Country stations in the bay area past and present

[SCV_Ears]

I know that KEEN-1370 was Country as far back as the 1970's. I have heard that KEEN switched to AC in the 1970's briefly but switched back to Country.

Correct. I even remember their sales manager bragging about that switch during a careers talk at my high school, so this would have been in the mid-70s. This was also around the time they were the flagship of the A's radio network.

 

[jmtillery]

I remember that line... Hilarious!!!

Hilarious if you don't know the roots, I guess. Country was basically Irish folk music relocated to the hills of Appalachia. It's true "hillbilly" music. Songs often sang sadly about family, love, dead parents, lost farms, and train wrecks.

Here are some country examples:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vTlWCHXMc3s&feature=related -- Gospel-style country
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CZsMQK2Z-So&feature=related -- Beverly Hillbillies -- Wreck of the Old 97
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KV3GOr_AMRY -- Wayfaring Stranger, Appalachian folk tune
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UIAEyA7yw44 -- Crooked Jades (SF country band)

Western, on the other hand, was the music of cattle drivers of the wide open spaces of the South and West. Western songs often talked of needing to live free, wide open spaces, riding horses, etc. Western and its cousin Western swing, was a very frisky genre that often poked fun at life. Among the more in/famous hits: Cow Cow Boogie, Big Balls in Cowtown, and the Milk Cow Blues (which has been covered by Elvis Presley, Rick Nelson, and tons of others).

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SWXbVsMkz1U&NR=1 -- Tex Williams -- note how much the music swings
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fBCuGyZUWoQ&feature=related -- Asleep at the Wheel -- note the keyboard & drums
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5sS5jSbV0Vg -- Bob Wills, "Sittin On Top of the World"

And this by Waylon Jennings singing about Bob Wills, the King of Western swing, including photos:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GxHu_71sU1E

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vbTJ8gDAvn8 -- Merle Haggard (as you've never seen him!) leading the members of the Bob Wills band, introduced by Dolly Parton. Note all the instruments -- piano, sax, drums, trumpet, pedal steel

You may have a valid point in that I don't know the roots of country nor western music, and, maybe, as you stated, or implied, this is why I found the line from the Blues Brothers to be hilarious.

Thank you for the country and western music lesson and accompanied Youtube music videos link. I found the information you provided to be informative and entertaining.

 

[pard]

KNEW was the first full time 24 hour country music station in the Bay Area. KSAY was a day-timer that competed, I guess, with KEEN in SJ. KSAY's survey was the Twin Ten. Cool. BTW at KNEW we were "country" with no mention of "western".

 

[DavidKaye]

KNEW was the first full time 24 hour country music station in the Bay Area. KSAY was a day-timer that competed, I guess, with KEEN in SJ. KSAY's survey was the Twin Ten. Cool. BTW at KNEW we were "country" with no mention of "western".

You're excluding 93.3? Though they were automated, they were country in the early 70s. They even had a singer with a guitar who did a musical time check for every minute of the day.

 

[BossRadioDJ]

You're excluding 93.3? Though they were automated, they were country in the early 70s. They even had a singer with a guitar who did a musical time check for every minute of the day.

David's right, at least as far as the bits of evidence out there show.

Here's Buddy Holly's cousin Bill on KOIT (93.3 FM) in August 1971, playing Country Music through a primitive robotic device:

http://www.bayarearadio.org/audio/koit/index.shtml

It appears that "California Country" didn't debut on 910/KNEW until July 1, 1974:

http://www.bayarearadio.org/audio/knew/knew_calif-gold-ends_june-30-1974.shtml

 

[LKellerIII]

You're excluding 93.3? Though they were automated, they were country in the early 70s. They even had a singer with a guitar who did a musical time check for every minute of the day.

David's right, at least as far as the bits of evidence out there show.

Here's Buddy Holly's cousin Bill on KOIT (93.3 FM) in August 1971, playing Country Music through a primitive robotic device:

http://www.bayarearadio.org/audio/koit/index.shtml

It appears that "California Country" didn't debut on 910/KNEW until July 1, 1974:

http://www.bayarearadio.org/audio/knew/knew_calif-gold-ends_june-30-1974.shtml

I know nothing about the equipment involved in late 60s radio automation, but I'm thinking it was only "primitive" in a relative sense...relative to computer technology today. One can imagine some huge mainframe computer with blinking lights and huge reel-to-reel tapes.

I never heard 93.3 in those days, but I used to listen to Bill Drake's Hit Parade and later Solid Gold formats in LA - on KHJ-FM (later KRTH). They worked great...almost literally like 'clock-work' since the system gave time checks every commercial break. There was no attempt to sound 'live'... in a half-hour, you might hear 4 different Boss Jocks introducing the songs - but the entertainment value was high, I thought. Definitely better than a lot of the voice-tracked stuff I hear these days.

