This could be in the Dallas/Fort Worth thread but back in 1976, McKinney was a little country town far removed from Dallas.
It seems KMMK was selling. In what I thought were the last days of the station, they had a very interesting mix of music on their automation tapes. The presentation was that of a typical beautiful music station of the time: 15 minute sets of uninterrupted and unannounced music. This mix followed the beautiful music format in presentation.
I made a list of songs played and frequently didn't know the artist. I guessed at some song titles.
A country/rock sounding song "Let It Shine"
Break - 45 second and 30 second spot
Country Boy - John Denver
Eres Tu - Instrumental version of the Mocedades song
Teach Your Children - Crosby Stills & Nash
I Got You Babe - Ray Conniff & Singers
UPI News
2 at 60 second spots
Country song: A thousand shady lies
A country/rock/folk styled song
Country Road - Tennessee Ernie Ford
Feeling Groovy - Instrumental
50 second and 36 second ad
Uncle Albert - Instrumental
Leo Kottke
Glenn Campbell - Words
Color My World - Chicago
42 second and 35 second spot
Joni Mitchel song
Bonanza - Instrumental
That would have been in December 1975 just after Christmas.
The next monitoring was Spring 1976 under new ownership. I have written about the studio. Briefly, it appeared the studio was what had been the reception desk as you walked in the station building. At the desk were two turntables, a small BE console, a microphone and I think a record cart machine for production. The commercials aired from the only carousel remaining in the gutted automation system you could see from the on air location if the door to the room was open. The only other workable part of that automation was a 10.5" reel to reel with some homemade recordings of songs. Sometimes in the afternoons they'd play the reel, I suppose while they recorded spots on that BE mixer in the audition mode. The carousel airing the spots had very very low modulation. If you listened to the music at a 10 the spot was at a 1.5 or 2 in volume. You almost could not understand the spot unless you cranked up the volume and you'd jump when the next song started or the jock spoke because of the volume difference. This was not for a week or two but for months on end, maybe a year or more.
As lousy as this was, even for the listener, I loved this station. Why? It was all request and dedications. You felt a part of a big unified listening group that all knew one another. No the jocks weren't good. You could tell they were first gig, minimum wagers or maybe some kid in high school. Even so people listened. It seemed lots did. Sometimes the jock would play several tunes without cracking the microphone and you knew he was talking to people on the phone. Mostly the jock had something to say every song even though you didn't hear newscasts or weather forecasts aired. Most hours there were 6 spots in an hour, day or night, 7 days a week. Perhaps the new owner bonused spots to fill each hour with those 6 spots.
My recording starts at 5:30pm. I thought this might be a Sunday but if I recall they had an evening church service at 6 on Sunday evening. You can see I do not note any newscasts or weather forecasts...there were none. In my notes I used song titles unless I did not know the title when I'd list the artist:
5:30 pm 60 second spot
Kiss - no notes of the song title
30 second spot
Kind of A Hush (Carpenters)
Squeeze Box (Who)
60 second PSA
You Sexy Thing (Hot Chocolate)
Get Up & Boogie
Maxine Nightingale
Look Out For #1 (BTO)
Ad - 60 seconds
5:54 pm - Show Me The Way - Peter Frampton
60 second spot
Welcome Back Kotter
Boogie Fever
6:05 pm - "Bigfoot" Artist??? Jim Stafford?
Love Hangover (Diana Ross)
Phoebe Snow
30 second AD
Try To Get The Feeling (again)
REPEAT: 6:21pm Kind of a Hush - Carpenters
6:25 pm - Wonderful World
6:30 pm - Let You Love Flow (Bellamy Bros.)
Such was pretty typical. In almost all hours, every song was a current hit (on the way up or down the charts). I know from one of the jocks, they had maybe 5 albums that were greatest hit types of MOR/Easy Listening sort the morning jock was supposed to include at a rate of 1 per quarter hour until, I think 8 am. The station operated 6:30am to Midnight. By my guess, they ran about 50 currents. There wasn't a music wheel or hot clock for playing spots. Everything was just thrown together by the jock. As you can see from the list of songs, if they got enough requests or a dedication, playing a hit twice in less than an hour wasn't out of the question. At night and on weekends, there might be 10 to 20 requests and dedications an hour. Having a day job, daytime listening was not as frequent as night and weekend listening. I want to say, maybe Neal Peden, formerly (at that time) of KFWD was perhaps the Program Director but I'm not sure about that or if so, his duration at KMMK.
