Beautiful Music in Buffalo

[Mike Sheridan]

An interesting article on the subject:

http://www.resumedesign.com/kratoville/jackjr/rise_and_fall.html

Does anyone know if WJYE and WEZO or maybe WPXY were using SRP" tapes?

 

[average_listener]

If I recall correctly, WJYE used Schulke, yes.

 

[Bob1370]

Don't know what WPXY used in its pre-CHR days...but WEZO IIRC was a Bonneville station.

 

[MediaBoy4Radio]

and how many of you remember .....Candlelight and Gold..... and Carousel......two of the beautiful music day parts on WINE and WYSL in the pre rock days...................................?

 

[Yeziknoradio]

and how many of you remember .....Candlelight and Gold..... and Carousel......two of the beautiful music day parts on WINE and WYSL in the pre rock days...................................?

Hmmm...was that local and in house? I understand CHFI in Toronto once had a show called Candlelight and Wine.

 

[Paul_Warren]

It's been 35 years, but it still irks me to see Schulke and Bonneville equated with Muzak.

My first paid job in radio was weekends at the old WBNY in that format. I went on to spend 3 years at WEZO in Rochester. Schulke and Bonneville had distinctly different takes on the format, but both were designed for - and routinely achieved - immense TSL and, usually, #1 12+ AQH share. Both had rabid fans who would listen in foreground part of the time, background the rest.

Muzak was designed to be audio wallpaper. It did, in fact, promote itself to restaurants based on faster turnover of tables. It generated fanatic enemies. WSAY once hired an ex-Muzak guy as an assistant engineer, and he told us stories about the lengths infuriated office workers would take to "make it stop!" Those speakers mounted in false ceilings took a lot of abuse!

Say what you will about the demographics, but Caddy dealers and golf shops loved the format.

I agree, though...the closets thing today would be Smooth Jazz. But not the version peddled by Broadcast Architecture, which is really a "Easy R&B" format with intrusive vocals. An instrumental-based format which paid attention to more accessible jazz music could be viable in some markets.

 

[Yeziknoradio]

Sadly, the Smooth Jazz format failed in nearby Hamilton Ontario. Wave 94.7 can still be heard online, but it was declared that Country music is more profitable than smooth jazz...at least in that particular market.

 

[SirRoxalot]

The satcasters have smooth jazz and beautiful music covered. Stores will pay the monthly fee to avoid having a competitors commercials aired in their stores. I won't speculate on how many small businesses cheat on the licensing or subscription fees.

I just don't see a viable market for this format in 2012. Like so many other niche formats, there are alternative outlets ranging from your own MP3 collection, to audio streams, to satellite, that simply didn't exist during the heyday of BM.

 

[Bob1370]

"Hmmm...was that local and in house? I understand CHFI in Toronto once had a show called Candlelight and Wine."

That was a popular title for thatkind of quasi-classical, lush orchestral programming a lot of stand-alone FMs aired pre-1967. I remember a show with that exact title airing during the dinner hour on WCMF in Rochester before it started its transition to wall-to-wall personality album rock. Early rock jock Bob Drake was the host...he was also one of the original rock hosts at 'CMF along with Bill Rund and, soon after, Vince Mason.

Wonder what ever happened to them all? They soon gave way at CMF to a second wave of rock jocks including Bernie Kimball and Tom Teuber...

 

[uncamark]

"Hmmm...was that local and in house? I understand CHFI in Toronto once had a show called Candlelight and Wine."

That was a popular title for thatkind of quasi-classical, lush orchestral programming a lot of stand-alone FMs aired pre-1967. I remember a show with that exact title airing during the dinner hour on WCMF in Rochester before it started its transition to wall-to-wall personality album rock. Early rock jock Bob Drake was the host...he was also one of the original rock hosts at 'CMF along with Bill Rund and, soon after, Vince Mason.

Wonder what ever happened to them all? They soon gave way at CMF to a second wave of rock jocks including Bernie Kimball and Tom Teuber...

