The Backstory…
This is one of a small handful of tapes that survived my youth, military moves, years stored in a blazing attic and other acts of wanton disregard for old tapes that happened out of necessity.
This particular day, if memory serves, I was visiting my parents at my childhood home in Orange, Massachusetts – about 75 miles away from the WZOU transmitter. At the time, I was on leave from my first duty station in Norfolk, VA. Memory is a funny thing. Trying to remember the details about this aircheck some 34 years after is not as easy as it seems. I DO remember thinking about how I wanted to record some radio to take back for listening. This was the result of one side of one tape. The other side featured 30 minutes of WHTT. Somewhere along the line, I recorded over all but the last 10 minutes of it. So what is left is one break and one jingle of WHTT. That part of the tape I inserted into the beginning of this WZOU aircheck.
Listen for some iconic commercial brands during the breaks. Old Milwaukee beer and Tello’s in Boston. And close to the end of this, one of the best Top Hour Jingles ever!
The Jock…
Uncle Johnny’s real name is Paul Michaud. He went by Uncle Johnny Walker at WWCO Waterbury (Connecticut) in the 1970s before heading to WRQX Washington for the first of two stints there, with a stop in Boston at WZOU in between. Today he describes himself as happily retired and living in Florida. He is active on Facebook, so if you’d like to reach out, his page is HERE.
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Credits:
Recording by Steve West in 1985
Photo by Uncle Johnny
Jock information courtesy of RadioYears.com – Central Florida’s Great Radio Stations of the Past!
My first duty station was onboard the USS America (CV-66). You can follow her adventures and find old shipmates here.
John 3:16
I still have my Z94 T shirt, given to me by one of their DJ’s in Government Ctr in around 1986. Across the back of it in blue reads: Boston’s 10 in a row music station. I also remember WHTT. Whenever I’m in Boston these days I tend to tune to WBCN.
Regards,
Tim Merritt.
Guildford, Surrey, Ehgland.
I have a tape floating around that I made in ’91, that consisted of the contest tag “Get out of the cold, and get set to Sun Your Buns…Lock It In on your Number 1 Vacation Station! 94 point 5..W Z O U….BOSTON!” LOL
It has J.R. In the Morning’s song intro (Get Your Head, Outta Bed…) Human Numann’s joke intro/ Karen Blake’s Intro, a cut of Lucy Hill doing the traffic.
I loved that station!
W.H.T.T. Boston!, HITRADIO!
WZOU used to be on 1470AM in Lewiston ME, but is currently unassigned
1470 got the WZOU calls after 94.5 got rid of them.
Do you still have this? I’m dying to hear it again!
Well… the post plays, so we have that. Yes. The tape is put away somewhere but the studio is a disaster area (because I’m frankly too damn lazy to clean it) and it might take a while to find. Oh but honestly, what you hear on this aircheck is exactly how it was submitted. I wish I’d had three different unscoped tapes of all three stations – yes, there’s some Kiss-108 CHR on here too. I’m right with ya, Clark.
Quit Scoped Please…………..Unscoped Version Radio Good Songs.