It seems KMMK was selling. In what I thought were the last days of the station, they had a very interesting mix of music on their automation tapes. The presentation was that of a typical beautiful music station of the time: 15 minute sets of uninterrupted and unannounced music. This mix followed the beautiful music format in presentation.
I made a list of songs played and frequently didn't know the artist. I guessed at some song titles.
A country/rock sounding song "Let It Shine"
Break - 45 second and 30 second spot
Country Boy - John Denver
Eres Tu - Instrumental version of the Mocedades song
Teach Your Children - Crosby Stills & Nash
I Got You Babe - Ray Conniff & Singers
UPI News
2 at 60 second spots
Country song: A thousand shady lies
A country/rock/folk styled song
Country Road - Tennessee Ernie Ford
Feeling Groovy - Instrumental
50 second and 36 second ad
Uncle Albert - Instrumental
Leo Kottke
Glenn Campbell - Words
Color My World - Chicago
42 second and 35 second spot
Joni Mitchel song
Bonanza - Instrumental
That would have been in December 1975 just after Christmas.
The next monitoring was Spring 1976 under new ownership. I have written about the studio. Briefly, it appeared the studio was what had been the reception desk as you walked in the station building. At the desk were two turntables, a small BE console, a microphone and I think a record cart machine for production. The commercials aired from the only carousel remaining in the gutted automation system you could see from the on air location if the door to the room was open. The only other workable part of that automation was a 10.5" reel to reel with some homemade recordings of songs. Sometimes in the afternoons they'd play the reel, I suppose while they recorded spots on that BE mixer in the audition mode. The carousel airing the spots had very very low modulation. If you listened to the music at a 10 the spot was at a 1.5 or 2 in volume. You almost could not understand the spot unless you cranked up the volume and you'd jump when the next song started or the jock spoke because of the volume difference. This was not for a week or two but for months on end, maybe a year or more.
As lousy as this was, even for the listener, I loved this station. Why? It was all request and dedications. You felt a part of a big unified listening group that all knew one another. No the jocks weren't good. You could tell they were first gig, minimum wagers or maybe some kid in high school. Even so people listened. It seemed lots did. Sometimes the jock would play several tunes without cracking the microphone and you knew he was talking to people on the phone. Mostly the jock had something to say every song even though you didn't hear newscasts or weather forecasts aired. Most hours there were 6 spots in an hour, day or night, 7 days a week. Perhaps the new owner bonused spots to fill each hour with those 6 spots.
My recording starts at 5:30pm. I thought this might be a Sunday but if I recall they had an evening church service at 6 on Sunday evening. You can see I do not note any newscasts or weather forecasts...there were none. In my notes I used song titles unless I did not know the title when I'd list the artist:
5:30 pm 60 second spot
Kiss - no notes of the song title
30 second spot
Kind of A Hush (Carpenters)
Squeeze Box (Who)
60 second PSA
You Sexy Thing (Hot Chocolate)
Get Up & Boogie
Maxine Nightingale
Look Out For #1 (BTO)
Ad - 60 seconds
5:54 pm - Show Me The Way - Peter Frampton
60 second spot
Welcome Back Kotter
Boogie Fever
6:05 pm - "Bigfoot" Artist??? Jim Stafford?
Love Hangover (Diana Ross)
Phoebe Snow
30 second AD
Try To Get The Feeling (again)
REPEAT: 6:21pm Kind of a Hush - Carpenters
6:25 pm - Wonderful World
6:30 pm - Let You Love Flow (Bellamy Bros.)
Such was pretty typical. In almost all hours, every song was a current hit (on the way up or down the charts). I know from one of the jocks, they had maybe 5 albums that were greatest hit types of MOR/Easy Listening sort the morning jock was supposed to include at a rate of 1 per quarter hour until, I think 8 am. The station operated 6:30am to Midnight. By my guess, they ran about 50 currents. There wasn't a music wheel or hot clock for playing spots. Everything was just thrown together by the jock. As you can see from the list of songs, if they got enough requests or a dedication, playing a hit twice in less than an hour wasn't out of the question. At night and on weekends, there might be 10 to 20 requests and dedications an hour. Having a day job, daytime listening was not as frequent as night and weekend listening. I want to say, maybe Neal Peden, formerly (at that time) of KFWD was perhaps the Program Director but I'm not sure about that or if so, his duration at KMMK.
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