Miami
A Scott Lowe Special: “The Chucker Revolution” | Winter 2009
Contributor Scott Lowe checks in with a fantastic interview with Chuck Kirr, aka “The Chucker”. As you know, we’ve partnered with BigAppleAirchecks often in the past, and interestingly enough, Mr. Lowe contacted US about posting this great piece of work himself. A word about supporting Airchexx: It takes a lot to create and post compelling content such as this. Equipment breaks down and needs replacing (and there’s lots of that including a new computer workstation which is REQUIRED to continue, and a sound board which needs to be replaced). Won’t you please consider becoming a supporter? Our site will be here for many years to come and you can be assured that all support received will go directly to site costs. Thank you! Voluntary Subscription Options Yearly ...
Don Cox, WINZ-FM (I95) Ft. Lauderdale/Miami Beach | July 2, 1984
This was sent in by Daniel Coulombe… an original recording of Don Cox on I95 in South Florida. This is vintage 80s. Entertainment news, featuring who else? Michael Jackson. Not to mention, Cox IS counting down the top 10 songs of the week. Heard at the end of this aircheck is Johnny Dolan, apparently coming in to do his shift. Whatever happened to this kind of personality top forty?? Never mind, we know the answer (that’s why I’m not in the biz anymore…)
J.J. Walker, WHYI Y-100 Ft. Lauderdale/Miami | 1989
Date of Recording: 1989 (Exact Date Unknown) Station: 100.7 WHYI Fort Lauderdale (Miami), Florida, USA Format/Branding at Time of Recording: Contemporary Hit Radio (CHR) / Y-100 Featured Air Personality: J.J. Walker (Spyder Harrison) Contributor: Robyn Watts Airchexx Entry: 897 Comments: From the enormous Robyn Watts collection, we present J.J Walker on Y-100! This is included on a tape put out by a then-popular aircheck service called East Coast Airchecks. This is from tape #11. A pretty funny and exciting late-80s CHR, Y-100 had a great lineup in those days. Walker does a feature called “Bed Check”, where callers throw in their comments and Walker just has a good time with it. Not much in the way of formatics or music, what scoped things we’d allow anyway. But one gets ...
Tom Konard’s “Aircheck Factory” Presents: Gene Weed, 560 WQAM Miami | July 23, 1957
Date of Recording: 07.23.1957 Station: 560 WQAM Miami, Florida, USA Format: Popular Music Featured Air Personality: Gene Weed (WQAM/KFWB) Contributor: Anonymous (per his request) Airchexx Entry: 1,483 …WQAM…First in Hooper, first in Pulse and first in Trendex Comments: One of the oldest recordings on this website, you’ll notice a few things right off the bat that may bust any misconceptions you might have about radio stations playing popular music in the mid-1950s. Sure, 1957 is considered by many to be the somewhat ‘official’ start of the Rock & Roll era, but you wouldn’t know it by listening to WQAM. Tommy Dorsey, Patti Page, and then a few early rockabilly songs slide in during this recording but they seem to be more of the exception rather than ...
Sonny Fox, WHYI Y100 Miami | July 6, 1984
Date of Recording: 07.06.1984 Station: 100.7 WHYI (Y100) Miami, Florida, USA Format: CHR Featured Air Personality: Sonny Fox Contributor: Daniel Coulombe Comments: Thanks to site friend Daniel Coulombe, here’s a GREAT, original recording he made of Sonny Fox and the morning show on Miami’s legendary Y100!. You’ll love this scoped look at a hugely entertaining and funny jock with all the elements that made morning radio fun. Unlike most of today’s morning shows which are laden with Hollywood fluff… this is so good, and Sonny Fox is just himself. Its refreshing to hear how morning shows were in the mid-80s. We miss it, and you probably do too!
QuickCheck: Jack Armstrong, WFUN Miami | October, 1968
Heres’s a very young Jackson Armstrong (with a slightly higher pitched voice) on WFUN, one of the early AM Top 40 stations in Miami. This has all the elements that many personality oriented stations had, reverb, PAMS jingles, and a lot of jock patter. Certainly not the streamlined Drake approach, more like a WABC approach, circa 1964. It’s only slightly over 3 minutes in length but you can certainly get a feel for what things sounded like in the tumultuous year of 1968.
