My first recollections of Ken Shelton was in 1973 at WBZ-FM with Clark Smidt.You really felt it was just these 2 guys running the entire station.I remember they did a countdown show each afternoon.I also remember that they played a lot of flip sides of big hits from big artists of the day like Elton and McCartney.Songs like "Candle in the Wind","Harmony","1985" were great B-sides that could have easily been A-sides. And they played them as frequently as the big hit A-sides.Often times they were a few months ahead of the other Top 40 stations when it came to breaking hit records in Boston. I remember songs like "Magic" by Pilot getting played by Shelton on 'BZ-FM in February/March ,when it actually became a hit in June of '75.In this way, both guys showed tremendous musical insight into what they thought would be big hits,many months in advance,and most of the times they were dead on target.This happened frequently with many songs between '73 and '76.Then all of a sudden, in '76,Smidt & Shelton disappeared from the station and other DJ's like Vinny Peruzzi came on board in '76 and about a year later the station folded.
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Ken Shelton
- Thread starter WBIMDJ
- Start date
C
Channel Surf
Guest
RickyF said:
Actually, both Clark and Ken left during the summer of 1975, and ultimately started up the former AOR powerhouse WCOZ, late in the summer of 1975. WBZ-FM actually lasted into 1981, morphing into an AOR format itself, between 1978 and 1981...
R
RockyWShore
Guest
Ahh, WBCN Cap'n Ken's Lunch Songs. "It Takes a Big, Fat La-dy.... To Eat A Double-Lunch" to the Cars' Double Life. In the piles somewhere methinks. Duane Ingalls Glasscock Instant Radio Spectacular... repeating "Sit on my face Stevie Nicks" over and over :
. There were a lot of things said on ol' WBCN that I think wouldn't really fly in our current day's broadcast climate. Glad I had a front seat for WHEN RADIO WAS FUN...
Ron Gitschier
Formerly Lowell, MA, WLLH-Land
now
Palm Coast, FL
WNZF
. There were a lot of things said on ol' WBCN that I think wouldn't really fly in our current day's broadcast climate. Glad I had a front seat for WHEN RADIO WAS FUN...Ron Gitschier
Formerly Lowell, MA, WLLH-Land
now
Palm Coast, FL
WNZF
A
Alec Bova
Guest
Eli I'm a big fan of Captain Ken but he didn't sound very comfortable on ROR. It was too bad but he just didn't have the sparkle that he had on other stations. Maybe he got jaded? Where is he now? (I haven't read all the posts)...
Hey everyone.
My name is Marley Shelton. I am the daughter of "Captain" Ken Shelton. A friend linked me to this thread and since so many of you were inquiring as to my father's current situation, I thought I'd let you know what's going on.
Ken Shelton is about to have his 61st birthday. He no longer has a radio spot, but he does in fact run his own sports and music collectibles business called Decades Collectibles. He works from home and does sports collectibles shows a few times a month.
If you want to contact my father, please feel free to e-mail me at [email protected] and I'll forward you to him.
Marley
My name is Marley Shelton. I am the daughter of "Captain" Ken Shelton. A friend linked me to this thread and since so many of you were inquiring as to my father's current situation, I thought I'd let you know what's going on.
Ken Shelton is about to have his 61st birthday. He no longer has a radio spot, but he does in fact run his own sports and music collectibles business called Decades Collectibles. He works from home and does sports collectibles shows a few times a month.
If you want to contact my father, please feel free to e-mail me at [email protected] and I'll forward you to him.
Marley
BlindDaylight said:Hey everyone.
My name is Marley Shelton. I am the daughter of "Captain" Ken Shelton. A friend linked me to this thread and since so many of you were inquiring as to my father's current situation, I thought I'd let you know what's going on.
Ken Shelton is about to have his 61st birthday. He no longer has a radio spot, but he does in fact run his own sports and music collectibles business called Decades Collectibles. He works from home and does sports collectibles shows a few times a month.
If you want to contact my father, please feel free to e-mail me at [email protected] and I'll forward you to him.
Marley
Hi Marley, nice to see you here. Thank you for responding. Happy upcoming birthday to your dad! I hope he is doing well!
I might invite him to guest host my show at WMBR with me some time, if he would like to. We're not paid, but he would have fun, and he'd get to play whatever he wants from the "golden age" of FM album rock radio! (Late '60s and '70s).
I'd love to hear him talk about the golden age of radio, which IMHo was the 60's thru the early 80's before consolidation and the fragmentation of the music into a zillion genres.
Charles Laquidara did his thing on WATD recently and I was glued to the laptop for the night listening to the streaming audio.
Seriously I'd be really interested in hearing him tell some tales of his radio days.
Charles Laquidara did his thing on WATD recently and I was glued to the laptop for the night listening to the streaming audio.
Seriously I'd be really interested in hearing him tell some tales of his radio days.
ZRXOA 5248 said:
Charles guest hosted on my WMBR show with me back in 2000, a short time before his last WZLX show.
