of the end of the Top 40 era at WABC, and this one from 1980 is an original recording available no place else but right here. We invite you to listen now to this unique slice of history!

George Michael, MusicRadio 77 WABC New York | February 28, 1977

The Late George Michael is tagged here doing a great show on WABC from 2/28/77. This is an original recording, donated by Bob Gilmore. Notables here include much signal fading and white noise on the tape, which suggests this was recorded some distance away from New York City. No matter, Michael is in top form, as was the norm on the George Michael Show – he never misses a talkup or hitting the post!

These are the pre-disco days of the 1970s. Sure, a few stiffs are sneaking in, like The Sylvers – Hotline, but this is real Top 40 variety, with a generous dose of Jam jingles, Dan Ingram voiced imaging and that hot reverb!

Here’s an original, never posted on the web anywhere – so pass the word and tell your listener friends that WE have the airchecks most coveted around the world!

QuickCheck: Wendy Williams, WPLJ Power 95 New York | October, 1989

Seven years into a CHR war that WPLJ was losing to ratings giant WHTZ, the station leans Rhythmic and Wendy Williams is one of the stars that make up a talented airstaff. That’s what you hear on this four minute restored scope courtesy of Robyn Watts.

Power 95 is voiced here by Charlie Van Dyke, and they play some decent, if not un-remarkable jingles. In your webmasters opinion, WPLJ never really found its niche after dumping AOR at the TOP of its game in 1983. Still, this short glimpse into it’s CHR format near the end of it’s run is typical of many stations of it’s kind as the 80s drew to a close. And while this may be somewhat unremarkable, what you hear here is, in our opinion, far better than most radio post-Telcom ‘96, and in particular, radio at the twilight of the first decade of the 21st century.

QuickCheck: Jo Jo Morales, WHTZ Z100 New York | Autumn, 1989

Z100 is celebrating its 6th year as New York’s Number One Hit Music Station, and all sorts of people are congratulating the station including (then) New York Governor Mario Cuomo. We love it when politicians and other celebrities personally voice station liners!

This is Z100 in all of it’s glory, playing ALL the hits with an airstaff that reads like a who’s who of blockbuster jocks. Jo Jo Morales sounds great here, but this is no different than any other day on this station.

Lightly processed and restored to near perfect condition, here’s a three-plus minute scoped listen to one of America’s finest FM CHR stations ever!

John Zacherle, Halloween Special, WCBS-FM 101.1 New York | October 31, 1991

This has to be the best Haloween special I’ve ever heard. WCBS-FM really did it up right, letting John Zacherle take over the hosting duties for a night of scary fun. Contributor Ray Bozzanca sent this in, in pieces (and unscoped for future use by us if we ever are financially able to pay royalties…) which your webmaster lovingly scoped down to something acceptable to the powers that be.

The music is scoped out, but anything not subject to royalties is left over, which is most of this 3 hour show. Zacherle has a wierd sense of humor, but so appropriate as he picks just the right music for a Howlin’ good time!

Adding to the frightening nature of this aircheck, about halfway through, WCBS-AM Newsradio 880 Meteorologist Craig Allen cuts in with the old EBS (Emergency Broadcast System) alert sounder to give a weather emergency. A word about this… the old two-tone alert and the way the announcement was made really gave a sense of urgency to the situation. In your webmaster’s opinion, the current EAS alert, which is a series of computer tones to trigger an automated message, doesn’t do much of anything to scare the pants off listeners – but that’s what its SUPPOSED TO DO! The old system DID wake up listeners. I know, I used to drop what I was doing to listen to it. Editorial finished.

This runs 1 hour, 15 minutes, scoped.

Composite: WINS and WMGM New York | October, 1961

This is a great comparison between two competing Top 40 stations. 1961 was so early in the top 40 game that WABC was just in its infancy with its then-new format. This recording doesn’t include ABC.

WINS, of course, went on to become the nation’s first All-News station. WMGM simply reverted to the previous call letters on 1050, WHN, and then became synonymous with Country Music in New York for the next decade.

Murray the K, WINS New York | Sometime, 1962

Thanks to Ray Bozzanca for digging up this original tape of the old WINS with Murray the K at the helm. This one starts out wierd…. didn’t all his shows start out that way?. Now, this isn’t scoped quite the way you normally hear them. It IS scoped, but its kinda in haphazard fashion, in the sense that, Murray jumps in whenever he wants in a record, so the recording starts and stops in wierd places. Rather than attempt to fix it, I just left this recording as recieved

One thing I forgot to ask our contributor but I’ll assume from the sound of the recording… Is this from the original Reel?

Al Bandiero, WXLO 99X New York | December 7, 1977

Talk about great airchecks!!! We hit up the Radioinsight.com Aircheck Trader’s Board, where radiobruce was kind enough to contribute this absolutely AWESOME recording of your webmaster’s favorite Al Bandiero, doing his thing on the great 99X! WXLO kicks some serious Azz here, in what was surely the peak of 99X’s popularity.

It don’t get any better than this!

By the way, for those interested, Al Bandiero maintains his own website. You won’t believe the career he’s had… and your webmaster thought he was just a WKBW jock back when I was just 16 years old!

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