Photo courtesy of wrko1.tripod.com
Here’s an amazing composite of the lineup on WRKO Boston. The year was 1972 and some of the music in rotation that year was truly great! There is one song that seems to have been in very heavy rotation. Hot Butter – “Popcorn”. It was at the top of the WRKO charts in October of ’72. Probably most memorable as a song NOBODY plays in any radio format today!
Contributor Russ Oasis describes this tape:
Attached is the WRKO composite. Most of it was Oct. 1972. I think that Chip Hobart was Nov. 1972. To keep the jocks in the order they were in on the air, I moved the pieces around. It goes Dale Dorman 6-9AM. Joel Cash 9-12noon, Gary Martin noon – 3PM, Charlie Fox 3PM-6pm, Tony Mann 6pm-9pm and then Chip Hobart which I suspect was 9PM-mid. At the end of this file is the same Spinners WMEX to WRKO comparison that I already sent you so you may want to cut it off (it’s after Chip Hobart). If you need me to do it, I’ll be happy to, it’s just that I didn’t want to have too many “pieces” in my files.
Let me know what you think.
For me, WRKO was an awesome station but got diminished when they tried to take it more low key (this tape) and pulled the Motown Jingles. This is not their best period, but it’s what I have. I’ll send you lots more as soon as I can get to editing it.
Russ
PS I left some commercials intact that I thought were interesting and represented “the day.“
What I’ve done for presentation here on Airchexx is to split this up right where there’s a break and it goes to WMEX for a break. That will post in Part 2.
Here are a few ‘liner notes’ for this aircheck.
1. As noted by Russ Oasis, the first voice on the tape is that of Dale Dorman. This is one of his funnier moments. He has the whole studio cracking up! Listen to Dale Dorman’s live commercial reads. You’ll hear spots for TWA and Schlitz beer. WRKO is giving away tickets to an upcoming David Bowie concert. You’ll also hear Dorman interact with a live caller. This is noteworthy because, in 1972, most stations only aired pre-recorded phone calls. At least it SOUNDS live. It could have been recorded on a reel for playback, but since nobody from WRKO in 1972 is around to ask, we may never know.
2. Note how the rest of the jocks throughout the day sound very much alike. This seems to be a streamlined era at WRKO. There’s only a couple of versions of a short, shotgun-style WRKO jingle which is played frequently.
3. The audio quality of this tape is quite good. The only issue you may notice is that in spots, the bass is a bit too high and distorts at high volume. Otherwise, this appears to have been recorded from a wide-banded AM receiver onto a reel-to-reel machine.
Be sure to click the BIG BLUE BUTTON to listen.
WAIT!
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The Dale Dorman section is from the last week of September ’72(note the promo for the David Bowie concert “this weekend”; he played Boston on 10/1/72). The Charlie Fox section is from the following week. Chip Hobart’s bit, judging by his reference to Cat Stevens and Jethro Tull concerts, was made during the same week as Charlie Fox’.