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Aircheck of Joe Pinner on WNOK in 1959

R

RobynWattsV2.0

Airchexx.com was nice enough to post an aircheck of Joe Pinner when he was working at WNOK in 1959.

http://airchexx.com/markets/columbia-sc/joe-pinner-on-1230-wnok-columbia-sc-november-26-1959

As I've learned later on, WNOK was doing block programming during this time and wasn't a full-time top 40 until the early 60s. But it's an interesting listen since it gives a glimpse of what WNOK sounded like back then.

BTW: Credit for this goes to Jonathan Rush! He had allowed me to make a copy of this back in 1997 while I was dubbing WNOK's jingle archives. I've first heard this on "The Morning Rush" in February, 1996 when Joe Pinner was a guest when he discuss his time at WNOK. Johnathan, if you happen to read this, thank you!

Robyn
 
I thought the very same thing. I guess some people are just timeless. Say what you want to about him, but he has always been really good at what he does.
 
I was at USC when the aircheck was recorded. I don't remember listening to radio very much until I came back to school in the fall of 1960 with a new Knightkit FM tuner for my 10 watt mono tube system. There were only 3 FM stations in Columbia - WUSC-FM (10 watts), WNOK-FM, and WCOS-FM. WNOK-FM simulcasted the AM side and I remember hearing nothing but top 40 music. They butted heads with WCOS-AM which was also a top 40 station, but WCOS-AM played what they called the "top 60 in Dixie." WCOS-FM started the broadcast day at about 6:00 PM with music from an ABC radio network. It consisted of an hour or two of Broadway play music followed by classical music.

In 1963, WCOS-FM began broadcasting instrumental music by automation. I believe their broadcast day started at noon. Before 6:00 PM, the music was in mono. After 6:00 PM, it was in stereo. All of the music was announced by their AM jocks, so it was recorded in house. Once they had a tape in backwards and didn't discover it for almost 30 minutes. By 1964, they were in stereo full time.

In 1964, WNOK-FM was broadcasting a beautiful music format in mono. I was told that they couldn't go stereo because they had an SCA subcarrier that would interfere with the stereo subcarrier. (I believe that early SCA subcarrier frequencies were as low as 25 kHz.) I was amazed at how clean the station sounded.
 
It's an amazing aircheck. Clean, must have come straight from the board. Interesting local spots.There's an embarassing live spot for a "white only" dance. Ouch. Also, Joe referred to the "top 40" a couple of times, but this was anything BUT top 40 music. I guess we think of top 40 as a style and this definitely wasn't that style. Also, WNOK did block programming until around 1963 and then they went to an adult approach from 1967 til late 1970 playing MOR and Light Pop. They have not been top 40 continuously no matter what they say now but that sounds good from a marketing standpoint, I guess.
 
I can remember as a child listening to WNOK-FM in the early 1970's as a beautiful music station and then I think it was sometime in early 1973, they wnet top 40 and usually we listened to the AM side and I can remember listening to Doug Enlow every morning as he competed with Woody and Leo for a time before they went to the country side of WCOS-FM.
 
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