1110 KRLA Pasadena – 1972 Jingle Montage

1110 AM Pasadena, KRLA
Bumper Sticker Scan courtesy of KM Richards

Here’s a cool set of station jingles that I put into a montage. It was sent in on an unlabelled Maxell UR 60 cassette, with only one thing written on the case, “KRLA Jingles 1972”.

The only other station that I remember ever having similar jingles was 1020 KDKA Pittsburgh. It might have been from whatever jingle company created these, or perhaps just something similar. These are very unique- some are long-form jingles lasting :30 seconds, some are short, and they include all different types of arrangements, from a church choir to Rock, Funk, Country & Western and even old Ragtime. I suppose, in theory, the station could play any kind of music and have a jingle that fit.

Not having ever lived in California where I could pick up KRLA, I never heard the format in ’72, so I have no idea how these jingles sounded in context. Perhaps someone out there does. A shout out to our conversation participant, ‘calradiopd’ is in order, since he likely knows more about the station and its jingles than I.

1110 AM Pasadena, KRLA
Bumper Sticker Scan courtesy of KM Richards

3 Comments

  1. calradiopd

    These jingles are from when Shadoe Stevens became Program Director and took KRLA to an album rock format. It lasted about a year and was disastrous. The station went from a 4.0 and 7th place to a 2.5 and 13th place.

    However, the jingles are an interesting peek into Shadoe’s brain…he did the big choir sound that you hear on the first cut at his next gig, KROQ AM & FM, and the next stop after that was KMET, where he is credited with the “94.7, A Little Bit of Heaven, KMET…Tweedle-Dee” jingle cut by the Pointer Sisters and many other KMET artists over the years.

    KRLA went to Adult Contemporary in early 1973 when they let Shadoe go. They returned to an oldies/Top 40 hybrid (60% gold) in 1976. The bumper sticker you’ve posted is from the 80s, when they were all oldies.

  2. Mike Mangan

    Gotta Love Three Dog Night Its for you jingle.Also love the Doo Wop.I am sure these were all setups for the varied songs they played in the mix,Fast to slow,Slow to fast and varied tempos.It would be interesting to hear what came out of the stop sets and were they total jingle or did they use any accapella vocal sweepers.
    Also at one time was ,nt the station called Krla(Karla)1110?

  3. calradiopd

    During the bulk of their Top 40 run (1959-1972), the jingles didn’t mention the frequency…that was left to the jocks.

    When it went Adult Contemporary in 1973, the jingles put the call letters first, frequency second…”KRLA, Eleven-Ten”.

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