Lucylu said:
The one on August 4, 2000 that actually was his last full live, local airshift on WZLX before he left for Hawaii.
WBZ-FM
It is my humble opinion that WBZ-FM was a toilet during its Top 40 days. The audio chain was flat, the format broke into WBZ-AM for WBZ's top of the hour news - and it broke in like a bombshell - Clark sounded as if he had a perpetual stuffy nose, there was barely anything but segue serenade. But of course, Westinghouse is to blame for having been stodgy and having no clue as to the power of FM and what FM would become. Why Westinghouse got rid of a 50kWE FM is beyond me.
Remember: It was Westinghouse, then-owner of powerhouses WBZ and KDKA, whose disdain for true Top 40 enabled other, smaller stations in their markets to triumph in the format. WBZ could have been another WABC, with its almost non-directional signal. Same for KDKA. But in Pittsburgh, 5kW KQV ruined KDKA at least during KQV;'s Top 40 days, and that WBZ allowed WRKO to take over that segment of the audience was plain stupid as well. In fact, WBZ was calling itself the "Boss station for Boss-town" until management heard Bill Drake was coming into rework WRKO, and that Drake was calling KHJ "Boss" Radio. Westinghouse cowered, and it lost. Its second chance was to utilize its FM which as a medium, by 1972, was beginning to flourish, ala WBCN and an up-and-coming WVBF.
Same thing happened in New York City, where westinghouse's WINS cowered bwefore WABC and went all-News (not disputing the excellence of that format; only that Westinghouse again, gave in, instead of competing in the format).
Ditto in Los Angeles, where long-time Top 40 leader, KFWB, cowered to Drake's KHJ.
Just my opinion.. but I can back it up.
It is my humble opinion that WBZ-FM was a toilet during its Top 40 days. The audio chain was flat, the format broke into WBZ-AM for WBZ's top of the hour news - and it broke in like a bombshell - Clark sounded as if he had a perpetual stuffy nose, there was barely anything but segue serenade. But of course, Westinghouse is to blame for having been stodgy and having no clue as to the power of FM and what FM would become. Why Westinghouse got rid of a 50kWE FM is beyond me.
Remember: It was Westinghouse, then-owner of powerhouses WBZ and KDKA, whose disdain for true Top 40 enabled other, smaller stations in their markets to triumph in the format. WBZ could have been another WABC, with its almost non-directional signal. Same for KDKA. But in Pittsburgh, 5kW KQV ruined KDKA at least during KQV;'s Top 40 days, and that WBZ allowed WRKO to take over that segment of the audience was plain stupid as well. In fact, WBZ was calling itself the "Boss station for Boss-town" until management heard Bill Drake was coming into rework WRKO, and that Drake was calling KHJ "Boss" Radio. Westinghouse cowered, and it lost. Its second chance was to utilize its FM which as a medium, by 1972, was beginning to flourish, ala WBCN and an up-and-coming WVBF.
Same thing happened in New York City, where westinghouse's WINS cowered bwefore WABC and went all-News (not disputing the excellence of that format; only that Westinghouse again, gave in, instead of competing in the format).
Ditto in Los Angeles, where long-time Top 40 leader, KFWB, cowered to Drake's KHJ.
Just my opinion.. but I can back it up.
Re: WBZ-FM
I always thought it was the other way around. WBZ heard that Drake was coming to town so they tried to beat him to the punch by using the term "boss" first. So WRKO became "Now Radio" instead and still ate their lunch.
In retrospect, I think WBZ did the right thing by going to an MOR format. WRKO sounded so fresh and tight, and made WBZ's more "folksy" presentation sound dull & dated (but well suited to a format that targeted an over-30 audience). I can't somehow picture Carl deSuze or Dave Maynard as "boss jocks".
wrko said:
I always thought it was the other way around. WBZ heard that Drake was coming to town so they tried to beat him to the punch by using the term "boss" first. So WRKO became "Now Radio" instead and still ate their lunch.
In retrospect, I think WBZ did the right thing by going to an MOR format. WRKO sounded so fresh and tight, and made WBZ's more "folksy" presentation sound dull & dated (but well suited to a format that targeted an over-30 audience). I can't somehow picture Carl deSuze or Dave Maynard as "boss jocks".
The "Now" Radio thing is well-documented from interviews I made, but again, that depends on the accuracy of the respondents. You could be correct.
As far as WBZ revertingto MoR, Carl & companty (much as I liked carl as a friend), could have ben husstled off to Buffalo or wherever, just as WNAC did to bloved personalities such as Gus Saunders, Jim Dixon, et al.
WBZ was never truly a "rock" Top 40 station, as it was hung up on MoR formalities.
But can you imagine what they could have done with their FM... which by the way as I recalll was MONo even into the beginning Smidt years! Add some audio processing, get some real personalities, etc.
As far as WBZ revertingto MoR, Carl & companty (much as I liked carl as a friend), could have ben husstled off to Buffalo or wherever, just as WNAC did to bloved personalities such as Gus Saunders, Jim Dixon, et al.
