I have to laugh at that, since my first station was owned by a guy who had deliberately put it on the air only about a year before he hired me, and to him the two best types of music were Big Band and Classical. He did a six-hour program every Saturday with the former and four hours every night of the latter. The "regular" format was a mix of Standards artists (Sinatra, Peggy Lee, etc.) plus cover versions of recent hits (Ray Conniff, Andre Kostelanetz, Percy Faith) and a couple of songs per hour from the Saturday show library.
But, except for his two special shows, the ad dollars weren't there, and by 1975 he was at his wits' end (and barely tolerating the 19-year-old he had hired, who was now doing the afternoon show). And one day I brought in my own copy of "The Last Farewell" by Roger Whittaker and played it when I knew he was in the building listening. He was pleasantly astonished ... even more so when I told him it was a current top-40 hit.
The format changed. Out went the cover vocals and instrumentals, the Big Band and Standards were restricted to songs that had been popular as currents, and only constituted about 5% of the hour. Their replacement was music by Gordon Lightfoot, the Carpenters, Simon and Garfunkel, etc. And yet he worried that the changes would alienate "his audience".
He was convinced otherwise when out of the blue a letter arrived from one of the locals addressed directly to him, thanking him for introducing them to music by "singers like that pleasant Neil Diamond". He did the smart thing and made that the centerpiece of the ad sales campaign.
And he was the one who recommended me, a couple of years later, to the mom-and-pop owners of the station where I first became an official Program Director ... which he congratulated me on by saying "who knew Chicken Rock would catch on as a format?"
I had it considerably easier than you did, K.M. At KIBS, we lost our 30 records a month trade-out with the local record store in 1972. The GM made me music director, I started working the phones, calling the labels and getting service.
At that time, the station was block-programmed...Country from 6:00-9:00 AM, old-school MOR from 9:00 AM-6:00 PM, light classical/easy listening instrumentals 6:00-7:00 PM and Top 40 from 7:00 PM-10:00 PM, when we signed off.
With the old deal with The Sound Shoppe, we rationed what we bought...5 country singles, 5 MOR (the dayparts that played those were generally very gold-heavy---less a programming decision than the tastes of the jocks) and 20 pop/rock.
When I got record service we immediately went to 100 or more new releases every week. I made a point of taking the newer material and playing it for the jocks, pointing out how the latest Carpenters, Bread, etc. could work with their library MOR stuff.
When I graduated from high school a year later, the GM made me PD. And having had that last year to warm up the MOR jocks helped a lot. I'd also been exposing them to pop/rock softer oldies from the 50s/60s, and had created two oldies libraries---"all' and "night only", so it was easy to make a full transition to AC from 9:00 AM-7:00 PM.
Most of the MOR was album cuts and I continued to maintain that library, though, over time, most of the jocks on their own decided that they preferred the more current music (and probably wanted to avoid playing records at the wrong speed so often after switching from an LP to a 45 or vice versa).
The GM did mornings and was going to play what he wanted, which was mainly older country, but he now had more current crossover material to work with. And he let me blow up the 6:00-7:00 "dinner hour".
The 9:00-10:00 AM hour was "Coffee with Virginia" and Virginia was certain "her ladies" preferred the MOR sound, but she'd work in one of the "new sounds" per day.
So, that second week of June, 1973, I essentially debuted a Top 40 playlist, heavily dayparted, so that the station sounded adult from 9:00 AM-7:00 PM, and then "became" Top 40 in the evening.
I didn't keep any of those playlists, but looking at Billboard for the week ending June 16, I can pretty much re-create:
All Dayparts (28)
Paul McCartney and Wings-My Love
Clint Holmes-Playground in My Mind
Elton John-Daniel
George Harrison-Give Me Love, Give Me Peace On Earth
Paul Simon-Kodachrome
Tony Orlando & Dawn-Tie A Yellow Ribbon
Spinners-One of a Kind (Love Affair)
Dobie Gray-Drift Away
Stevie Wonder-You Are The Sunshine of My Life
New York City-I'm Doing Fine Now
Skylark-Wildflower
Jim Croce-Bad, Bad Leroy Brown
Stealers Wheel-Stuck in the Middle With You
Bloodstone-Natural High
Vicki Lawrence-The Night the Lights Went Out in Georgia
Stylistics-You'll Never Get To Heaven (If You Break My Heart)
Bette Midler-Boogie Woogie Bugle Boy
Charlie Rich-Behind Closed Doors
Loggins & Messina-Thinking of You
Carly Simon-The Right Thing To Do
Carpenters-Yesterday Once More
Tower of Power-So Very Hard To Go
Seals & Crofts-Diamond Girl
Diana Ross-Touch Me in the Morning
Helen Reddy-Delta Dawn
Gilbert O'Sullivan-Get Down
Eagles-Tequila Sunrise
Bobby Goldsboro-Summer (The First Time)
Day Only (1)
Perry Como-And I Love You So
Night Only (17)
Sylvia-Pillow Talk
Barry White-I'm Gonna Love You Just A Little More Baby
Edgar Winter Group-Frankenstein
Billy Preston-Will It Go Round In Circles
Dr. John-Right Place, Wrong Time
Doobie Brothers-Long Train Running
Three Dog Night-Shambala
Focus-Hocus Pocus
Sweet-Little Willy
Steely Dan-Reeling In the Years
Alice Cooper-No More Mr. Nice Guy
J. Geils Band-Give It To Me
Deep Purple-Smoke on the Water
Pink Floyd-Money
ELO-Roll Over Beethoven
Chicago-Feelin' Stronger Every Day
Four Tops-Are You Man Enough
