Station: 94.1 WQXI-FM (WDJK/WKXI/WQXI-FM/WSTR) Smyrna, Georgia, USA
Format: Easy Listening
Featured Air Personality: Jim Rich (Business News Reporter)
Contributor: Bob Jones
Airchexx Entry: 1,471
“WQXI-FM salutes Harry J. Reynolds, appointed Southern Regional Manager in the photo and repro division of GAF Corporation”
Comments:
So often in researching the history of modern FM stations, one finds that the humble beginnings were as a new FM counterpart to an existing AM station. Often, the first programming choice was a straight simulcast of the dominant AM station. For others, Classical Music was the preferred format, as new owners attempted to demonstrate the ultra-high quality sound that FM offered the listener compared to AM. And then, there was the ever-popular Easy Listening format which offered light instrumentals of established hit songs, and popular non-rock songs from artists such as Perry Como, Frank Sinatra and even The Lettermen. These last three artists are heard in this 45 minute recording of WQXI-FM in the Atlanta, GA market.
While Easy Listening stations bore many similarities from one city to another, some of the non-music features varied depending upon station ownership/management and its target audience. In this example of WQXI-FM, there is no newscast, but there is a Business Report anchored by Jim Rich at 24:17 into the recording.
Many of these Easy Listening stations had unique ways of identifying themselves. For example, in Boston, 96.9 was “From Boston’s Historic Waterfront, this is FM 97. JIB. WJIB”, set to the sound of ocean waves crashing upon the rocks. In suburban Worcester, 96.1 WSRS had some of the most melodic jingles perhaps ever produced. Lyrically speaking, they went, “WSRS, Stereo 96. Where the Beautiful Music Is” Here in Smyrna, 94.1 WQXI-FM had a soft set of produced jingles, presumably in Stereo, although this recording is in mono. Forgetting for a moment that the AM side, 79 WQXI was one of the most popular Top 40 stations in the South, if not the whole country in 1969, the FM side had its work cut out for itself in attempting to separate itself from its Rock & Roll AM. By 1977, they gave up the idea of Easy Listening and became CHR 94Q, which would be the leading hit music station in Atlanta for the better part of the next decade.
definitely “the bad old days”. dial-twistin’ tax dodge at it’s best. Can you imagine anyone calling up to request “hey I’d love to hear that peppy tune “Come to the Cabaret”? When I was a kid, top 40 WCOP 1150 Boston simulcasted its anemic signal on FM 100.7 when it was a novelty to hear pop music on the FM band which sounded so much better than muddy reverberated AM.
unscoped air checks are a real pain in the ass to listen to…..especially when the music reeks. As a ‘radio person’ I’m more interested in hearing the actual jocks, or announcers, maybe some spot snippets, jingles, news clips promos and teasers…..but not the boring music……and your new player makes it impossible to skip ahead, because of the lack of time marker. the name of the site…..is Airchexx.com not old music.com.
Well, Ron, this is another case of ‘ya can’t please everyone’. I thought that since this isn’t hit music and nobody really cares about this old stuff except geeks who did listen to BM stations that it was okay. Besides, scoped down, you’d have about 20 seconds of audio since there’s one jingle and one voice on this. Oh well. There’s over 1,400 other scoped airchecks on this site to listen to. Enjoy those.
I understand, Steve, and seriously appreciate all your efforts on the site, as well as all the outstanding “scoped” airchexxs.
Heck, if airchexx.com can feature at least two or three MOR airchecks, why shouldn’t it have a Beautiful Music/Easy Listening aircheck!
re the jingle for WSRS Worcester, MA quoted in the introductory comment: was this the same jingle WPAT Paterson, NJ used in the mid- and late Seventies? Just asking.
I do not agree with the above posters. I like beautiful music and loved the air check to hear the instrumental beautiful music and wish we still had stations like this today. I do not like pop and rock music that most of this site is. I hope we can have more air checks like this. The older the recording the better.
response to David…….Hi David…..I didn’t say don’t post “beautiful music” or “mor” air checks……I said…..don’t post them if they’re not scoped. If for example they run back to back music selections (2 or more) go ahead and scope them….so we can heart the selections and the way the “announcer” mixed them. I’m still a huge fan of many old school BM and mor tunes……….such as Ray Coniff singers, Herb Alpert, Hollyridge Strings, Montvani, cuts from musicals, movie themes, the Andy Williamses, Perry Como, Doris Day, Steve and Edie Gormet , Englebert, Baja Marimba Band, and other elevator music favorites…….snippets of Paul Harvey, ABC and other net opens and closes, edited bit intros and outros for syndicated comedy like Chickenman or The Tooth Fairy and others……………just scope them, baby. YES those formats should absolutely be on the site. It’s Airchexx.com……..not…. Rock & Country Airchexx.com
p.s. I did 4 solid years of Dollar a Holler dual network small time smaltzy am radio……all the stuff I listed above…plus “old radio music blocks, where the “jocks” played popular music from the 30’s and 40’s, in a regular 60’s small market radio format. complete with all the gawd awful Per Inquiry Spots we ran endlessly. Those airchecks, were the “foundation of disk jockeying”. What early mor jock didn’t screw with the Paul Harvey playbacks. ……….”I’m Paul Harvey………(stop tape for 5 seconds)….(push play)………Good Day !!! “
This is so bad, hard to believe people listened to this…. but this is almost 50 years ago.
