Now Playing on K-Earth - Classic Rock! (Well, sorta...)

[Jay Walker]

Remember in 1971 when KHJ would usually play only Part 1 or Part 2 of Don McLean's American Pie and seldom play the complete 8:36 song? A few months later, the Temptations refused to shorten Papa Was A Rolling Stone even though Motown founder Berry Gordy Jr. predicted that stations wouldn't play the song in its entirety. It was 6:58.....and stations played it.....and it went to number one. There ya go!

Well, SOME stations played it. KHJ got it down to around 4:00 by shortening the intro and fading early.

And the single was an edit. The album version was 9 minutes.

Heck I'd never heard any version but the single edit Of "Papa was a Rolling Stone".
I didn't even know there was a longer version until I bought the LP...

In my experience on Top-40 radio AM and FM from 1970 and up, the only long versions we played were Stairway to Heaven, Nights in White Satin, American Pie, Light my Fire, but all were dayparted "nights only".

Yep. Spot loads were lighter. There was often anywhere from 6 to 10 extra minutes for music, so the long version of a song or two was just the thing. Plus, in the early 70s, the real numbers for album rock stations were at night, so it helped credibility for a Top 40 station to do that.

The elegant solution later were Dave Sholin's edits at KFRC, which would make a point of incorporating something only the long album version had but would edit something else out, keeping the length about that of the single. At the time, I thought I was hearing long versions. It's only on repeated listens to unscoped airchecks years later that I caught it.

FM album rock did have an effect on the song lengths played on the Top-40 playlist for sure. The effect was exacerbated when the Burkhart/Abrams Super Star format hit it's stride. At that point in time Top-40 daypart restrictions for long versus short versions were for the most part dropped. The only roadblock then was spot load....
But who wanted to hear the long version of Gary's Gang or Silver Convention :

 

[michael hagerty]

FM album rock did have an effect on the song lengths played on the Top-40 playlist for sure. The effect was exacerbated when the Burkhart/Abrams Super Star format hit it's stride. At that point in time Top-40 daypart restrictions for long versus short versions were for the most part dropped. The only roadblock then was spot load....

It wasn't just direct FM influence. Singles sales fell after '74...album sales eclipsed 45s in the late 60s and skyrocketed in the mid-late 70s. Suddenly, even listeners who didn't share time with AOR stations were buying, hearing and expecting us to play the entire song. You could get away with single edits on songs where the album wasn't very big, but you had to play (or in KFRC's case, appear to play) the uncut versions of Steve Miller, Fleetwood Mac, Boston, Frampton, etc.

 

[Thomps2525]

I mentioned Papa Was A Rollin' Stone and, yes, the album track was shortened for release as a single but it was only the long instrumental passages that were edited, not any of the vocals. Did any station in 1969 ever play the full version of Tommy James & the Shondells' Crimson & Clover? Instrumental passages have always been expendable. Occasionally, though, vocals were also cut; very few stations played the intro to Petula Clark's This Is My Song and I don't think any stations played the complete version of Ray Stevens' Ahab The Arab. And how many people have ever heard of the full beginning of White Christmas...by any artist?

 

[semoochie]

Lots of people did it later, Carpenters for one. We had an FM Top 40 that boasted "the longer version of all your favorites" and that included Crimson & Clover but I think the two AMs played the long version of that as well.

 

[Goldilocks94941]

Hey, if you don't want to dive much deeper into the catalog, then playing the longer "album" versions of songs in the evening daypart at least makes you sound a little more interesting to people who really want to get into the music. It's not just "product" for all listeners; let some people enjoy the music for the experience the songs were meant to convey, and your station's "coolness" factor imcreases with very little effort.

 

[Thomps2525]

Some stations made their own edits of singles. I remember KHJ overlapping the fade-out and fade-in near the end of Strawberry Fields Forever and cutting out half of the gunfire in Georgie Fame's Ballad Of Bonnie & Clyde. And sister station KGB-San Diego cut out almost all of the gunfire. A two-second shootout???

 

[Jay Walker]

Some stations made their own edits of singles. I remember KHJ overlapping the fade-out and fade-in near the end of Strawberry Fields Forever and cutting out half of the gunfire in Georgie Fame's Ballad Of Bonnie & Clyde. And sister station KGB-San Diego cut out almost all of the gunfire. A two-second shootout???

The "two-second shootout". Of course "Shotgun" has more Pow-Pow-Power ;D

 

[Thomps2525]

Ah yes, a reference to the PAMS "Music Pow Pow Power" jingles that aired on WABC, WFIL, WGH, KQV and many other stations. Scroll down to "Series 34" on this page and you can hear one of the jingles:

http://www.musicradio77.com/pams.html

And it sounds like it was done by the same people who did the Batman tv theme! We now return you to your regularly scheduled KRTH discussion.

