New York
George Michael, MusicRadio 77 WABC New York | February 28, 1977
Date of Recording: 02.28.1977 Station: 770 WABC (WJZ) New York, New York, USA Format: Top 40 Featured Air Talent: George Michael (Career: WRIT/KBTR/WFIL/WABC/WJZ-TV {Orioles}/WABC-TV/WRC-TV/George Michael Sports Machine) Contributor: Bob Gilmore Comments: The Late George Michael is tagged here doing a great show on WABC from 2/28/77. Notables here include much signal fading and white noise on the tape, which suggests this was recorded some distance away from New York City. No matter, Michael is in top form, as was the norm on the George Michael Show – he never misses a talkup or hitting the post! These are the pre-disco days of the 1970s. Sure, a few stiffs are sneaking in, like The Sylvers – Hotline, but this is real Top 40 variety, with a generous dose of Jam jingles, Dan Ing...
Howard Hoffman, 77 WABC New York | April 8, 1980
Date of Recording: 04.08.1980 Station: 770 (AM) WABC New York City, New York, USA Format: Top 40 Featured Air Personality: Howard Hoffman (WPIX-FM/WPRO-FM/KUAM/KMEL/KKFR/WQHT/KFRC/KMPC) Comments: 1980 was a year of change for WABC. By the end of the year the music would begin to shift to a more adult sound, but in the early part of 1980, WABC was still a hot Top 40 station, as evidenced by this short scope of the wacky Howard Hoffman show. Hoffman is really out of control on this night. How does one describe the Howard Hoffman show? Well, lets just say that he wouldn’t be allowed on the air with this approach anywhere today. WABC, with Hoffman in the lineup, is a much different sounding station than that of just over a year prior, when PD Al Brady cleaned house, getting rid of most o...
Chris Marino, The 4th of July Non-Stop Party Weekend, 95.5 WPLJ New York | July 4, 1996
Date of Recording: 07.04.1996 Station: 95.5 WPLJ New York City, New York, USA Format: Hot Adult Contemporary (HotAC) Featured Air Personality: Chris Marino Contributor: Anonymous Comments: Here is a recording featuring the current Senior Vice President of Programming for iHeartMedia of the Hudson Valley (as of this writing). Chris Marino sounds GOOD in context on this, the early Hot Adult Contemporary version of 95.5 WPLJ. The songs heard as currents and recurrents in rotation at WPLJ in 1996 read like a modern Classic Hits station. This would fit well on today’s version of crosstown WCBS-FM 101.1! A bit of station history: WPLJ is one of those stations that’s just… there. Once WABC-FM in the 60s, WPLJ evolved into an early AOR and stayed there until late 1983 when it slo...
Memorial Day Remembrances – WABC Rewound 2007 | Hour 2
For eight years, from 1999 to 2007, NewsTalk 77 WABC New York took one day out of the year to remember it’s historic music radio format. It was a treat for listeners, and while pre-produced by then Production Director Johnny Donovan (himself a jock during the MusicRadio 77 years), it also gave the talk show hosts the Memorial Day holiday off. Once again, we here at Airchexx would like to present portions of these programs for your Memorial Day enjoyment. Some of you will have the time to sit in front of a computer or mobile device and listen today, others will listen at a later time. But please take the time out both to honor those who fought and never returned for our freedoms, and those who entertained us as the very best American radio had to offer. December, 1967, the Top 100 of ...
Memorial Day Remembrances – WABC Rewound 2007 – Hour 1
For eight years, from 1999 to 2007, NewsTalk 77 WABC New York took one day out of the year to remember it’s historic music radio format. It was a treat for listeners, and while pre-produced by then Production Director Johnny Donovan (himself a jock during the MusicRadio 77 years), it also gave the talk show hosts the Memorial Day holiday off. Once again, we here at Airchexx would like to present portions of these programs for your Memorial Day enjoyment. Some of you will have the time to sit in front of a computer or mobile device and listen today, others will listen at a later time. But please take the time out both to honor those who fought and never returned for our freedoms, and those who entertained us as the very best American radio had to offer. November 21, 1981. This hour is...
Ron Lundy, 77 WABC New York // WABC Rewound 2003
Date of Recording: May, 2003 Station: 770 WABC New York Format: News/Talk Featured Air Personality: Ron Lundy Producer: Johnny Donovan Airchexx Entry: 1,489 … Hello Love!! Comments: At one point early on in the evolution of this website, we had posted the entire broadcast day of WABC Rewound on Memorial Day, 2003. Over various moves, a few of the master CD archive copies were damaged beyond repair. Here is one which survived intact. Ron Lundy is the featured jock. The year is 1975 and the music really sizzled on MusicRadio 77! Rewound was a great feature that WABC did for about eight years, before Johnny Donovan retired from WABC. The show actually started in 1999, the first year it was done live, hosted by then WABC Talk show host Mike Gallagher. Several years later, 89 WLS Chicago ...