Sonny Fox and the Wake Up Crew, WHYI Y-100 Miami | 1985
Here’s Y-100’s morning show featuring Sonny Fox, from the middle of the ‘decade of greed’, 1985! HitOldies jock Al Roberts recorded this noise free mono ‘check way back when. Compare with THIS aircheck we posted from 1984… Special thanks, as always, to our HitOldies friend Daniel Coulombe for this exceptional aircheck.
Rock and Roll Breakfast, 103.5 WSHE Ft. Lauderdale (Miami) | 1993
This one’s a bit difficult to identify but I’ll give you the basics. It comes from a subscription service, East Coast Airchecks, that has apparently been out of business for some time (Thank you Contributor Robyn Watts!). This starts out with an ID from the guys of Wayne’s World. My guess is 1993 due to the WW mention. “Wayne’s World” was THE movie of 1992! Also, since many of the other station’s on this tape (ECA 120) are from the month of December, and the fact that the jock on duty says it’ll be in the 60s and 70s in the Miami area, yes, its likely January or February of 93. Can’t give you much more than that. A bit of historical information. WSHE was indeed the big AOR (Album Oriented Rock) Station in the Miami area throughout the 1...
Composite, 96.5 WPOW Miami
We’re a couple of years late on this one, as we have literally HUNDREDS of waiting airchecks to post. But, thanks to Kid Curry @ Curry Media, here’s day long composite. Curry writes: I was lucky to program Power 96 from 1996-05. This is just one version of Power through those years. This aircheck has Al B. Sylk, Chi Chi, DJ Laz, Lucy Lopez and Teddy T. Enjoy!! Straight from the Power 96 studio, judging by the very high bitrate recording we received, this runs just over seven minutes. Impressively high production quality is demonstrated here, so, turn this up on those high-end speakers, and blow out the windows! Hip Hop imaging is LOUD! Aircheck #1,319 since May 2, 2002!
Tom Birch, WHYI Miami | 1975
Courtesy of Contributor Steve Bleecker, here’s yet another in our short series of Ratings king, Station Owner and fantastic jock Tom Birch! As of this writing, there’s one more aircheck of Mr. Birch on Y100 and its got all the energy you’ve come to expect! Its amazing that FM took over the Miami market so early in the 1970s, but given how these airchecks sound, one would expect FM to triumph even at that stage of the evolution of FM broadcasting! I’m not sure that there’s much I can write that either hasn’t been said, or can’t be heard from this great recording! Just listen and enjoy. Meanwhile, I’ll pull out the remaining airchecks from the tape this came from, YOU get ready to hear some fantastic radio! Aircheck #1,314 since May 2, 2002!
Tom Birch, WHYI Y-100 Miami | 1975 (Corrected)
Longtime Contributor Steve Bleecker returns with a new look into some long forgotten personalities. Included in his latest tape, is this early FM Top 40 screamer Tom Birch. This was high energy you’d find on the AM dial – and little wonder, in 1974, this is the way Top 40 really DID sound, and it was mostly on the AM side of radio! Mr. Bleecker writes: Tom Birch writes “It was great to be part of the team that made Y100 the Most Listened to station in South Florida, AND the ICON for Great Radio in the 1970’s !” ***Tom’s Most Memorable Moment” : “Awarding a listener from Homestead Air Force Base $24,999…IN CASH ! This was the FIRST winner in the “Know What’s In It and Win It” Cash Call contest !” Aircheck #1,296 s...
Rick Shaw, 560 WQAM Miami | December 20, 1967
Aircheck courtesy of Contributor Larry Stoler Often times when researching the legacies of classic radio stations, we don’t come across much valuable information. Its times like this when the audio we post must speak for itself. This aircheck is all about the hits of 1967 and the air talents of Rick Shaw. The burning question of many of our minds is, is this the same Rick Shaw who graced the airwaves of 610 KFRC San Francisco? The voices do not necessarily sound similar, but considering the level of processing used at KFRC, its possible that these two men are indeed one in the same. There are lots of live commercials. Commercials, commercials EVERYWHERE, all over the place. About the closest thing you’ll get to a music sweep is two songs in a row before more commercials. And WQ...
