From Contributor Robyn Watts, here’s our first aircheck of Jerry Kristopher (WKCI, WDRC-FM), and he’s not in the Hartford, Connecticut market!
In a sense, this is sort of a boring aircheck. FM 97, not much of a slogan in and of itself, is solidly an Adult Contemporary station. Perhaps the station was trying to find its way. In 1981, FM was just coming into its own and many stations didn’t quite know which way to go formatically. Those which didn’t go CHR or Country or AOR were lost in the shuffle for a time. Perhaps this is what happened to WFFM.
The station has been gone for so long, there’s not even an original logo scan out there anywhere. Today, it’s Variety Hits 96.9 “Bob-FM”. After all, who needs disc jockeys?
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This was Jerry’s second time in Pittsburgh. The first was in 1975, when he was at KQV and calling himself “World Famous,” “the humble, modest, honest superduperstar of Pittsburgh radio.” His schtick then had a lot of Landecker and Imus in it, but a lot that was original as well. (This was the six months or so that Joey Reynolds was programming KQV, and Jerry worked for Joey at WHLW in Lakewood, N.J. before that.) Compared to what he was doing at KQV, the WFFM stint was so dull — mostly reading liners — that one wonders what WFFM’s management was thinking. WFFM was sold not long after this, and under the new owners in 1982 it became Y-97 (WHYW), with a more foreground AC approach.
I forgot Jerry was there! He must have walked in through the door as I was walking out! He was one of my favorites at KQV as “World Famous.”
They’re hard to find but I did find a WFFM logo on YouTube at the URL //www.youtube.com/watch?v=I3zZwznHVdE You’ll see it at the 1 minute 30 second mark. This was an alternate logo the main logo was the same but instead of the blue background it was tan colored.
In either ’80 or ’81, (I forget which), WFFM had a jingle that started out something like “Rockin’ easy in the morning” and ended with “Rockin easy people, WFFM”. As with all jingles, it was short, but I rather liked it. I didn’t know till now that the frequency was (and is) 96.9. Also, I called Chuck Brinkman when he worked there (autumn ’81). He was with KQV in their heyday as a top 40. I met Mr. Brinkman at Kennywood Park in July of ’73, and by then he was at WTAE. In closing, I remember when Bill Curry was on channel 2 (KDKA-TV).
I forgot to mention that the date of this aircheck is February 9, 1981, as that was Carole King’s 39th birthday. I guess she and Gerry Goffin are still married; if so that makes about 56 years, as they wed in 1960.
I think that was the package they got from Tuesday Productions in ’79.
Love this. This station didn’t last long. “Association of Retarded …” wow that wouldn’t fly today in this PC world. And what negative crap to say about Carole King… jeez 🙂
Absolutely right!