And in Chicago, otherwise-religious WMBI had every evening around the dinner hour a show called "Candelight...and Sillllverrrrr...", as the announcer on that show would say. Same sort of easy listening instrumental dinner music. Back then, classical WEFM did lunch-hour and dinner-hour EL instrumental shows (when there were three classical stations in Chicago and WFMT had most of the purist audience).

 

[HHH]

Gotta love Mantovani, 1001 Strings, Ray Conniff and His Orchestra and those purring albums by Jackie Gleason and His Orchestra (which Gleason had almost nothing to do with!).

I remember in NYC the FM band was loaded with these stations in the 1960s: WRFM, WBFM, WTFM (how did the diary holders keep these call letters straight?!?) were all playing that silky, lush stuff that was heard in--yes, it is true--every dentist and doctor's office in the market.

It was pretty much all gone by the 80s.

You see...most of the audience DIED.

 

[Nick Gerard]

Let's see, scanning the Buffalo FM dial etched in my frontal lobe, here's where I was hearing beautiful music on FM mid 60s - mid 70s:

92.9 WBUF: The Empire State FM Network and my first professional gig. Amazing that these calls survive on this dial position after a hiatus as WFXZ and WSJZ.

94.5 WEBR-FM aka WBCE, WREZ

96.1 WBNY-FM early radio home of nascent air personality Jim Pastrick. The dial position lost its homegrown beautiful music charm when it became homogenized Schulke WJYE.

98.1 CHFI-FM - where the calls still survive, too!

98.5 WHLD-FM Ed Tucholka!

99.9 CKFM kinda beautiful music, but not entirely. Ed Napoli overnights

102.5 WBEN-FM where God himself knows these FM calls live, even if they happen to be in Phila these days

103.3 WYSL-FM simulcasting the beautiful music of 1400AM, before those insolent, mop-top teen DJs came along

105.3 CHSC-FM St. Catherine's - beautiful during the day, but country midnight til 6! The crazy stuff stations did back then, eh?

105.9 WNIA-FM just kidding - wanted to see if you're payin' attention

106.5 WADV the one and only - and the best of them all! Not quite beautiful music, but from a teenager's perspective, the same stuff

107.7 WBIV The Northeast Radio Network. Evenings were called "Northeast at Night."

All of the above were either in Buffalo or put a passable signal into town. Did I forget anybody?

Nick Seneca

 

[Yeziknoradio]

Let's see, scanning the Buffalo FM dial etched in my frontal lobe, here's where I was hearing beautiful music on FM mid 60s - mid 70s:

92.9 WBUF:
Amazing that these calls survive on this dial position after a hiatus as WFXZ and WSJZ.

How could you forget the short lived WLCE? Alice @ 92.9

 

[MediaBoy4Radio]

........and back in the day when I was on air at WBNY 96.1 and then then WADV 106.5 , management actually allowed the air staff to program their own music............................


we also had to feed the gerbils that were on the treadmill powering the transmitters

 

[Nick Gerard]

We can be a little wistful and nostalgic about this format, but I never read anyone romanticizing what it was like to be on the air at a beautiful music station.

I mean, it had to be mind-numbing at the Schulke stations. Your live breaks were a series of interminable pauses when giving the calls: " W....J....Y.....E...Joy 96.1 All music......all the time."

I'm not acquainted with Joe Chile, but I'd be interested in his recollections of his early days at this station. God bless him....he hung in there and had a great career.

At WBUF in 1970 there was virtually no live talking. We gave the time twice an hour and read a five minute newscast. Not very exciting, but when you're 17 and getting paid for being on the radio, it doesn't matter what the format is - it's great!

But gosh, at those Schulke stations, when you had to pull a 6 hour shift and every time you cracked the mic you had to do those calls "just so"...I don't know how guys did it.

Nick Seneca

 

[bilco]

My first full time radio job was with WBUF in 1964 as a board operator. We ran beauriful music on the main channel and actual Brand name Muzak with store casting sub audible tones on the SCA. The main channel audio was produced in company and known as "Jake's music" I guess for the guy who mixed it. Some very nice mixes of various songs and instrumentals. Wonder what ever became of those great mixes.