Don Bombard, 97.1 WYNY New York | 1981

It’s a pretty safe bet that this is a rare aircheck. Don Bombard began his career in New York City at 97.1 WYNY in the Fall of 1981. By 1982, Bombard had moved to WCBS-FM, doing the evening show. According to former CBS-FM PD Joe McCoy, who was happy to tell me the story at Bob Gilmore’s 2018 Radio BBQ, he changed Bombard’s name to “Bobby Shannon” because there was already one “Don” on staff (Don K. Reed), and he thought “Shannon” had a better ring to it anyway. So, for anyone interested but not aware previously, Don Bombard and Bob Shannon in New York City are one and the same. Not to be confused with another Bob Shannon who worked for KHJ, KFI and KRTH in Los Angeles some decades ago… confused yet?

This is ‘scoped down about as tightly as it could get – and most of that, done by this exhibit’s contributor, Steven Green. You’re not missing much, however. There were no jingles used at this particular point in time, at least not on this aircheck. You can tell just how well processed WYNY was, from an engineering standpoint. Don Bombard sounds great and if not for the way this tape was recorded (or played back), you would notice nearly perfect levels. But, yeah. Those pesky cassette tapes. The left track varies from -2 to -4 db lower than the right, and the entire recording is in glorious mono. It still sounds good, even with the mechanical imperfections, good enough so that I decided to leave the recording alone and not risk introducing digital artifacts by trying to fix the levels.

About the Contributor

Steven Green lived in the New York City area and was privileged to be able to record most of the big radio stations of the day. Steven said that WABC was by far, his favorite radio station during the years that WABC was a music station. He was also a big fan of WNBC, especially in 1987-1988 during its weekend and overnight “Time Machine” format. Steven Green has donated dozens of airchecks to this website and is also building his own collection in the national online archives at archive.org.