Mason Lee Dixon was a star in Louisville, KY – at 79 WAKY, from 1969 to 1972 prior to arriving in New Haven. He’d return there in the late 70s. In the Summer of ’73, WAVZ was red hot… this was John Long’s 13 Waves, with an airstaff of jocks, nearly all of whom would go on to even bigger and better places than New Haven, Connecticut.
Hold up a minute…
If you enjoy what you read and hear on this page, why not support it with a small donation. If everyone gave just a few dollars, we could fund this site for years to come! You can pitch in just a little bit and help ensure these archives remain online and growing. As always, thank you!
Listen to the imaging! The Top of Hour was done live, over the same bed used at WXLO New York (in 1978!), and the station featured one shotgun jingle (coincidently, also used at the aforementioned 99X!) along with a couple of variations. WAVZ had a big city sound to it, and was regularly written up in the various trade magazines then in publication.
This is an original aircheck recorded by Andy Bologovsky, who has a large collection of recordings of WAVZ, and in fact, most of our airchecks of this station were donated to airchexx by Andy. So… once again, our thanks!
I’m fairly certain this is not the same Mason Lee Dixon of Louisville fame. Just take a listen to any Mason Dixon airchecks at //www.79waky.com and you’ll recognize the difference.
Yeah, that is Mason Dixon later of Q105/Tampa, not WAKY/Louisville. Totally Tampa’s Mason… ALL the way.
This ‘check reveals what ruined the overall sound of WAVZ –the heavy handed pitching up of -all- records.
Listen to the Foster Sylvers cut at 02:08 Just a bizarre joke. What did Long do, order 50HZ motors on the turntables?
They built a state-of-the-art small station…then wreck it with crap like this. A little speeding is fine, this was dumb.
This check needs a little surgery; the speed is wayyyy too fast.
What great memories. I saw Three Dog Night and T Rex on the same tour that was advertised in this clip, except I attended the show at the New Haven Coliseum.
Great jock, great radio station WAVZ
There was a Chucker at WAVZ in those days.
Chuck Martin.
I was a copywriter and production director there, and remember Chuck well. Very fun guy. They were all pretty kewl guys:-) It really was a flagship radio station of it’s era.
Don’t you think that it’s about time for WAVZ to make a big radio comeback, but this time on FM?
Sadly, if it were CHR, the name would have no meaning to Millenials & Gen Z, who are the bulk of CHR listeners. -Ellis
Doubt that! Their grandparents, theit aunts and uncles, and even their parents can tell today’s kids and teens just one how special WAVZ was to them.
And if you have kids, you know nothing makes a radio station more appealing than parents telling them what they should listen to!