When this station started playing top 40, it was called “WARM 99”, but in March of 1986 the name changed to “Power 99-7”. The call letters in the beginning were WARM-FM. The memorable WAPW call letters wouldn’t arrive until 1988.
Here’s Lon Thomas, highlighted here from audio publication CALIFORNIA AIRCHECK, Tape #S-80 from March of 1986. It was donated from Contributor Robyn Watts, who apparently subscribed to this service, sending dozens of these tapes several years ago.
This is noteble if for only one reason – WARM is called “Power 99-7” and NOT just “Power 99”, as many still remember it.
It’s a clear, crisp recording from a cassette tape that held up quite well over the years.
What excellent processing on this aircheck. Great example of the Atlanta sound back then.
Lon Thomas was the morning man at 102.7 KIIS-FM just prior to the arrival of a man named Dees. If you watch the 1981 movie Modern Romance, there’s a scene in which Albert Brooks is driving around the San Fernando Valley with Lon Thomas on KIIS playing on the car radio.
WARM was AC until they flipped to Top 40 in March 1986. They kept the WARM calls until 88, when they became WAPW.
Interesting. As the guy who once was known as Lon Thomas, I’m flattered that anyone remembered this show or this station. Here’s a story: Steve Davis was the Program Director and the PM Drive host for Power, whose studios were on Piedmont in a seven or eight story building right next to 94Q. Now, our building had reflective mylar window tinting, so during the day there was no way to see in. There was a five story parking garage to the immediate left of our air studio that we could look down onto. One afternoon while Steve was doing his show, a car pulled up onto the very top level of the parking garage in full view. The occupants, a male and a female, proceeded to do things to each other that are illegal in half a dozen states, which prompted Steve to break in and provide live play-by-play on the air. As I recall, the main event lasted for at least a half hour and, if the office building had been a ship at sea, it would have capsized because of the weight of all the human beings who had shifted to that side to watch,
Great to hear this sound again. It was a fun ride.
Re: Scott’s note farther up in this thread – yes, Don Benson, who ironically had been the Program Director at 94Q in Atlanta, fired me on July 9th, 1981 for Rick Dees. Don had been hired by Gannett for KIIS in May of that year. He’d done the best he could to try to make me into the next John Landecker, who’d been his morning guy in Phoenix immediately prior to his ascension to Hollywood. But, I just wasn’t what he needed.