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If you had one wish....
- Thread starter rich610
- Start date
O
oasisrulz
Guest
WCAU-FM from their start of oldies in mono 1970 to 1974 before they got lousy cookie cutter to the disco disaster, with the fantastic Diamond Jim, Hatch, Manning, the Rocking Bird, Foley and Long John...the best oh wow oldies and specials on the planet. So in a nutshell WCAU-FM 1970-1974, but you all must be too young to remember the good old days....I think this was the era when FM signals were really strong not like the weak watered down signals you have now which cannot penetrate any buildings or malls and have no real coverage....I believe 98.1 was 50kw @1000' back then.....
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instigator
Guest
Easy answer Q102 as a dance station 1987 to 1992...(station turned hip hop summer 92) The imaging was larger than life, the jocks fantastic and the playlist was amazing .The dance music there ruled!!!
Anywhere? Definatley BOSS 97 Atlantic City...Large market sound in a secondary market...actually sounded better than Q102.
The Q102 BOSS 97 cross promotion summer of 90 was so cool. "mr. voice" (Mark Driscol) would say When you're down the shore listen to our friends at BOSS 97...then on BOSS it would say when you're driving back home turn on our friends at Q102" I'm not sure if that was the exact quote on the breaker but it was still way cool.
Anywhere? Definatley BOSS 97 Atlantic City...Large market sound in a secondary market...actually sounded better than Q102.
The Q102 BOSS 97 cross promotion summer of 90 was so cool. "mr. voice" (Mark Driscol) would say When you're down the shore listen to our friends at BOSS 97...then on BOSS it would say when you're driving back home turn on our friends at Q102" I'm not sure if that was the exact quote on the breaker but it was still way cool.
95-PEN from Spring of 1975. Loren Owens in morning drive, news with Johathan Wellington Winters and Bruce Erik Smallwood, Mike St. John in middays, Bobby (Dashboard) Dark afternoon drive, Geoff Fox evenings. Those JAM jingles (Backseat Music) were simply outstanding.
Somewhere I have the aircheck from their first day on the air.
Somewhere I have the aircheck from their first day on the air.
Okay. If Seltzer can list three, so can I.
First, the original “Solid Gold Radio” version of WCAU-FM from the early Seventies. Not only did it have a great, eclectic playlist of oldies, including some of the antecedents of rock as far back as 1949 (e.g., “The Fat Man”); it also beautifully integrated currents and recurrents that fit in with the spirit of the oldies. The catholicity of its playlist was unexcelled. (But while the old ’CAU-FM was, on the whole, better than ’OGL at its best, Holiday’s “Street Corner Sunday” on ’OGL, in its original late Eighties form, would have been a valuable addition.)
Second, a full-time classical station like the late, lamented WFLN.
And third, a full-time jazz station like WHAT-FM – and I know I’m going way back for that one. But I used to listen to Sid Mark (when he played more than just Sinatra) and Joel Dorn when I was in the eighth grade!
(Sorry, WRTI, but HD-2 signals don’t count as proving full-time jazz or classical!)
As for the “95 ’PEN” of 1975, no thank you. The jocks were great, and so were the comedy newscasts (and the late Bruce Smallwood was a personal friend of mine). But the playlist was awful. It was good to have a station that concentrated on records from 1955 through 1963, as “95 ’PEN” did for its first six months, but they ruined it by playing bad covers. I’m not complaining about good covers like the Diamonds’ “Little Darlin’” (the original was an unpolished version by the Gladiolas, who later became Maurice Williams and the Zodiacs of “Stay” fame). I mean The McGuire Sisters’ cover of the Moonglows’ “Sincerely,” and the even more pallid version of the Chords’ “Sh-Boom” by the Crew Cuts.
Any PD who would invariably play those awful covers – and even more outrageously, the (not-so-bad, but still inferior) Andy Williams’ version of “Butterfly” in Charlie Gracie’s home town! – had no business working in Philadelphia radio, IMO.
