Does this Bring Back Memories?

[mrswarts]

"So was the call letter progression: WWOL AM & FM; WWOL-AM & WACJ (FM); WWOL-AM & WWOR (FM); WNYS AM & FM, WHTT AM & FM?"

Close. It was: WWOL AM & FM; WWOL-AM & WWOR (FM); WWOL-AM & WACJ (FM); WNYS AM & FM; WHTT-FM (not sure about AM at the git-go).

"Are you ever amazed by the minutiae we have rattling around in our heads?" Yes! I'll try to spend the rest of my day being somewhat productive on something......

 

[alw]

There also was a guy named Bobby Knight who did mornings on WWOL. Wonder if he, like his college namesake, threw chairs or simply resorted to cart tosses?

I

"Bobby Knight-The World's Largest Alarm Clock"

Bobby Knight was a pretty good guy....I heard from him once or twice over the years since he left as P.D. at WWOL. He went on to P.D. in Wheeling, W. Va...WWVA (50,000wt flamthrower)-home of the WWVA Jamboree, second only to The Grand 'Ol Opry.
He called once to sell me some kind of syndicated programming.
When I respectfully declined the "once in a lifetime opportunity"......I didn't hear from him again.

 

[JohnW]

Does anyone remember if WWOL AM had a polka/polish program on Saturday mornings in the mid-50s? I remember my father listening that type of music on a Buffalo station back then. We lived in Spencerport - I don't think that there was anything like it locally at the time.

 

[alw]

Does anyone remember if WWOL AM had a polka/polish program on Saturday mornings in the mid-50s?

Try the link below, it might answer your questions:

Look for the Stan Jasinski article.


http://www.forgottenbuffalo.com/forgottenbuffalosounds/soundsofbuffalo.html

 

[JohnW]

alw - Yes, that's it! Thank you. And, it was Sundays - the memories do fade somehat over the 50+ years. We listened to a Firestone tabletop (tube type, of course) radio that had 5 preset buttons. What amazed me was that one button was factory labeled CBL, another WGR; both out of town for our Rochester area location.

Remembering radio buttons is a textbook example of Brain Sludge.

 

[GSmitty]

In the mid 50's, Sunday mornings on WWOL included a Greek Hour, a Ukranian Hour, a Polish Hour, an Italian Hour (hosted by Emilino Rico), and a German Hour.
The jocks pulled a Sunday morning shift every third week. We signed the station on, played the records for each program (I swear the Greek 78's weighed 5 pounds apiece), and read many of the commercials in English after the host had delivered them in his or her native tongue. The best part of the day was drinking some of Emilino Rico's "special" coffee. It took care of any problems from the night before!
This was Show Biz!!!!!

 

[JustPastBuffalo]

Whoda thunk the little 1kW AM teapot and it FM sister would stir up such interest. This is quite the entertaining thread. I've refrained from jumping in every two posts, but can't resist adding that I too worked at WWOL-AM as a designated short-timer doing PM drive for about four weeks (and even filled in on the all-night show for a few days to fulfill my commitment to the GM who hired me) in the summer of 74, after leaving KB and going back to WYSL-AM 1400. I bungled a few of those race results, but had a blast learning country music, who was who and what their places were in the pantheon of country.

Another name that's missing here is that of Bob Mycek. He was GM of WWOL and also did a Polish show on the station. I saw Bob a few years ago at the Buffalo Broadcasters gala the night Jim Santella was inducted. Bob was a gentleman and a great salesman who could sell ice to an Eskimo. He readily reminded me that he was the guy responsible for getting WWOL-FM (and by extension, WHTT) onto the 500 foot tower on Dorrance Avenue in beautiful downtown West Seneca (it's actually about 466' but other than the FCC, Scott Fybush and the FAA, who cares. )

It's mildly curious that my career in Buffalo has been spent primarily on three frequencies: 96.9 (97 Rock) and 550 (WGR) and 104.1 (as WNYS, and mainly WHTT as Classic Hits, Oldies and now Mix.) This seems curious... until one considers Roger Christian's amazing run at 102.5; Joe Chille's years at WJYE; Al Wallack's longevity at WEBR/WNED-AM; Dave Bender's duration at WBFO and Norton, Russo and John Hager's run at 97 Rock.

Critics would says these long stays and re-cycling of personalities point to a certain parochialism in Buffalo. Others might counter that Buffalo personalities like to stay where they are because Western New York is a good place to live.

 

[fybush]

Another name that's missing here is that of Bob Mycek. He was GM of WWOL and also did a Polish show on the station. I saw Bob a few years ago at the Buffalo Broadcasters gala the night Jim Santella was inducted. Bob was a gentleman and a great salesman who could sell ice to an Eskimo. He readily reminded me that he was the guy responsible for getting WWOL-FM (and by extension, WHTT) onto the 500 foot tower on Dorrance Avenue in beautiful downtown West Seneca (it's actually about 466' but other than the FCC, Scott Fybush and the FAA, who cares. )

I not only care...I'll make it a Tower Site of the Week one of these days, now that I've shanghaied Al Marranca into an impromptu tour!

 

[Kal]

Jim, Mark and others,

I have loved reading this thread. It's great to see all the shared memories... this is the kind of thing that should be a part of the Buffalo Broadcasters pages but alas, there it's all about the BIG 4.

Jim, I loved your comment about your career on a limited number of frequencies.

