Coming to you via the fabulously enormous Contributor Robyn Watts collection, here’s a selection from “East Coast Airchecks” Tape #32 entitled “Hot Night Jocks”.
Hawk Harrison is no Coyote McCloud, but definitely cuts it as a hot night jock on one of the nation’s most notorious CHR stations – made so in no small part thanks to the efforts of televangelists like Jimmy Swaggart, who called on ownership to pull the plug on the station and advertisers to stay away. Eventually, to a degree, it worked, as Y107 would change to AAA as “The River”.
Today, WRVW The River is one of Nashville’s leading stations, featuring a straight-ahead CHR format. The cast has changed, but the music remains the same.
Back to Y-107. Rhet Walker (Gary Burleigh) explained the whole WYHY phenomenon this way. Paraphrasing here, because I can’t remember the exact words he used, some 15 years ago now, “Y107 was enormous! Bigger than life, and the owners would do, and did, just about anything to keep the ratings high. So, because of that, they pretty much let Coyote McCloud and I do whatever we want, so long as we didn’t jeopardize the station’s license“. That was in reference to the Y107 morning show, but a listen to just about any daypart, yeilds a level of hilarity that most CHR stations rarely achieved. And, it worked!
Hi Steve,
Just some minor corrections to add to your description.
The aircheck was from either late Spring or early Summer of 1990, judging by the songs heard.
Shortly after this was recorded, Hawk Harrison went to WFLZ/Tampa for a stint. Today, he is now part of the “Hawk and Tom Show” on CHR WFBC-FM Greenville/Spartanburg, SC.
As for Y107, they didn’t go Triple A in 1996, they went Hot AC as “107.5 The River”. However, with the growth of CHR nationwide in the late 90s, the station adjusted back to Mainstream CHR by late 1998 while keeping “The River” handle.
Robyn