In those first six months, before they added later (1964-66) oldies, ’PEN was simulcasting on what would become ’MGK in September. That gave them an unfair advantage over ’CAU-FM in a day when FM penetration in cars was still barely 50 percent. They could for the at-work audience compete in office and plant environments where fluorescent lights made their AM signal unusable, and then get that audience in drive time on AM, too. Then they betrayed the real audience by getting newer and newer until they began to sound like WFIL in a time warp, after their unfair competition (through the simulcast) had frightened CBS into flipping 98.1 to disco.
First, the original “Solid Gold Radio” version of WCAU-FM from the early Seventies. Not only did it have a great, eclectic playlist of oldies, including some of the antecedents of rock as far back as 1949 (e.g., “The Fat Man”); it also beautifully integrated currents and recurrents that fit in with the spirit of the oldies. The catholicity of its playlist was unexcelled. (But while the old ’CAU-FM was, on the whole, better than ’OGL at its best, Holiday’s “Street Corner Sunday” on ’OGL, in its original late Eighties form, would have been a valuable addition.)
Second, a full-time classical station like the late, lamented WFLN.
And third, a full-time jazz station like WHAT-FM – and I know I’m going way back for that one. But I used to listen to Sid Mark (when he played more than just Sinatra) and Joel Dorn when I was in the eighth grade!
(Sorry, WRTI, but HD-2 signals don’t count as proving full-time jazz or classical!)
As for the “95 ’PEN” of 1975, no thank you. The jocks were great, and so were the comedy newscasts (and the late Bruce Smallwood was a personal friend of mine). But the playlist was awful. It was good to have a station that concentrated on records from 1955 through 1963, as “95 ’PEN” did for its first six months, but they ruined it by playing bad covers. I’m not complaining about good covers like the Diamonds’ “Little Darlin’” (the original was an unpolished version by the Gladiolas, who later became Maurice Williams and the Zodiacs of “Stay” fame). I mean The McGuire Sisters’ cover of the Moonglows’ “Sincerely,” and the even more pallid version of the Chords’ “Sh-Boom” by the Crew Cuts.
Any PD who would invariably play those awful covers – and even more outrageously, the (not-so-bad, but still inferior) Andy Williams’ version of “Butterfly” in Charlie Gracie’s home town! – had no business working in Philadelphia radio, IMO.
In those first six months, before they added later (1964-66) oldies, ’PEN was simulcasting on what would become ’MGK in September. That gave them an unfair advantage over ’CAU-FM in a day when FM penetration in cars was still barely 50 percent. They could for the at-work audience compete in office and plant environments where fluorescent lights made their AM signal unusable, and then get that audience in drive time on AM, too. Then they betrayed the real audience by getting newer and newer until they began to sound like WFIL in a time warp, after their unfair competition (through the simulcast) had frightened CBS into flipping 98.1 to disco.
oasis...Oldies 98 WCAU-FM, the Jim Nettleton voice tracked station was definitely in Multiplex Stereo at that time, and I still have the air-checks. In fact, They were part of the CBS - Sony deal to promote the Quadcast "Columbia SQ Matrix System". Every Sunday night, they broadcast Rock Concerts in quadraphonic in the early 70's. If you see early Marantz receivers of the period (2230/2270) you'll see an output in the rear for 'Quadradial'. That's where the decoder plugged in. The major problem was 1. multipath noise 2. a HUGE percentage was still listening in monaural. When the Quad when on, the mono volume went down. Oh, and 3....the expense of a decoder, another amp and speakers. The show ran right after the Geator's 2 hour program.
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oasisrulz
Guest
I do remember when CAU-FM was the prototype of the CBS oldies formats they were mono the first year...then they went Stereo...after the conception took off thanks to Diamond Jim and his home studio in Cherry Hill...and CBS put the format on many of their floundering FM outlets, including CBS-FM which was live from the start but with no Future Gold...I remember the 4 channel show on Sunday nights I had a Panasonic 4 channel with the four speakers but I dont think it was ever four separate channels...when I tuned it in....I have some old tapes of CAU-FM when the music would not line up with the automation...I am just listening to one now....We Gotta Get Out of the Place just played and Jim said that was Surfin USA by the beach boys...then it went into that was the Supremes, a few jingles then that was the Coasters and Yakky Yak but no song...then more jingles and Robby Dupre future gold and no song then the Chantays Pipeline and no title and artist and the station ID running 5 times... LOL you gotta hear it this was fantastic back then....