And the songs rotated in differing orders - so I don't think the system was just playing long tapes - there was some kind of selection system involved. I've wondered if that was done manually (by an engineer), or the automation did it.

 

[BossRadioDJ]

I know nothing about the equipment involved in late 60s radio automation, but I'm thinking it was only "primitive" in a relative sense...relative to computer technology today. One can imagine some huge mainframe computer with blinking lights and huge reel-to-reel tapes.

I never heard 93.3 in those days, but I used to listen to Bill Drake's Hit Parade and later Solid Gold formats in LA - on KHJ-FM (later KRTH). They worked great...almost literally like 'clock-work' since the system gave time checks every commercial break. There was no attempt to sound 'live'... in a half-hour, you might hear 4 different Boss Jocks introducing the songs - but the entertainment value was high, I thought. Definitely better than a lot of the voice-tracked stuff I hear these days.

You're right, Llew. Back then, this was state of the art stuff.

I've got some audio from KFRC-FM (106.1) during automation (Drake-Chenault "Solid Gold"?) that I'll try to dredge up for illustrative purposes.

I'd love to find some KSAY, KVSM or KEEN audio from the 1950s or 1960s featuring Western Music. Anybody?

 

[BossRadioDJ]

It was mentioned earlier that KTRB in Modesto was a Western music station back in the 1940s and 1950s. Modesto was a center for Western/Hillbilly music during that era -- quite nearly the Bakersfield of the San Joaquin.

Stockton's KSTN also programmed quite a bit of Western music in the late 1940s and 1950s, before Knox Larue took it Top 40:

http://valleyradio.org/kstn/index.shtml

According to comments I've heard (from Keith Farr and others), San Jose's KEEN/1370 had programmed at least some Western music even at its birth. In 1950, Cottonseed Clark, Foy Willing, Cactus Jack and Red Murrell were all hosting shows on KEEN. The station changed its format to 100% Country and Western music in 1952. (All of which may have been mentioned before...)

 

[DavidKaye]

Here's Buddy Holly's cousin Bill on KOIT (93.3 FM) in August 1971, playing Country Music through a primitive robotic device:

http://www.bayarearadio.org/audio/koit/index.shtml

That "primitive robotic device" was a Schafer 800 system, considered the top of the line at the time. KYA/KOIT had one, KGO-FM had one. I believe KNBR-FM had one for awhile as well. XETRA "Extra Music" in Tijuana had one for their beautiful music operation. The Schafer 800 used open reel decks (usually Ampex 350s) and a controller that used thumbwheel switches to set the playback decks. I became familiar with the one from KGO-FM/KSFX after it was retired and Vern Hatfield bought it for KNGT in Jackson. The thing even had Nixie readout lights to display the time!

Spots and bumpers were recorded on "spotter" tapes which were special open reel tapes with transparent windows in the tape (clear leader spliced in). When the system wanted spot #15, the deck would fast-forward or rewind to that position. It wasn't too bad if the clear window sizes were consistent.

The transparent windows were also used at the ends of the music tapes so that when the tapes rewound the machines would know where to stop them.

Bill Keffury mentioned the day a tour from CSM (KCSM) came through and someone snapped a photo. Well, the flash triggered the photocells on all the machines to fire at once, with playback decks playing and forwarding and rewinding all at once.

Here's a photo of the Schafer 903 which was very similar to the 800: http://www.easylisteninghq.com/html/schafer903sys.htm

 

[DavidKaye]

Whaddya know? Paul Schafer tells his own story about the start of radio automation:
Main page: http://schaferinternational.com/index_english.htm
History: http://schaferinternational.com/0-lifeandtimes/english.htm

 

[Lou_S]

Here's a photo of the Schafer 903 which was very similar to the 800: http://www.easylisteninghq.com/html/schafer903sys.htm

That's actually a Schafer 902. The 903 was all solid state and instead of the two rows of thumbwheel switches, the 903 had a shelf holding a 16 key keypad and single line display. You could enter up to a day's worth of programming line-by-line using the keypad. This was before microprocessors were available so the 903 brain used discrete logic ICs.

For a picture of a Schafer 800 (with Paul Schafer standing along side) scroll about halfway down the Paul Schaffer history page:

http://schaferinternational.com/0-lifeandtimes/english.htm

KRE also had a Schafer 800 they used on the FM during non-simulcast hours.

 

[weav]

KEWT 105.1 in Sac. had that for some time. 5 big open reel decks and a cart carousel. Commercials had some kind of logging code in secondary/tertiary cue tones and it logged to a little journal printer.

