Composite: 68 WRKO Boston | January, 1979

Matt Seinberg's "Big Apple Airchecks" (//bigappleairchecks.com)
Matt Seinberg’s “Big Apple Airchecks” (//bigappleairchecks.com)
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.

Noteables: Where are all the jingles? You won’t hear even one, but you will hear a big Steve Martin promotion. No reverb (RKO never really used any), a very tight presentation, and WOW… talk about a lot of Disco music! WVBF, on FM was already ahead of the power curve… disco was in it’s final year and ‘VBF ditched the Disco about 3 months before this aircheck.

WRKO here was about a year from a format change to AC, but a few elements were creeping in already… Jordan Rich did weather (Rich has his own talk show on WBZ now), and RKO was doing a flashback show. Charlie Van Dyke, IIRC, would take over as PD and take over the morning show in just a few weeks from this aircheck, in a last ditch effort to save the Top 40 format.

WRKO really did sound good during this period (you won’t think so if you hated disco). The format was well constructed and executed and everything is ultra-tight. But it certainly was the end of an era.