Carl Ross, (101.9) WPIX-FM 102 New York | February 27, 1983
Date of Recording: 02.27.1983 Station: 101.9 WPIX-FM (WRXP/WQCD/WEMP/WFAN-FM) New York, New York, USA Format: Adult Contemporary Featured Air Personality: Carl Ross Contributor: Anonymous Comments: We don’t have much in the way of recordings of this particular radio station – noteworthy only due to the volume of material from New York City, overall. This helps address that issue with a recording from a period of time in which WPIX-FM was a *very* sleepy sounding Adult Contemporary radio station. At least from what it sounds like on this tape. Recorded on a Sunday morning, here’s Carl Ross and a 15 minute scope. This features the end of Ross’ show, and the first few minutes of the public affairs program, “This Week in Review” hosted by Roy Frank. 101.9 wo...
Bill Brown, WCBS-FM New York | July 12, 1971
Date of Recording: 07.12.1971 Station: 101.1 WCBS-FM New York, New York, USA Format: Oldies Owner: CBS, Inc. Featured Air Personality: Bill Brown Contributor: Steven Green Comments: There are few recordings out there from before the Oldies format took hold at WCBS-FM. Still, many do remember the somewhat-progressive Rock format which was heard at 101.1 FM prior to 1972. Its an odd format that took many elements of AM top 40 radio – the jock talking over the music, Jingles, and one or two spots every other record or so. Hardly what one remembers as progressive rock. But what makes this stand out is the playlist. No doubt, Bill Brown is picking much of the music himself. Some album songs, a few hits (Its nice to hear “Mercy, Mercy Me from Marvin Gaye), and some low charting music...
Joel Sebastian, 66 WNBC New York | October 7, 1985
Date of Recording: 10.07.1985 Station: 660 WNBC (WEAF/WRCA/WNBC) New York, New York, USA Format: Top 40/Variety Featured Air Personality: Joel Sebastian (WLS/WNBC) Contributor: Jim Hampton Airchexx Entry: 1,486 …here’s a little bit of the Gary Burgess humor, he wrote out the forecast listen to this… what’s for tonight? Dark! Comments: If you’ll listen closely enough, you’ll definitely notice Joel Sebastian’s voice. Yes, where did I hear him before? WLS, of course! New Contributor Jim Hampton, who just donated roughly a dozen airchecks to the Airchexx Museum archive, recorded this himself – and so that’s high-quality, first person tape recordings from an incredibly historic WNBC broadcast. This was just before the Weekend “Time Mac...
Blizzard Coverage, WCBS (AM) 880 New York | January 26, 2015
Date of Recording: 01.26.2015 Station: WCBS 880 New York City, New York, USA Format: News Featured Air Talent: Tonya Hansen (anchor), Bob Larsen (Meteorologist) Contributor: Steve West (Steve Sawyer) (WCAT/WFGL/WFMP/WHAI/WEZL/KOUL/KLTG/WINQ/WOGY/WMBZ/WGKX/WJZN/WMC-FM/RadioMaxMusic/WCTZ HitOldies/Airchexx) Aircheck Entry: 1,480 … All told, we expect 18 to 24 inches of snow to accumulate… The Blizzard of 2015 was really the blizzard that wasn’t, at least for New York City, western parts of Connecticut, Massachusetts and parts north. Go to Central and Eastern Long Island, Connectict, Massachusetts and Rhode Island, and it was a completely different story, as nearly two feet did fall during the storm. Heavy snow, extreme cold and high winds are nothing unusual for those in th...
Charlie Greer, 77 WABC New York | October 5, 1965
Date of Recording: 10.05.1965 Station: 770 WABC (WJZ) New York, New York, USA Format: Top 40 Featured Air Personalities: Charlie Greer, Peter Jennings (news) Contributor: Daniel Coulombe (CKTS/CJMQ/others) Airchexx Entry: 1,472 “That’s Number One in New York, Hang On Sloopy by the McCoys…” Comments: Just when you thought you’d heard every WABC aircheck ever recorded, we give you this, courtesy of Contributor Daniel Coulombe. There are some significant historic portions of this recording. Nothing that happened on this date, but some of the content is priceless! First, you’ll notice right away that the Charlie Greer show is very sold out. There are two and three commercials played between every record! Many of those commercials are live reads. Second, this...
Jay Thomas, 98.7 WXLO New York | September, 1977
Date of Recording: 09.xx.1977 (Exact Date Unknown) Station: 98.7 WXLO (WBAM/WOR-FM/WXLO/WRKS/WEPN-FM) New York City, New York, USA Format: Top 40 (99X) Featured Air Personality: Jon Thomas Terrell known professionally as Jay Thomas (WQXI/WXLO/SiriusXM) Contributor: Daniel Coulombe (CKTS/CJMQ) Airchexx Entry: 1,467 …I was hoping you might be able to get me in touch with John Gambling Comments: There are many things unique to this aircheck. First, this is from an early edition of Tom Konard’s Aircheck Factory tapes. This was from a periodic edition called “Around The Dial”. The “Aircheck Factory” was, likely, the first professional aircheck service. They received recordings primarily made by radio stations, for radio station program directors. At least, th...
