Herb Kent, “The Cool Gent,” spent decades on air, most of that time in Chicago. His radio career started in 1940s, and went right to the day he died in 2016. In the 1940s, Kent received his first paid radio job at WGRY in Gary, for $35 dollars a week. He went on to work at…
Charleston, South Carolina’s WWWZ, 93.3 FM, launched on May 10, 1974 with a freeform format. The station broadcast from a mobile home in Summerville, SC. The station was referred to as “3WZ“. In 1981, WWWZ flipped to an Urban leaning format as “The New Z93.” In 1999, Z93 added new hosts to “Big Mack…
Carol Miller is one of the longest-running New York radio personalities. Miller’s professional journey began in 1971 at Progressive Rock WMMR in Philadelphia. She quickly got the attention of New York’s Rock powerhouse 95.5 WPLJ in 1973, where she first became a New York radio icon. Miller says, at a very young age, while working…
When it come to classic Top 40 radio out of Buffalo, NY, for many, one set of call letters come to mind… WKBW. But those who know Buffalo radio, know there was a second options for pop music. That station was 1400 WYSL. WYSL was touted as the “underdog” against WKBW, a station that had…
1330 WTRX Flint, was a popular Top 40 station in the 1960s and 1970s, using the name “Trix.” You can hear what WTRX sounded like in the 1960s, here. Around 1975, WTRX evolved from Top 40 to adult contemporary, as younger listeners migrated to FM radio. I really don’t know much about WTRX, but if…
Boston’s 94.5 WZOU came along in late 1984 from the ashes of Album Rocker turned Soft-AC WCOZ, and called itself 94-5 “The Zoo”. The station was in a Top 40 battle against crosstown rivals WHTT HitRadio 103 and WXKS-FM “Kiss 108“. Inevitably, it didn’t work and WZOU would eventually go Urban as WJMN – “Jammin’ 94-5”, the station…
In the early 1970s, Philadelphia’s WDAS-FM switched from a “progressive rock” format to “progressive R&B.” “Progressive” in early ’70s radio lingo meant “album-oriented.” Just as progressive rock stations were trying to do the opposite of the AM Top-40 stations, the progressive soul stations were trying to be the opposite of the AM R&B stations,…
