“…At 6:30, the brand new WXXX disc jockey. He goes by the name of the Silent Man”
Not to be confused by a certain FM station in Burlington Vermont using these call letters, this amazing little AM station was Top 40 before some of the biggest Top 40 legendary stations in North America were.
Its amazing that there is even a logo out there for WXXX. More amazing is that there’s audio, presumably from someone’s reel to reel machine going back to 1963. Chris Kelly is disc jockey, newsman and weatherman. The station is what many small AM stations were up through the end of the 1970s, one man doing everything. This was recorded on a weekday, in the 5 pm hour. In fact, you’ll hear Kelly read news headlines at 5:30pm, about 30 seconds into this aircheck.
Listen to the long jingles. Someone probably knows what jingle company produced them, they certainly aren’t PAMS, and not likely Johnny Mann. Gwinsound?
WXXX “The Tiger” or “Tiger Radio” as it was called, presumably was a daytime only radio station. Its said that Hattiesburg Mississippi is the birthplace of Rock and Roll because of an artist from that city who recorded two songs in the 1930s that had all the elements of Rock and Roll – essentially they were Rock and Roll songs! What we wouldn’t give to hear them. Its not known if those songs were ever played on WXXX, or if the station was even on the air in the 1930s. In fact, there’s almost no written history about WXXX, which makes locating a logo for this station all the more interesting.
This is the only known aircheck of 1310 WXXX, at least this early in the 1960s. If you know of one online or if you have a tape of this station, we’d certainly be interested in knowing about it. Use the ‘Contact Us’ link to send email.
This aircheck originally came from Chris Kelly himself. He shared it, along with a couple from WABB Mobile, where he also worked in that era, with an aircheck collector who contacted him in the mid-1980s. The collector (now deceased) sent copies to me years ago, and probably either his or my copy eventually made it to this site.