For those who never heard this show, WABC added this program right after WCBS-FM dropped oldies in favor of the “Jack-FM” format, trying to capitalize on the tremendous heritage that WABC had as a music station. Mark Simone is a consummate professional, able to host a talk show on WABC and be very serious talking politics, and yet still be a fantastic disc jockey – he should, having worked at stations like WPIX 102 doing top 40 and WNEW Eleven Three Oh as a standards jock. Regarding Saturday Night Oldies, it was an experiment which failed. The show morphed into an interview program. and then was dropped.
This really is a noisy aircheck. Recorded in your webmaster’s back room with all my electronics lit up, the WABC signal often faded into the high computer noise which is so prevalent around the AM band everywhere these days. But, it’s not unlistenable. Recorded on a wideband AM Stereo receiver from Radio Shack (one of those vintage 80s models), where the signal is good (about 70 percent), WABC actually sounds very good despite having wrecked their audio chain during the time of this recording to thanks to it’s IBOC “HD Radio” signal.
As an interesting side note, WABC actually quit using its HD transmitter some time ago… but now for some odd reason, the overall signal stinks. And corporate (Cumulus Media, now) is stuffing every available time slot with infomercials! Talk about destroying a legend, but I digress…
This does fade out and get difficult to listen to in spots, but hang in there. Mark Simone and the old WABC jingles are worth every minute of the 8:23 that this scoped recording offers.
Thanks for posting. Sounds great!
Pompous ass Simone can’t keep his conservative mindset out of the DJ format. Rock music has always irritated him -except for some simple pop-rockers and ballads.Anything representative of change he reacts to dismissively: band names in1969 were “stupid”,1980’s lyrics are immemorable -not like the good old days of 1959-60! What he would prefer then over today doesn’t end with music. He’s a Sinatra sycophant who used Top40 & FM radio to jumpstart his career as another simplistic Republican-Shill talk radio host.However,the years have taken their toll: his hair has grown from baldness to fullness in 40yrs! So maybe he’s not lying about his age: he was born in 1980!
I probably should have deleted this comment because just because of its sheer amount of hate. Instead, I’ll reply point by point.
1. I heard him WPIX 102 (101.9). Mark Simone is very talented, and I found him knowledgeable about the music. If he indeed doesn’t like music past the early 1960s, he didn’t show it.
2. When WABC attempted to bring back MusicRadio 77 back around 2007 (IIRC), Simone made a genuine attempt to do the old format live on Saturday nights. That effort lasted a few months before it turned into more of a talk show. I was disappointed and I’m sure a lot of others were as well, however, what Saturday nights turned into- a primarily artist interview type show with some music interspersed in-between, was NOT the normal conservative political talk show like WABC had during the week. I was a loyal listener back then and I know for a fact that Simone didn’t go political on the short-lived “MusicRadio 77” format on Saturday nights. The show went out with a whisper. At some point, they stopped turning on the reverb for Saturday evenings and then the music disappeared entirely… and then Simone also disappeared.
3. Simone has pretty much abandoned being a ‘DJ’ and stayed with talk radio. That’s not bad, in fact, that’s where the money is. That, along with product endorsements that Simone has been doing.
Please avail yourself of this opportunity to explain what you mean by Simone using Top 40 radio to jumpstart his career in talk radio. He’s a natural in the talk format and explains his points very well. There’s nothing simplistic about conservative talk radio. The issues are complex, and the concerns expressed by the hosts and callers are completely valid, as they watch our culture spin out of control. A full explanation is in order, sir. After all, if you’re going to bash a talented radio host on this platform, you better have a damn good reason, or I’ll permanently ban you from Airchexx.com. You get ONE chance. Think carefully.