“WLS Musicradio regrets to announce that we have no more fashionable streak-suits…”
With that promo voiced by Bob Sirott, the biggest craze of 1974 is out there for all to see! Here’s brand NEW audio of John Records Landecker in the early years of his career on the Enormous 89. WLS had recently begun calling itself “Musicradio”, and was playing with a new deck of jingles, while still using the old 60s cuts sparingly. It wouldn’t be long before we were hearing jingles from JAM.
Jeffrey Hendrix reports news – Patty Hurst is still in captivity at this time. Remember, this is at night, so the news update is just that, a couple of headlines at the :50 break. Landecker cracks the mic again at 8:59. Before this ends, Landecker is about to do another episode of Americana Panorama!
Listen to the energy level on this aircheck! You won’t hear this on any FM station today. Also, listen for a couple of spots voiced by Dan Ingram (WABC), who by this time was an accomplished national agency voice.
Technically speaking, listen to the audio quality. It sounds as if the source recording was recorded a bit too loud, however, AM used to transmit with 13k of bandwidth (as opposed to only 9khz today), thus, there is a higher quality to the received signal. Didn’t hurt that receivers back then were a bit more wide-banded than they are today either.
Final song on this 10 minute scope is Barbara Streisand’s “The Way We Were”. And no, you can’t hear the full songs, but here, its the jocks, jingles and commercials which matter anyway!
Boy, the music, the jocks, and the stations of today couldn’t even see WLS’s taillights; that’s how good all those stations were, among them WABC, WNBC, and Chicago’s own WCFL.
I get a kick out of those “Streak Sticker” commercials and that ZIP code 60601. Brings back memories of 70’s TV and “Spiegel – Chicago 60609”!
The song at 3:51 is “Teenage Lament ’74” by Alice Cooper which peaked at #48. It must have been a pretty good regional hit because both WLS and Super-CFL played it at the time. Wonder how high it got on either stations’ surveys
The aircheck SMOKES! Down the dial at 1000 WCFL had Dr. Brock. Brock, while very loud….didn’t possess the same energy he seemed to have in New Orleans.
Not knocking the Doc, but after hearing this JRL aircheck…..WOW. Just plain wow.
I’d listen to more CHR today, if jocks could add this much personality to the music.
ONLY if the music changed as well…..Classic Hits stations like WLS FM need to forget the PPM and let the jocks do what they do well…BE DJs!!!
Well I typed a reply, joined up and it deleted all my typing…thanks AirChexx!!!
NOW back to my original post:
Your comment in the article about the audio being wider and thats why it sounds too loud is 100% WRONG!!! AM radio stations used to be allowed up to 20kHz audio bandwidth…in the 1980s, the FCC cut it back to 10kHz…(still is) but the reason this aircheck sounds too loud is because IT IS TOO loud..someone had the VU meter pegging on the recorder….NOW here is a link to a recording of the BIG89 in CQUAM AM Stereo at 10kHz bandwidth from the 08 BIG89 Rewind…with the great JOHN RECORDS LANDECKER (who actually sounds younger now as he gets older??? WOW):
//home.earthlink.net/~chrisboone/REOSpeedwagonWLSAMStereo.mp3
IF you go up one level at that site, there is other audio from the WLS Rewind…I am trying to find a free FTP site to post ALL of the audio from the 07 and the 08 Rewinds…music, ads AND reverb!!! and TWO Boggie Checks…and alas the last year (08) Uncle Larry Lujack (RIP) was on WLS.
The reason you are having problems posting is because your username is being caught by the spam filter. Thankfully for you, I check it to be sure nothing ‘real’ is there. Sure enough… but I have to tell ya, I can understand why the filter caught it. Also, please think carefully when commenting. Unlike most sites, I do allow links to other collections – mainly because I run this site for the love of radio and not out of personal ego. That said, try to be nice when you comment. I can’t even try to think of how many thousands of hours of my life I’ve poured into this, just in audio production/restoration itself. If I make a mistake, so be it.
1970 – The Big 89 had the greatest set of pipes in the Wild (Mid)West! J.J. Jeffrey, Larry Lujack, Jeffrey Hendrix, Kris Erik Stevens, Chuck Buell, and the indomitable John Records Landecker. Wow! This was 70’s radio at its best. Nothing on radio like that today. The Hall of the Radio Gods is a nice to place to be in! Thanks for the memories, WLS!