If they did it now, it would be voice tracked - what a shame...this was cool
WKAP began operation on 1320 AM in 1948. The station employed a popular music format for many years. They were owned by Rahall Communications. In the 1950s, they opted to play mostly non rock music and some softer songs by rock and roll artists. This format was known as MOR. Throughout the 1960s, they had a top-40 format, combined with relatively apolitical call-in shows. By 1970, the station evolved to more of an adult contemporary format. In 1972, WKAP decided to compete with the two Top 40 stations in the Lehigh Valley, WAEB 790, which was very current music based, and WEEX 1230, which played more oldies music, based as an Adult Top 40 station. WKAP's Top 40 format emulated West Coast giant KCBQ in San Diego. Some of the original WKAP DJs were Kevin Fennessy, Walt Brown, Shotgun Steve Kelly, Mark Stewart , Kris Bailey, Billy Sheridan and J. Robert Taylor. The station was known as WKAP Radio 13 (rounded off to the nearest hundredth). The station was sold to Gulf Broadcasting in the late 1970s. In Sept of 1978, a local club DJ by the name of Mike Jacobs came up with an idea to broadcast live an entire evening of music commercial-free-at a local niteclub. At the time the station was an independent local AM station. The PD, Chris Bailey, Station Mgr Jerry Duckett and the staff were very interested in the project that could help them in competition with their cross-town nemesis WAEB 790AM and add a possible ratings boost to the TOP40 outlet.
The facility to be used was "The Castle Garden Ballroom" located in Dorney Park in Allentown, PA. The parks owners, Robert Plarr and Robert Ott were also on board for this project. After extensive renovations, Castle Garden was opened for business in the late fall of 78. Crowds averaged about 300-450 per night and the owners and mgmt were looking for a spark to drive this to bigger and better crowds. The ballroom had a capacity of approx 2000 people and 300-450 looked pretty thin at the time.
The idea was refined and in Jan of 79, Studio 13 debuted with a bang. It was broadcast Saturday's from 9:00 PM - 2:00 AM with DJ MIke Jacobs as the DJ/Host/MC. Bill Sheridan ( now employed by Nassau Broadcasting ) and Shotgun Steve Kelly were the Board Techs .Sponsorship for the show was secured and Pepsi-Cola came on board as the primary sponsor. Commercials were inserted by Bill & Steve by having Mike Jacobs backtime the breaks in the music and then the station inserting voice-only commercials over the breaks in the music while the music played the instrumental break WITHOUT INTERRUPTION. Listeners heard them only! The show opened with the Parliament's " Shit, Goddamn, Get Off Your Ass & Jam " followed by Bell & James " Livin It Up ". This resulted in a FCC Warning to the station and made the local news. The first night the crowd was 600 people. After the news coverage and word of mouth, Studio 13 averaged 2,000 people per night and could have done more had there not been a Fire Marshall's limit on the amount of people.
