The 60s hits were initially promoted by his movies. Then he got married, moved from LA back to Memphis, and then had the 1968 revival with Suspicious Minds, Kentucky Rain, and of course Burning Love. The latter hits were crossover between pop and country.
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Telltale signs of an imminent format change?
- Thread starter tall_guy1
- Start date
The 60s hits were initially promoted by his movies. Then he got married, moved from LA back to Memphis, and then had the 1968 revival with Suspicious Minds, Kentucky Rain, and of course Burning Love. The latter hits were crossover between pop and country.
Which didn't necessarily make them bad songs. Lennon and McCartney wrote "A Hard Day's Night," "I Should Have Known Better" and several other well-known Beatles songs for their first movie, and I don't run into too many Beatles buffs downgrading them for that. Are you suggesting that songs like "Viva Las Vegas" and "Follow That Dream" would have been ignored by the record-buying public and radio if they weren't used in a movie?
You read that perfectly. That's exactly what I meant!
Not at all. But they benefited from that unique platform at a time when his career was starting to trend older
I was a member of the "Elvis generation". By the time I graduated from high school ('62) he was largely over the hill except for some hangers-on females who didn't mind the extra pounds and put up with his ballads. He could have sung the Burl Ives songbook and those females would still have swooned. Most of the people my age had moved on several years ago.
I live in the Memphis area and he still got airplay on WHBQ, the main top 40 station at the time, until after his death.
Remember the brouhaha in the late '80s (I think it was) when they announced that they were not going to play anymore Elvis? Seems like they had to backtrack from that one rather quickly at the time.
I apologize there are some good religious songs like here I am to worship but I just am not a fan of how they say that donating to their religious station will bring you blessings and money but your point is definitely noted in that regard.
I think it was probably the early 80's when that happened. They eventually went to news/talk when FM 100 became the primary top 40 or CHR station, and in the late 80's RKO sold WHBQ to Dr. George Flinn, who changed to oldies and eventually sports talk in the 90's, which they still are now.
You're thinking of Word of Faith preachers. K-LOVE asks for donations to keep stations going, but not in a give to get type scheme like WOF.
I'm thinking that this is when it was. This was also about the time when WHBQ made the very strange (and extremely short-lived) decision to play "clean" heavy metal (in other words, nothing derogatory) in the evenings in the late '80s. (Any kind of music on AM would have been in trouble by then.) It seemed like they were looking to see if anything would "stick" before they finally went to sports.
Or it was the most insanely over-the-top promotional stunt ever.
"WZQF's new format is HOT! I mean REALLY HOT! So hot that we're literally ON FIRE!"
I didn't mention it here, but they also had bomb threats right after they returned to the air (three months later). That station is still country to this day, but has not been continuously so since then.
I seem to remember WHBQ did country for a year or two in the early 90's, also. By the time I got to Memphis for college, where I only ended up spending one semester, it was sports. Yes, I did actually check the AM band once-in-awhile back then! I actually had music tastes that were older and more eclectic than most of my peers, though FM 100 was still about my third choice at the time.
This would seem plausible, as music-playing formats on AM gradually skewed older throughout the '80s, until music on AM wasn't really viable anymore. I worked at some of those hangers-on music-playing AM stations in the early '90s, and I believe that all of them have either flipped to some form of talk since then, or have added FM translators, or have signed off altogether.
A notable exception: WSM 650
You consider them "healthy" or "viable"? Sure their few remaining fans make a lot of noise, but for how long can they prevent the inevitable? And how long can Gaylord keep losing money on them?
They obviously serve their purpose, whatever that is. Otherwise they would have flipped to talk, added a translator, or signed off altogether.
"Heritage" won't pay the bills forever. Their day of reckoning is still coming.
My mother still listens to them, but for an "amusing" reason: only because my dad did.
You might be right if it was during the oldies period after Flinn took over.
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