This recording, not only is our first of this historic San Diego Adult/Contemporary station, but probably best demonstrates the state of early ‘Soft AC’ stations on FM in the first year of the 1980s. This is ‘ALMOST’ Middle of the Road. With a generous dose of Oldies and just a sprinkling of new music, “K-Best 95” was in a great position to do well with adult audiences.
Listen for the ‘K-Best 95 News Magazine’ about halfway in, and remember just what was going on in the world on 12/11/80.
Do yourself a favor. If you remember 1980, and you can put up with the sound of a tape that was recorded on a ‘skimmer’ (a recorder that was designed especially for recording only when the mic was turned on, the power to the whole unit would go off when the studio mic was turned off – so the music is not recorded), you’ll love this representation of another radio station that went through a few incarnations of AC, then Oldies, then… whatever. 80s, at one point to what is on the 94.9 frequency today. Your webmaster was in San Diego in June, 1984, and remembers this station, although I can’t honestly remember what that format sounded like, only the slogan “K-Best 95” stuck in my head. I like this aircheck, it reminds me a bit of how the old 98.5 WROR (Boston) sounded like in 1980.
Courtesy of BigAppleAirchecks.
This is Jonathan Lang (spelling correct) thank you for the wonderful comments! This was recorded during the reign of the original KBest95, the Biggest Hits of All Time. Force Communication owned it and Norm Fuere was the GM and Force partner. The logo is not the original star burst. Everyone there was the best.
Ooops! My sincerest apologies to Norm Feuer for misspelling his name! BTW the late Dene Hallam was PD at the time. It was mainly an oldies station and some of the jocks from that tim : Gary Hamilton, Dana Lauren, KC Michaels, Wes Owen and Ron Stark.
Hey Jonathan Lang, I remember you from 1979!
I was a 18-year-old Sophomore at UCSD when I discovered K-BEST 95 on my dorm radio, right after it flipped from a Christian station (in the begging, it was housed in the “Good Life” church, if I remember correctly). I called the station, spoke to Dana Lauren, how hooked me up with Dene Hallam (obm) who was kind enough to hire me to run the syndicated Dick Clark Solid Gold programs – off of vinyl – on Sunday nights. I got to read commercials live on the air… what a thrill! I also played the syndicated Mark Bragg “In Depth” programs on vinyl, and “produced” the Gail (Gayle?) Patterson “On Line” live call-in talk/public affairs. I screened the callers, who tended to be pretty wacky on a late Sunday night.
I still miss that station… the variety was really big for a commercial, terrestrial radio station.
This is the first air check of KBZT from that time period that I’ve found on-line, after all these years. I don’t know why it took me 3 years to find it.
THANK YOU, Steve West, for posting it !
Marty, you are most welcome! I love digging up things from that era