680 AM WRKO
Charlie Van Dyke, WRKO Boston | April 6, 1979
Date of Recording: 04.06.1979 Station: 680 WRKO (WNAC) Boston, Massachusetts, USA Format: Top 40 Featured Air Talent: Charlie Van Dyke (jock), Ed Walsh (News), Bill Rossi (Sports), Jordan Rich (Weather) Contributor: Bob Gilmore Date of Posting: 09.18.2017 Total Time: 28:24 (Telescoped) Airchexx Entry: 1,511 … WRKO at Seven Forty-Two. Got Tom Kasano on the phone… thanks for listening and try to stay awake! Curator’s Notes: One of the big movies featured during this time is The Deer Hunter. It’s uncharacteristicly cold for April 6th, temperatures dropping into the 30s, and WRKO is still doing a traditional Top 40 format. That would change in about a year. Who in the world would figure that this cast of misfit radio pros would all go on to legendary status? One could a...
J.J. Jeffrey/Chuck Knapp and the “Top 300 Best of All Time”, 68 WRKO Boston | October 20, 1967
Our good friend Bob Gilmore returns with another fantastic aircheck of old! It seems kind of odd that WRKO, a new station at this point, having flipped to Top 40 from the former WNAC earlier in the year, would be counting down the Top 300 Best of All Time – I mean, the Rock & Roll era only began 12 years prior… but I digress. J.J. Jeffrey starts out counting down the hits from #232 to #230 before handing the reigns to Chuck Knapp. Chuck continues with songs #229 – #220. The recording ends in the middle of a commercial break with Knapp doing a live read for Surf Music. This is CLASSIC Drake Top 40! Cue the Johnny Mann Singers, and the original WRKO Jingles. All the formatics are in place, and the commercial breaks are filled with businesses that no longer exist, or ar...
Mike Addams, 68 WRKO Boston | December 25, 1978
Yes, the disco era is in full swing, and WRKO is doing its part to burn a hole through the genre… but there’s plenty of Rock to be found on this Christmas day 1978. True ’nuff, this is a scoped presentation but you will hear the artist titles, and promotions for picture disk giveaways, concerts and more, with Mike Addams. Notice, there’s no Christmas music? Interesting. It’s just a typical day at the legendary 68 WRKO – this aircheck very representative of the late 70s when we all were in a different state of mind. This ‘check includes a ’60 second news update’ – that’s the way they used to present news from about 1976-1978.
Joel Cash, 68 WRKO Boston | August, 1972
Date of Recording: August, 1972 (Exact date unknown) Station: 680 WRKO Boston, Massachusetts Featured Air Talent: Joel Cash Contributor: Robyn Watts – 114 Unique Additions as of this aircheck! Aircheck Entry: 1,419 Comments: Four minutes, 16 seconds is all we get of Joel Cash, sitting in on the Dale Dorman show. Joel only says his name once, which, considering this is probably a half hour unscoped recording, is pretty remarkable! Plenty of those early accapella jingles! Also take note, the music in this era was rather subdued. Part of it was likely this being the morning show. The other factor was the music itself. Lots of ballads in ’72, like Roberta Flack’s “The First Time Ever I Saw Your Face”, lots of songs in rotation by Bread and The Carpenters. What, yo...
Old Gold 1971 Remastered, Part 1 of 4
Going WAY back to the beginning of this website – well, okay, WAY back to the days when the radio industry trade circulated audio specials on vynl, here’s a completely re-mastered copy of one of the very first exhibits we had on airchexx way back in 2002! Old Gold was actually a vynl print – well, one could find it on vynl and on cassette in later years. The original copy we had obtained was on a worn out cassette and very muffled, but back then we were happy to post anything. Now, taken right from the record itself, a copy of Old Gold 1971. I’m posting this in four parts for easier listening. Beware, the vynl skips about 3 minutes in, during the WWDJ aircheck.. but not badly. Contained in this segment, in this order: WFIL Philadelphia – Dan Donovan KTSA San A...
Al Gates, Morning Drive, WRKO AM/FM Boston | June 19, 1967
Al Gates is featured in this excellent copy of then-new Bill Drake WRKO. Interesting items on this recording are reverb, which sounds fantastic and not overdone and a simulcast with its FM sister station on 98.5. Historic mentions (Bostonians will especially remember) Curt Gowdy doing sports… although he’s not heard, just announced during news. Gates announces song positions in the Now 30. WRKO is a HOT station at this point in it’s history, having launched earlier that year and you can feel the excitement in the air.
