Courtesy of California Aircheck via Contributor Robyn Watts, here’s a short clip of the night show on WSSX ’95SX’ Charleston. About a year before hurricane Hugo would devastate both the city and the radio landscape (crosstown Q107 would never return after the storm), 95SX was around playing the hits. We don’t know the jock’s name here, but he has fun with a segment called ‘talent search’, where listeners call in and they have 30 seconds to do SOMETHING with their mouth – some sing, one just makes noises!! Apparently the jock picks the winner. Listen all the way to the end, as the last contestant heard actually answers the question “What’s Your Favorite Radio Station” with ‘XL 95’! The ‘shortcut’ wasn’t around for phone editing in 1988, so this was probably live.
There was apparently a set of jingles (from JAM Creative Productions), but the only one heard here is the Weather Jingle Bed, so it’s possible that jingle use had been mostly eliminated in favor of thunderous imaging (for it’s time).
This tape was found in an unopened box that moved with me from Memphis about 5 years ago. How fortunate for us that this turned up! California Aircheck is a subscription aircheck service that is still around. You can visit their website and order some great recordings via phone or fax. Its at CaliforniaAircheck.com. Or, alternately, you can stay here on Airchexx.com and listen to hundreds of airchecks for free! (We both have different aircheck collections, so you may find something really unique that we don’t have on Airchexx at California Aircheck.)
Hi Steve,
The jock on the aircheck is Shadow Stevens. He came to 95SX from Y106-Orlando and is now with Country outlet WWKA (K92) in Orlando.
And, yes like many other CHRs in that era, 95SX used cuts from JAM (FM, The Flame Thrower, and Warp Factor).
Robyn
The “Shadow Stevens” on this aircheck is in real life local guy Larry W. Jones. He also worked at WSSX’s sister station, WTMA-AM, when they were playing music. Larry and I worked together at the Trapman Report in the 80s. Larry later went into radio sales, and after that, was part of an advertising agency. He now lives in Greenville, SC and sells guitars.
BTW, the callers on the talent show portion of this aircheck weren’t live — they were recorded in “audition” on reel-to-reel and then edited (if needed) with a razor blade and splicing tape. How archaic!
Glad this aircheck showed up on the Internet. I recorded all of the Charleston airchecks for George Junak at California Aircheck.
Hi John. Thanks for the correction on Shadow Stevens. Hopefully he’s doing well. I used to listen to 95-SX from Columbia, SC as much as I could, but more often than not, I would be fighting co-channel interference from Charlotte, not to mention first adjacent channel interference.
As far as “imaging”: Steve hit the nail on the head for jingles…..they were from JAM. Cuts from “Warp Factor”, “The Flame Thrower”, and “FM” were in use at the time. The big-voice on the sweepers and IDs were from the late Gary Gears (of WLS/Chicago fame), replacing a sweeper/ID package that John Young had voiced, and a company called Supertraxx produced in 1987. Charlie Van Dyke did the sweepers next from Fall 89/Fall 90. They were also produced by Supertraxx (I know they sound “very dated” now, but many younger folks don’t know, don’t remember, or don’t care that there was a time when many radio stations did not have adequate production facilities and much of the imaging was contracted out.