'It's mildly curious that my career in Buffalo has been spent primarily on three frequencies: 96.9 (97 Rock) and 550 (WGR) and 104.1 (as WNYS, and mainly WHTT as Classic Hits, Oldies and now Mix.)'

There are a number of us who seem to have come back, and back again to the same frequencies. Mine were AM 1120/FM 104 in any number of call letter combinations, 92.9 (always as WBUF but all the way back to the days of Carl Spevento's "The Home of The Blended Sound" and the Empire State FM Network from the transmitter site on Cole Road), 550/96.9 and 930/102.5.

I absolutely agree with the commnts on David R. Great guy who taught me a lot!

Mark... nice recollection of the AM 1120/FM 104.1 timeline.

A few points of minor note. When we changed from WWOR to WACJ, I was PD and Ron Rice pressed the automation button to launch the first Oldies format from country. Our final tune in country was 'Happy Trails" by Roy Rogers and Dale Evans. The first oldies tune was 'Rock Around The Clock". Our automation equipment was the refurbished decks and the pin logic system from Rock 102.

The WACJ calls came from a ton of research, before the days of the internet and focus groups! Ron Rice wanted call letters that would be listed FIRST in the phone book, so we would be listed above WADV. Our first choice was WACN, which at the time was a restricted call sign from a Coast Guard ship lost in WWII. We settled on WACJ, which still listed us above WADV. I told my first born son (Christopher James) that we named the radio station after him!

Guys, thanks again for the trip down memory lane!

Keith

 

[JustPastBuffalo]

Good to read your recollections as well, Keith, and good to see your posts here as well as the opinions of Mark Swarts and Paul Palo, who I always thought was one of the most versatile radio guys in Buffalo, one of the original multi-taskers who did Top 40 as Chris K. Clark on WYSL-AM and Progressive on WYSL-FM/WPHD, as well as "WYSL 20-20 News." Bet Paul, living in LA, misses firing-up his snow thrower. Prob'ly not.

The WWOL call letters and the history behind them intrigued me. Did they really stand for Walter Winewicz Of Lackawanna as urban legend has it? WWOL was a cool call sign that put jocks and news people to the test.

"Double-U-Double-U Oh Ell" required the jock to articulate consecutive "W's" an "O" and an "L" without sounding like Dub-uh-u-Dub-uh-u Oh Well... or Dub-uh-u Dub-uh-u- Oh HELL... almost as demanding as Double-U U-eS-Jay.

Had to find out if the WWOL call letters were active. I suspected an Oldies station ('OL) might have picked them up. Turns out they've been grabbed by a religious station in North Carolina. And WUSJ? Jackson (Madison) Mississippi.

 

[Nick Seneca]

The WWOL call letters and the history behind them intrigued me. Did they really stand for Walter Winewicz Of Lackawanna as urban legend has it? WWOL was a cool call sign that put jocks and news people to the test.

"Double-U-Double-U Oh Ell" required the jock to articulate consecutive "W's" an "O" and an "L" without sounding like Dub-uh-u-Dub-uh-u Oh Well... or Dub-uh-u Dub-uh-u- Oh HELL...

It was well-known among early 70's staffers of the big 1120 that the calls stood for Walter Williams' Only Love. (you can look it up).

Those calls were a mouthful, for sure! They were kind of like basic training in enunciation for jocks who worked there . When I crossed the Mississippi to the "land of the letter K", I found that I was often one of the few guys on the staff who could correctly pronounce that troublesome citizen of the alphabet.

It still makes me nuts when I hear websites advertised on radio and the VO guy or gal spits out "dubby-yew dubby-yew dubby-yew." Even on national spots! You'd think that someone in the production process of this spot - the producer, engineer, agency person, maybe even the client - would've caught this egregious pronunciation error!

Nick Seneca

 

[Kal]

Nick & Jim,

I think WWOL stood for Walter Wisaticki (sp) Of Lackawanna... that's what Walt Williams told me back in the day! LOL

Nick, I think your explanation Walter Williams Only Love is actually closer to the truth!

Having started my alleged radio career at WWOL, I had to learn to pronounce those call letters correctly and fast, as I'm sure Nick and the Jazzman can attest to, and I used to practice them out loud for hours. It was worse than you can imagine as the legal ID had to list both full sets of calls, in five seconds to hit the NBC top-of-the-hour tones.

Say 'The Home of the Nashville Sound, WWOL, WWOL-FM, Buffalo" in five seconds and not sound like you lived on Sobieski Street, der.

Al and I shared the midnight shift on FM when the dinosaurs roamed, back in the day. He did 4 days, I did 3 and then we switched for the next week, back in the days when we could all read record labels as the spun on the turntable, WITHOUT using our reading glasses! Now THAT was radio! LOL

Keith

 

[paulpallo]

Good to read your recollections as well, Keith, and good to see your posts here as well as the opinions of Mark Swarts and Paul Palo, who I always thought was one of the most versatile radio guys in Buffalo, one of the original multi-taskers who did Top 40 as Chris K. Clark on WYSL-AM and Progressive on WYSL-FM/WPHD, as well as "WYSL 20-20 News." Bet Paul, living in LA, misses firing-up his snow thrower. Prob'ly not.

Thanks for the Kudos, I do miss the old snow thrower, which to me was a front wheel drive Saab that could bust thru anything and five magic driven Shih-tzus to plow open the walks. There's a Bone, Thugs and Harmony lyric in that someplace. Can't wait for flood and mud slide season?