Thank you, K.M.---I should have made it more clear that not all those three hosts were part of KFI in 1987. The transition from music to talk took two years. Michael, I used to listen to Wink Martindale's KMPC countdown shows and I did not know that he was using Billboard's AC chart. I remember hearing a lot of songs that sounded out of place on KMPC. Two examples: Leo Sayer's When I Need You and Paul McCartney's With A Little Luck. I also remember Wink announcing one afternoon that KMPC will be the first Los Angeles station to play Kenny Rogers' new single. It was The Gambler. I wondered why a promo man wouldn't have given it to KLAC first. Around 1980, KMPC adopted an MOR oldies format known as "The Unforgettables." Nat "King" Cole's Unforgettable was the format's theme song. KMPC played MOR songs which were hit singles, spanning the late 1940s (It's Magic, Far Away Places, Some Enchanted Evening) through the mid-'70s (Mandy, The Last Farewell, The Way We Were). I wish that format had lasted longer.
As for KHJ going country, I taped some of that first evening. I heard Roy Orbison, Ricky Nelson, Buddy Holly, Creedence Clearwater Revival, the Eagles, Pure Prairie League's Amie and Charlie Dore's Pilot Of The Airwaves. I don't think any of those artists "grew up to be cowboys." Yeeee-hawwww!!!
Steve:
I'm surprised you thought "When I Need You" and "With A Little Luck" sounded out of place by that point. KMPC had been playing music like that since switching from MOR to Adult Contemporary in 1973. I remember being surprised at the time to hear Geoff Edwards play "Trouble Man" by Marvin Gaye when it was new (and telling "my friend Charlie Tuna at KKDJ" that he really should be playing it), and there's an aircheck of Sonny Melendrez from 1975 where he plays "Bad Time" by Grand Funk. But that's what AC was...essentially the same songs as the Top 40 station, minus the 5 or 6 hardest rocking ones.
As to why KMPC got the exclusive on Kenny Rogers' "The Gambler", it could be that UA Records wanted to break the record quickly on mass-appeal radio (AC and Top 40) rather than waiting to cross over from country play.
The timeline for KMPC: They very gradually went talk from late 1979 until early 1981...and failed (16th with a 2.4 in 1982, to KABC's #1 with a 6.7). Meantime, KPRZ (1150), with many of KMPC's old jocks (notably Gary Owens and Dick Whittinghill) had zoomed into the Top 10 from a no-show as a religious station with a big band/nostalgia format.
Bill Ward (GM) and Gene Autry (owner) recognized that it sounded very much like KMPC in the glory days and was on a lesser signal than the one they had. So in spring, 1983, KMPC dumped talk and hired Bill Drake to consult. He took the formatics of his "Hitparade" automation format, re-adjusted it for live jocks and substituted big band/nostalgia music. In 18 months, KPRZ was no more (flipping to a shadow-cast of KIIS-FM) and KMPC managed to peak at #6 with a 3.3 in 1985.
Drake left after a year, but the format stayed on the air, with adjustments, continuously until May of 1992, as K.M. notes. Ultimately, as was the case for KFRC's tremendous "Magic 61" (which, by the end, was a much better station than KMPC), the problem became advertiser resistance. It was simply too difficult to sell spots, even when the ratings were good. By that point, the bulk of the audience for that kind of music was 60+ (in truth, 70+).
As for KHJ's early music mix in the Country format, that was two things:
1) An attempt to cash in on the Urban Cowboy phase (remember, the soundtrack to that film featured not only Mickey Gilley, Johnny Lee, Anne Murray and Kenny Rogers, but Jimmy Buffett, Linda Ronstadt, The Eagles, Joe Walsh and Boz Scaggs).
2) An attempt to smooth the transition for any existing KHJ listeners who might be open to sampling the new format.
