This one goes back nearly to the beginning of what would be one of the most famous Top 40 radio stations in the world. Dan Ingram held down Afternoon Drive on WABC for most of the 22 years of it’s existence as a music station, and here you can listen to how he sounded in the early days of the WABC music format.
The jingles in use here, I believe are from Heller. The Heller Jingle company was a leading commercial jingle company that existed from the 1950s through the 1970s. Unfortunately, I was unable to find any reference to the original company using advanced web searches, however, there are plenty of examples of radio station jingles done by Heller on YouTube
I’ve heard airchecks similar to this one a time or two, but this is a unique recording provided by my good friend Matt over at Big Apple Airchecks. It’s rare to find something from 1961 at all, but I’ll tell ya… no reverb on the tape convinces me that it originated at the WABC studio and NOT over the air. But, the processing is in place, so we know where in the audio chain the aircheck machine was. The reverb unit in use was installed at the transmitter site in Lodi, NJ. Below, I believe is a photo of the unit WABC used for all but the final year of its life as a music station. There’s only a few of these originals left. Today, reverb is accomplished by means of electronic reverb software plugins, eliminating both the high original cost and the immense size of creating that ‘sound’.
Those who can remember the sound of WABC back in its very early years will note the pace of the format. Big Dan talks lightning fast on this aircheck which goes back 63 years as of 2024! Also, note the number of big national brands represented in the commercial load. Commercials were played after every one or two records and it seems like there were no more than two at a time back in 1961. I don’t think there’s a music station in America that plays commercials that way today, as the emphasis has been (for the past few decades) to play commercials in increasingly longer blocks. Supposedly, the prevailing attitude is now to play all the commercials in two or three long blocks, followed by long blocks of music. Don’t get me started about listener fatigue in these long blocks of spots…
This aircheck represents how top 40 radio sounded, then in its infancy. It’s raw, it’s gritty, and boy, was there a lot of DO-WOP music on the air when this was recorded! You’ll LOVE IT!
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