I prefer unscoped airchecks..Wile listening to the Jocks is fine I listen for the format/music as well.
Tim, this is always a sticky subject. I have heard it both ways, some people don’t have time to listen to an unscoped hour to hear the jocks and jingles. Others, such as yourself, enjoy the entire listening experience just as it was originally broadcast. A few facts on this subject. I’ve been doing this for over 15 years now and I think I understand this topic pretty well. The first part of the equation is, many of the aircheck submissions – most, in fact, of the early ones were submitted already scoped. It’s no small task, albeit quite enjoyable for me to restore the music into these airchecks and I have done so when I insert them into an internet radio program. However there is one basic fact that I cannot get around. Early on in the life of this website, the RIAA and other music industry entities created Sound Exchange and screamed at Congress for ‘financial relief’ because the industry felt it was being cheated out of millions of dollars in royalty payments. Whether you believe the entire recording industry to be a bunch of greedy snakes or justifiably wanting is entirely one’s personal opinion. I have mine and I’ll keep it to myself, as this website is politically neutral.
Unfortunately, because of how copyright law has evolved since 2002 with regard to online music performances, this website is unable to post, in the vast majority of cases, full unscoped airchecks. Frankly, I just don’t have any kind of budget to pay royalties, or else I’d be more than happy to accomodate those such as yourself who prefer complete airchecks music included. If at some point I become independently wealthy or someone makes a very generous donation to our cause, I’ll definitely make the change. Until then, we’ll all have to make do with telescoped recordings. Its not my policy, its the law.
Hello, Ron. Scoped or unscoped is beside the point. Post scoped MOR (be it traditional pop or the all-soft-rock (soft rock hits in particular) counterpart thereof that was eventually renamed AC) if you feel that you must, but BM/EZ airchecks, how can you *even* **THINK**!! of scoping them?!?
That is, to say, “Post scoped MOR (be it traditional pop or the all-soft-rock (soft rock hits in particular) counterpart thereof that was eventually renamed AC) if you feel that you must,…”.
This is an incredible aircheck. My question is if they were trying to differentiate from the rockin AM, they kept the call letters on FM. Anyway I used to loathe all the beautiful music stations that flooded the FM dial in the 70s. Now i kind of miss it and listen to the online BM stations.
OK, I am the one that submitted this aircheck. It’s an oddity itself when you consider WQXI AM was “IT” in Atlanta. Since I’m sure MOST folks that rolled their decks back then like I did…very very few recorded stations such as this one. I submitted it for the fact that it was WQXI trying to make a “go” after they started this FM. They had no idea which direction to go. They weren’t allowed to simulcast the AM back then, later changed calls to WKXI, and on and on. Anyway, with the 1000s of scoped airchecks on here, NO ONE is making or forcing you to listen to this very rare exception of unscoped airchecks Steve has posted.
I got to know Jim Rich briefly in the fall of 1970 when I was a student at the “Atlanta School of Broadcasting.” He was one of the instructors there. The previous year, I went to Truett-McConnell Junior College in Cleveland, GA. where I quickly determined I was not college material and convinced my parents to allow me to attend “broadcast school” instead. Not too many years after I graduated, the “school” went out of business. I learned a little while I was there from the air personalities hired as instructors, but got most of my formal education in the business by actually being on-the-air and getting on-the-job training. Worked in the hot markets of Adel, LaGrange and Columbus, GA. Also worked in Phenix City, AL before getting down to the Alabama Gulf Coast and Mobile, Alabama. I stayed here in Mobile after marrying a native Mobilian who didn’t want to move. I spent much of my nearly 30 years working in radio and TV stations in the Mobile market, but my primary employment was as a radio news director at various area radio stations. I did have a 6 year stint as Director of Community and Public Relations for the Alabama Coastal Command of The Salvation Army. I retired as a television news producer about 5 years ago. Just think, I owe this wonderful broadcasting career of mine to Jim Rich and other instructors from the “Atlanta School of Broadcasting.” I wish I had known how much fun I was having at the time because I apparently wasn’t in it for the money. HA!