Composite: 68 WRKO Boston | January, 1979
Date of Recording: January, 1979 (exact date unknown) Station: 680 WRKO Boston, Massachusetts Featured Air Talent: Charlie Van Dyke, Jordan Rich, Sandy Weaver, Eric Cheney, others. Contributor: Big Apple Airchecks Comments: WRKO Boston, it’s eight o’clock with Eric Cheney playing the best music for America’s Greatest City! This aircheck courtesy of Big Apple Airchecks!” title=”This aircheck courtesy of Big Apple Airchecks!” align=”left” width=”220″ height=”340″ border=”0″ />Here’s probably the best overall composite of 70’s WRKO featured on this site. From January ’79, it starts with Sandy Weaver and continues on through this cold Winter day, where a major winter storm is brewing. Noteable...
Every Station has one (or used to) – 68 WRKO “Blooper Tape, circa 1968-73
For you radio people, how many of you remember sitting down at a staff meeting or a holiday party at some restaurant, and the GM or PD pulled out this tape of things nobody was EVER supposed to hear? How many of you can relate to someone producing the master production reel with 500 pieces of splice tape on it and a recording or two of one of the airstaff trying to get a production piece right while a little frustrated… or in the case of after hours production, a little inebriated? Well, there’s nothing quite THAT shocking on this tape, but to hear well known WRKO jocks making ANY mistakes is shocking in itself. Hand here it is, thanks to Contributor Steve Bleecker, the unofficial bloopers tape from WRKO, from sometime around 1968 or so, up to perhaps, 1974? Someone out there r...
QuickChexx: Chip Hobart, 68 WRKO Boston | 1974
Running about 3 minutes, Courtesy of Contributor Steve Bleecker, here’s a short, clean, and well processed WRKO featuring Chip Hobart. I’m guessing the year 1974 here, since the tape came without the date on it. Could be ’73. Somebody knows. WRKO is using their original jingle package. Sparingly. The Drake era was over, and it’s apparent that WRKO is playing a lot of album cuts. Strange, in a way, as the big thing happening (at least in Boston) on FM was Album Oriented Rock. WBCN at 104.1 was just emerging as a rocker, coming out of its Classical era. 94.5 WCOZ was “Cozy”, a Beautiful Music station playing orchestrated contemporary music without singers. WCOZ would famously go on into the world of AOR, and in 1978 Programmer John Sebastion would take the...
Dale Dorman, 68 WRKO Boston | 1973
… It’s Monday Morning and it’s going to rain And Cher’s “Gypsie’s, Tramps and Theives” is skipping!!!! Well… the Drake era has been over for a while, and Dale Dorman is even more wacky than when Drake tried to reel him in! He sings over intros, and well, the whole show is just silliness. This aircheck absolutely proves that WRKO was playing RECORDS!!!! And apparently the needle broke on the right hand turntable. hahahahaha yes, apparently Dale is running his own board this particular day. Now, as you listen to this, you’ll probably think, as I do, that this is not one aircheck, but rather, several strung together to give us listeners a good impression of Dale Dorman in 1973. Oh… and if you pine for the old Bill Drake TOP O’ ...
Dale Dorman, 68 WRKO Boston | July, 1971
And now, Ladies and Gentlemen, Dale Dorman! With that introduction by Bill Drake, Dale Dorman kicks off his morning show promptly at 6 am sharp, and the rest of this show is utter nonsense! Uncle Dale is in rare form, although for him this was the norm. Listening to this show, brings us back to the days when all of us kids remember spending our Summer Vacations listening to this guy on the radio, going outside to play, then going back in by 3pm so we could watch our favorite cartoons – yes, DALE DORMAN was the voice between the cartoons on Channel 56, and later in the 80s (or was it the 90s?), Channel 66. Here’s a fairly good quality recording sent in by our biggest (by far) contributor, Matt Seinberg over at Big Apple Airchecks! Listen for all the big hits of 1971, parts of hi...
Chip Hobart, 68 WRKO Boston | 1973
Here’s another glimpse of Early 70s WRKO with Chip Hobart at the controls. If you heard that WRKO was known as New England’s Album Station, this is the proof that 68 was, indeed, trending toward an AM AOR format, but with jingles and the jock talking over records. Obviously, the format evolved differently on FM. Chip Hobart is – informative, well versed, and someone who definitely knows the music. I’m curious as to where these jingles came from. They don’t sound like Johnny Mann sings… Heller, perhaps? Who was around in ’73? Compare this aircheck with this other, both courtesy of Steve Bleecker.
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