Jim Randall, Afternoon Drive, WMZQ Washington | 1978

98.7 Washington DC WMZQ

Guessing here on the exact year of this aircheck, here’s an interesting look at a station which, were it not for all the Country music, would simply be a great MOR station. If one of our listeners can nail down an exact date, I’ll edit this post appropriately.

Notables: You’ll hear a newscast at 6pm with Dianne Kepley (where did she go from here?), a 98-MZQ Editorial with GM Mike Cohen (when was the last time you heard a station do that?) called “What’s Bugging Us?”, and a full length classic commercial for the Bank of Maryland. Hearing “We’re the Bank” sung over and over becomes irritating but, it’s only a one-minute spot!

One thing of note to our listeners. Second song into this aircheck, the song is garbled and unreadable… don’t quit listening – it was the cart machine at WMZQ not our aircheck which went haywire… or as Jim Randall says, ‘it’s the Italian version…’

Naturally, this is a scoped presentation – but that’s, perhaps, a good thing… many of these old Country songs weren’t too notable, except for Larry Gatlin and the one from George Jones & Tammy Wynette. This is PRE Urban Cowboy Country radio, and surprisingly enough, WMZQ used a Top 40 sounding jock who sounded very much like KHJ’s Charlie Tuna – only two octaves lower!

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