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Oldies 98
- Thread starter JH_Radio
- Start date
J
JoeLouis
Guest
In 1972 there was also a mostly overlooked top 40 in Philly with call letters ahead of its time (WIFI 92.1) really wasn't a bad station, it wasn't automated like WCAU FM
J
JoeLouis
Guest
WCAU FM in '72 was NOT an all oldies station, twice an hour (at :10 and:40) they played a current top 10 hit.
they were called future gold and 6min before the top of the hour they would play instrumentals so when the ID came on it would not interrupt a song with vocals. They went as far back as 1955 but their core was the british invasion, beach and motown years primarily 1963 to 1967 many cuts were oh wow tunes some were not played on local philly stations when they were new but sounded great to a 18 year old dude.
Cannon was a busy man in the 70s. In addition to a.m. drive at WHLI, he also did weekends at WNEW. I used to call him there on Sunday nights. I remember one night we were talking about George Michael. He thought ABC should have hired a more mature sounding personality than Michael who he said sounded like a "kid."
With regard to oldies formats playing currents, this may have been more the norm in the early 70s than we might think. I recall NYC's WCBS-FM doing that in the early 70s. I'm not sure it was one or two songs an hour but it was also a "future gold" designation as mentioned earlier for CAU-FM.
Just a guess but in the early 70s perhaps the feeling was song burnout was a definite possibility with a relative small number of years that would qualify as gold. With the case of WCBS-FM, I don't recall it sounded like a train wreck at all. That was probably the case of CAU-FM. Lots of early 70s music wouldn't sound so strange positioned next to a 60s or even 50s hit. Rock 'n roll and soul has timeless aspects.
I also remember at other stations that mixed old with the new, you'd hear something like "#1 then....and #1 now" during survey countdowns. This was done all through a Top 10 countdown for example. It made it far most interesting IMO.
Just a guess but in the early 70s perhaps the feeling was song burnout was a definite possibility with a relative small number of years that would qualify as gold. With the case of WCBS-FM, I don't recall it sounded like a train wreck at all. That was probably the case of CAU-FM. Lots of early 70s music wouldn't sound so strange positioned next to a 60s or even 50s hit. Rock 'n roll and soul has timeless aspects.
I also remember at other stations that mixed old with the new, you'd hear something like "#1 then....and #1 now" during survey countdowns. This was done all through a Top 10 countdown for example. It made it far most interesting IMO.
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WMOD from DC was another great solid gold format in the early 70s, would pick them up on an occasional skip, not part of the CBS group played really off the wall stuff with no currents, great jocks. I never recall CBS-FM playing any future gold the first few years unless it was minimal and I never caught it, but they did play a few doo wop cuts per hour, they even had a liner WCBS-FM doo wop gold, great stuff miss it nowadays on the T radio dial.
twister sister at 8:55, wow what a rush to hear them on a station that had an R&B lean for years was a real treat. How long before we start hearing skid row, warrant, cinderella, danzig, dio, poison, ratt, crue, vixen, lita, cant wait lol
J
JoeLouis
Guest
Future Gold began with Ron Lundy from WABC, the last record of the hour on his show before the ABC Contemporary Radio news was a song that just recently dropped off of their top 20 or current song list, and he called it "future gold" (Hello Love!) was Ron Lundy's trademark.
I don't think that feature began with Ron Lundy himself. Rick Sklar, WABC's PD back then, talked about "future gold" as something that was very popular with adult listeners and they were an important part of that mass appeal strategy. All the jocks featured songs from the "future gold" category. I'd think other hit music stations did something similar. But you are correct, Ron Lundy did play future gold as the last song in each hour of his show. Dan Ingram, who followed Ron, would do future gold in the second song of the hour. For many years, he would play the #1 song of the week as the second song. Funny how we can remember this stuff!
When Ron Lundy ended his radio career many years later at WCBS-FM, the last song that played was The Everly Brother's "Bye Bye Love." To this day, whenever I hear that song I think of Ron Lundy. There probably wasn't a dry eye in the house. Personality radio was the thing and Ron was certainly a big part of it.
J
JoeLouis
Guest
Yeah, like wow, what a memory and I have to correct myself, it wasn't future gold, it was "new gold" and Dan Ingram also did the new gold as the second song, I don't think Cousin Brucie did.
Yes, I misspoke as well. "Future Gold" would apply to formats that were mainly solid gold. "New Gold" refers to those songs that were very popular on hit music stations but were either recently off the charts or were way "down the list."
Cousin Brucie played "New Golds" but not in a designated, always the same time as others did.
I don't recall any jock saying New Gold when referring to a song that fit the category. But, I did hear Future Gold mentioned on some stations for a Top 10 current hit that played among oldies. That's just my own experience, not saying that's how it always happened.
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