WBZ was never truly a "rock" Top 40 station, as it was hung up on MoR formalities.
But can you imagine what they could have done with their FM... which by the way as I recalll was MONo even into the beginning Smidt years! Add some audio processing, get some real personalities, etc.
B
BZFM
Guest
Channel Surf said:
It makes me remember the very week the format (countdowns/Supergroups) was discontinued. I came home from school everyday and had a half hour before turning on the Top 40 countdown. To break up the monotony, Capt Ken did his own show on Tuesday and Wednesday afternoons before a brand new countdown for the week debuted on Thursday (the entrance theme for "The Capt Ken Show" was Traffic's Glad). On Friday Ken announced the Supergroup lineup for the next week, which included the debut of three bands to the Supergroups the following Friday - Aerosmith, Steely Dan & BTO (in a rare 3-way spotlight). The following Monday when I turned BZFM on, I remember how strange it was when the return from the 3:00 news break had Dave Maynard's voice intro "you're tuned to The Most Music Anywhere, 106.7 WBZ-FM Boston". But at 3:30, The Top 40 Countdown never came on. Neither did the Capt Ken Show on Tuesday or Wednesday, nor the new Countdown for the week on Thursday or the Supergroup debut at 6pm on Friday. Didn't get any explanation until Saturday morning's chat show "Talk To The Poeple", and even that didn't explain everything that went on. All I knew was that there would be no more Beatles spotlight on Thursday nights, Elton on Wednesdays, Deep Purple and Grand Funk sharing a night, the odd duo of Alice Cooper /J. Geils on the occasional Friday. No more Top 40 countdown in the afternoon and the Top 20 Voteline at night. No more Bummer Records of the Week. Even with the move to COZ and BCN after that, listening to FM radio wasn't as much fun anymore.
Ah well, everyone has to grow up sometime.
Its second chance was to utilize its FM which as a medium, by 1972, was beginning to flourish, ala WBCN and an up-and-coming WVBF.
Not possible, without incurring a massive opportunity cost. Under the ownership rules in effect during the 70s and 80s, the FCC took a dim view of one operator 'controlling' the media. Westinghouse had the #1 AM and the #1 rated television station, and thus had nowhere to go with the FM. That is why they ran it commercial-free and never promoted it. If the FM had become a commercial player, they would have risked the FCC requiring that Westinghouse unload one of the properties. The usual rule was you had to get rid of the last one on line, which, depending on how you did the chronology, could have been the television station, which was billing, in 1980, 50 million a year. The AM was billing 12 mil, and writing off the loses on the FM against the AM profits (ie: the FM PD was also the AM music director, shared back office costs, the AM engineer maintained the FM cart cart computer, etc). If the ruling was that the FM was the one which had to go, they would have been screwed with no leverage in a distress sale. The only way to go, at the time, was to sell it while they could to another operator for a decent price. Which they did.
You can't evaluate Westinghouse's options with 106.7 without considering the regulatory environment 30 years ago.
Regards,
TSB
Not possible, without incurring a massive opportunity cost. Under the ownership rules in effect during the 70s and 80s, the FCC took a dim view of one operator 'controlling' the media. Westinghouse had the #1 AM and the #1 rated television station, and thus had nowhere to go with the FM. That is why they ran it commercial-free and never promoted it. If the FM had become a commercial player, they would have risked the FCC requiring that Westinghouse unload one of the properties. The usual rule was you had to get rid of the last one on line, which, depending on how you did the chronology, could have been the television station, which was billing, in 1980, 50 million a year. The AM was billing 12 mil, and writing off the loses on the FM against the AM profits (ie: the FM PD was also the AM music director, shared back office costs, the AM engineer maintained the FM cart cart computer, etc). If the ruling was that the FM was the one which had to go, they would have been screwed with no leverage in a distress sale. The only way to go, at the time, was to sell it while they could to another operator for a decent price. Which they did.
You can't evaluate Westinghouse's options with 106.7 without considering the regulatory environment 30 years ago.
Regards,
TSB
I dont believe this was the case
You, of course, can believe what you want. At the time, I was at 1170 SFR watching this go down.
and certainly not the rationale for their decision to operate WBZ-FM in the manner they did.
Your batting average on this isn't getting any better.
Less than 5 million was a decent price?
I think it was less than that, but In 1981 it was, when you consider exactly what you were getting, decent. The inflation in radio prices was still a ways off. In fact, prices didn't really escalate through the roof until after the group ownership rules went away.
Regards,
TSB
You, of course, can believe what you want. At the time, I was at 1170 SFR watching this go down.
and certainly not the rationale for their decision to operate WBZ-FM in the manner they did.
Your batting average on this isn't getting any better.
Less than 5 million was a decent price?
I think it was less than that, but In 1981 it was, when you consider exactly what you were getting, decent. The inflation in radio prices was still a ways off. In fact, prices didn't really escalate through the roof until after the group ownership rules went away.
Regards,
TSB
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