WJJZ 106.1 in the 1993 to 1995 era, before Clear Channel took it over and when it was an exciting, fresh station playing fresh, rare, unheard Nu Jazz and New Age cuts, not the horrible soft jazz/AC hybrid it slowly started becoming after 1996 and really seriously became after about 2000.
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jhguthlac
Guest
Likewise, I miss WJJZ from the early years. They played the best of New Age and Contemporary Jazz without thinking they had to include Motown tunes from the Temps, etc.
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KBland
Guest
That's a very compelling question, particularly limited to the Philly market. I might say up front that I'm a tad surprised by the lack of replies supporting Wibbage, at one time or another, but that's just an opinion. Pressed, I'd probably pick something from that station's glorious run, but I also was strongly attached to another station that I'll mention to add some variety to the discussion.
Somewhere around 1970, plus or minus a year or two, after the Drake format had spread its wings, WHAT ran the format with for lack of a better term, black music.
Soul music, if you will, was what really grabbed me, and I liked the Drake format. Combining the two really grabbed me. The Johnny Mann singers weren't used (pretty sure), but the jingles were identical. Maybe it was the jingles I liked more than the format, but hearing that music, with those jingles really grabbed me. I only remember one of the jocks, Dan Henderson, who's voice was very appealing. It was good stuff.
If there were 1 show I'd like back, maybe even above Hy Lit's Hall of Fame Sunday shows, it would be John Records Landecker's Wednesday Night at the Memories which aired somewhere around 1968ish. I used to tape that show on reel to reel, and losing those tapes somewhere along the line was as disappointing as losing many of my old baseball cards.
Given the option of including other markets, without hesitation, the one station I'd bring back in a heartbeat would be WBLS around 1981. Frankie Crocker, Ricky Ricardo, Fast Eddie commercials, Friday, Saturday and lunch hour mix shows with Jonathan Ferring, Shep Pettibone and the like, all anchored by great music. Those tapes, I haven't lost, thankfully.
Somewhere around 1970, plus or minus a year or two, after the Drake format had spread its wings, WHAT ran the format with for lack of a better term, black music.
Soul music, if you will, was what really grabbed me, and I liked the Drake format. Combining the two really grabbed me. The Johnny Mann singers weren't used (pretty sure), but the jingles were identical. Maybe it was the jingles I liked more than the format, but hearing that music, with those jingles really grabbed me. I only remember one of the jocks, Dan Henderson, who's voice was very appealing. It was good stuff.
If there were 1 show I'd like back, maybe even above Hy Lit's Hall of Fame Sunday shows, it would be John Records Landecker's Wednesday Night at the Memories which aired somewhere around 1968ish. I used to tape that show on reel to reel, and losing those tapes somewhere along the line was as disappointing as losing many of my old baseball cards.
Given the option of including other markets, without hesitation, the one station I'd bring back in a heartbeat would be WBLS around 1981. Frankie Crocker, Ricky Ricardo, Fast Eddie commercials, Friday, Saturday and lunch hour mix shows with Jonathan Ferring, Shep Pettibone and the like, all anchored by great music. Those tapes, I haven't lost, thankfully.
I
imhomerjay
Guest
If it's just one for the sake of the game, I'd go with WIP in the Garland-Webber-Moran era (Cash Call and all).
I thought about saying Eagle (pre-Lander), but only if it's playing the same era of music, not a current-day CHR.
I thought about saying Eagle (pre-Lander), but only if it's playing the same era of music, not a current-day CHR.
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8638
Guest
amfmsw said:
WCAU-FM was mono until sometime in 1972, possibly early '73. Jim Nettleton used to host a call in show about the station on Monday nights, IIRC, called Music Line. Distinctly recall hearing a caller from the Bayshore area of central/north Jersey (DX'ing!) congratulating them on finally going stereo.
I remember those Quad concert broadcasts, too. Never heard them in Quad, though.
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