 

[DavidKaye]

I know nothing about the equipment involved in late 60s radio automation, but I'm thinking it was only "primitive" in a relative sense...relative to computer technology today. One can imagine some huge mainframe computer with blinking lights and huge reel-to-reel tapes.

The Schafer was quite good for the technology of the day. As you note from the old Drake airchecks, Schafer allowed crosses between program elements with cue tones just prior to the ends of songs. On the KOIT aircheck with Bill Holley, you can hear him extro-ing a song while the next one or a jingle begins. Likewise Drake.

One thing interesting about the Drake tapes is that those songs where the vocals started cold actually had a little musical stinger at the start so that the vocal wouldn't overlap with another voice.

IGM (International Good Music) had a system as well, and there were a couple others out there, but as far as I know, Schafer was tops.

When I was a dumb kid with too much time on my hands, I tracked the play of the KGO-FM rock automation. I was able to discern that there were 5 decks in use: A and B for top hits, C for oldies, D for spots and PSAs, and E for a 4-minute pre-roll to meet the ABC news. I even figured out the sequence: ABACDBABCD, etc. Oh, and the jingles were recorded at the end of each song on the C tapes, as far as I could tell. The radio museum has an hour of KGO-FM I believe. Or somebody does. I know I have a copy of it somewhere. Some of the most awesome jingles ever.

 

[LKellerIII]

I know nothing about the equipment involved in late 60s radio automation, but I'm thinking it was only "primitive" in a relative sense...relative to computer technology today. One can imagine some huge mainframe computer with blinking lights and huge reel-to-reel tapes.

The Schafer was quite good for the technology of the day. As you note from the old Drake airchecks, Schafer allowed crosses between program elements with cue tones just prior to the ends of songs. On the KOIT aircheck with Bill Holley, you can hear him extro-ing a song while the next one or a jingle begins. Likewise Drake.

One thing interesting about the Drake tapes is that those songs where the vocals started cold actually had a little musical stinger at the start so that the vocal wouldn't overlap with another voice.

IGM (International Good Music) had a system as well, and there were a couple others out there, but as far as I know, Schafer was tops.

When I was a dumb kid with too much time on my hands, I tracked the play of the KGO-FM rock automation. I was able to discern that there were 5 decks in use: A and B for top hits, C for oldies, D for spots and PSAs, and E for a 4-minute pre-roll to meet the ABC news. I even figured out the sequence: ABACDBABCD, etc. Oh, and the jingles were recorded at the end of each song on the C tapes, as far as I could tell. The radio museum has an hour of KGO-FM I believe. Or somebody does. I know I have a copy of it somewhere. Some of the most awesome jingles ever.

Yes, it's the Bay Area Radio Museum. Very interesting air check and I agree about the jingles. Not much entertainment value, though. Drake (and the original KOIT) did it better.

 

[DavidKaye]

Yes, it's the Bay Area Radio Museum. Very interesting air check and I agree about the jingles. Not much entertainment value, though. Drake (and the original KOIT) did it better.

I think the KGO-FM automated rock format was a placeholder until ABC could decide what to do. It came at a time before FM came into its own.

 

[pard]

I defer...I guess we were first live 24-hour country station...

 

[MarioMania]

Why is the files RAM format, how can I play it??

 

[BossRadioDJ]

Why is the files RAM format, how can I play it??

Moderator Note: The files are Real Audio format. The link has a free player.

http://www.real.com/realplayer and you don't have to pay for it (edited).

 

[DavidKaye]

Why is the files RAM format, how can I play it??

The RAM file format is often used by websites when they don't want people saving the files to their own computers. It's a closed proprietary standard put out by Real Media. You can download a free player: http://www.real.com/realplayer

 

[BossRadioDJ]

Why is the files RAM format, how can I play it??

The RAM file format is often used by websites when they don't want people saving the files to their own computers. It's a closed proprietary standard put out by Real Media. You can download a free player: http://www.real.com/realplayer

The original reason I set it up that way is because the great Uncle Ricky Irwin had set the industry standard with ReelRadio.com -- he set everything up as Real Audio on his website, and I figured if it's good enough for him, it's good enough for our creaky little museum website.

Over the past five-plus years, I've come to realize that there are maybe five or six people out there who are hard core enough to want a copy of any particular aircheck on the website, and if that person wants to dub, backload or otherwise cadge a copy, there are many ways to do it. As such, I've set up most of the airchecks to play on the visitor's own MP3 player.

By the way, about 99.99935% of the files on the website are MP3s. They're just set to fire off in Real Player.