And there is a famous quote by a Decca executive that guitar music was on its way out at that time.
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58 years of Beautiful Music comes to an end
- Thread starter KilowattKat
- Start date
Yes. When I was in high school we had a weekly hour of reading. Everyone was supposed to be quiet and read something for an hour, regardless of what class we were in. The beautiful music station was played from speakers. One student who played golf recognized the music and said at some point that was the theme from golf. I assume that meant CBS golf coverage.
During the Beautiful Music era of "B/EZ", I don't think stations would play the original version of "Love's Theme". By its Easy Listening era, most certainly but that wasn't until the mid '80s!
Yes, in fact KMEO was even owned by Bonneville back then.
Back when I was a 14 year old, during summer when school was out, I would travel to a different Phoenix radio station each week, usually by public transit and ask to tour the station, especially the studio to meet and talk to the on air staff. I remember KMEO and the wall full of reel to reel tapes, with the announcer going back and forth between the AM and FM doing the breaks separately. As busy as he was, he took time to explain to me that it was due to AM/FM simulcasting regulations. He even let me cue up one of the reel to reel tapes! And a radio nerd was born.
That's a lotta tempo going on there for that format. My guess is the syndicators held out for the Andre Kostelanetz cover:
Well, all I know is I heard it, in the 70s.
Definitely not what I heard on the radio in high school.
Do you remember what the call letters were---roughly what year it was?
And there is a famous quote by a Decca executive that guitar music was on its way out at that time.
WBT-FM stopped doing beautiful music in 1978, but I remember reading for an hour when I was a junior, which would be 1977.
It could have been WEZC, though.
Heck, it even got lots of play at singer Nydia Caro's disco in Puerto Rico, "Isadora's" in that era... and Isadora's was the equivalent of "Studio 54" back in the day... but with a lot more rum and a lot less "coke".
WEZC was a home-grown format done at EZ's HQ in Fairfax, VA. They were a bit more broad than Bonneville,, Shulke, Churchill or FM 100 which were the top market syndicators back then. EZ dropped beautiful music around 1973, as that is the year I bought their entire library for my "Música en Flor" Beautiful Music format.
Cool story. That's how a lot of us got started in the business. I hung out at an FM in Cleveland and was always ready to do a food or coffee run and eventually they got me trained and I became a part timer. To me back then, entering the station was like going into my own personal paradise.
At one point, my mother went to talk to the manager of the station because she thought I was being a pest; they told her that "we couldn't live without his help" and she left me to visit incessantly.
That sounds like a logical explanation. I think overall, the original "Love's Theme" is a little too up and a little too busy for what the format, as produced by the syndicators, was at that time.
I actually worked (briefly) out of the old KMEO building in '93---after KMEO-FM had been flipped to KPSN "Sunny 97". I was filling in for their morning newsperson during her extended maternity leave. A dumpy building in a sketchy neighborhood, but Bonneville kept it up nicely. Just checked Google Street view...it's still there---now a plumbing and heating company.
It was always a surprise when arriving at some of the places these stations were located, low rent, rundown, and not a great part of town. KMEO on Grand Ave, an industrial wasteland. KPHX in a tiny shack off Central Ave, by the dry Salt River bed. KXTC in a converted hotel room at the dilapidated Westward Ho. KJJJ , downtown in an old very narrow building, with the studio in a downstairs basement. But it was so exciting when I would step foot inside!
Yeah, Phoenix had its share of dodgy locations for radio studios. Both KRIZ and KFYI/KKFR's studios were called "crackhouses".
And KHEP AM and FM at the 38th Ave. and Indian School "crackhouse", and this when the FM was Classical music. Lol...
Ok, I better stop so this thread doesn't go off the rails!
The story also goes that Decca did eventually sign such a band, but it was the Tremeloes, chosen because they were London-based and supposedly an easier sell than the Liverpool band that wound up on the EMI roster.
"Silence is Golden" is the only song I know of by The Tremeloes. I wonder if the Decca executive who passed on signing The Beatles, still had a career left at Decca when The Beatles became HUGE.
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