 

[LKellerIII]

I always figured the real problem with a long version is that they caused tune-out for listeners who didn't like a song. In the 60s and 70s, I would feel cheated if a station played the short version of Light My Fire. But American Pie? Forget it. After I heard it through once, Don McLean never got past "Long long time ago..." before I was on to another station for at least those 8 1/2 minutes...probably longer.

 

[Thomps2525]

On another website, a lot of us frequently complain about what we feel is the most overplayed burned-out song on the radio, Van Morrison's Brown Eyed Girl. KRTH seems to play it five times a day and Sirius XM's 1960s channel also seems to play it five times a day. I guess we should be thankful that Morrison never recorded a 7-minute version of it!

 

[Marv-L.A.]

Well as someone who grew up listening to both KHJ & KCBQ (they had a monster signal in the early 70s to go with a powerhouse lineup including Charlie Tuna) I don't recall KHJ ever speeding songs up as much as KCBQ, with all due respect to Michael Hagerty.

Hearing 'Brand New Key', 'Seasons In The Sun' or 'Half Breed' at 48 RPM would have placed many of us on suicide watch, but given how KCBQ demolished KHJ's sister station in San Diego (B-100?) by doing just that (how does 10+ minutes of 'Funeral For A Friend/Love Lies Bleeding' at 37 or 38 RPM grab ya, sports fans?), KCBQ was certainly an extremely adventurous top 40 station under Buzz Bennett back then, and it certainly worked very well ratings-wise and in terms of raising its national profile during the 'Drake radio' era.

Some stations do have their own versions of songs which can catch the jock off-guard; Jhani Kaye was caught-flat-footed this past Saturday or Sunday morning by an abrupt end to their version of 'Baker Street' around 5:10 AM.

Top 40 was certainly under assault by album rock stations in the mid-seventies as well; in 1974, I can definitely recall various KHJ jocks doing a tease such as '....Captain John will be in tonight at 6 PM and he promises (the jock's emphasis, not mine) to play a track from Eric Clapton's '461 Ocean Blvd.' album', referring to 'I Shot The Sheriff' in an effort to present the same type of 'vibe' that chatty jocks such as Jim Ladd or B. Mitchell Reed became legends by doing.

 

[michael hagerty]

On another website, a lot of us frequently complain about what we feel is the most overplayed burned-out song on the radio, Van Morrison's Brown Eyed Girl. KRTH seems to play it five times a day......

Post-traumatic stress from the Jay Coffey programming days. "Brown Eyed Girl" is in a fairly light rotation these days, but some people's internal browsers haven't been refreshed since 2005.

 

[oldies76]

On another website, a lot of us frequently complain about what we feel is the most overplayed burned-out song on the radio, Van Morrison's Brown Eyed Girl. KRTH seems to play it five times a day and Sirius XM's 1960s channel also seems to play it five times a day. I guess we should be thankful that Morrison never recorded a 7-minute version of it!

"Brown Eyed Girl" and about 100 others! and 2000 left UNPLAYED.

You know, "Brown Eyed Girl" hit #2 on KHJ in 1967, so the popularity in L.A. is justified I suppose! Popular then, popular now.

 

[davideduardo]

On another website, a lot of us frequently complain about what we feel is the most overplayed burned-out song on the radio, Van Morrison's Brown Eyed Girl. KRTH seems to play it five times a day......

Post-traumatic stress from the Jay Coffey programming days. "Brown Eyed Girl" is in a fairly light rotation these days, but some people's internal browsers haven't been refreshed since 2005.

Yes... the reality is that the song has played between 4 times and 6 times a week since the beginning of this year. Or, about every 30 hours.

 

[michael hagerty]

You know, "Brown Eyed Girl" hit #2 on KHJ in 1967, so the popularity in L.A. is justified I suppose! Popular then, popular now.

The number of 45-year olds today who were listening to KHJ 46 years ago is...............................................

 

[michael hagerty]

Well as someone who grew up listening to both KHJ & KCBQ (they had a monster signal in the early 70s to go with a powerhouse lineup including Charlie Tuna) I don't recall KHJ ever speeding songs up as much as KCBQ, with all due respect to Michael Hagerty.

Hearing 'Brand New Key', 'Seasons In The Sun' or 'Half Breed' at 48 RPM would have placed many of us on suicide watch, but given how KCBQ demolished KHJ's sister station in San Diego (B-100?) by doing just that (how does 10+ minutes of 'Funeral For A Friend/Love Lies Bleeding' at 37 or 38 RPM grab ya, sports fans?), KCBQ was certainly an extremely adventurous top 40 station under Buzz Bennett back then, and it certainly worked very well ratings-wise and in terms of raising its national profile during the 'Drake radio' era.

Some stations do have their own versions of songs which can catch the jock off-guard; Jhani Kaye was caught-flat-footed this past Saturday or Sunday morning by an abrupt end to their version of 'Baker Street' around 5:10 AM.

Top 40 was certainly under assault by album rock stations in the mid-seventies as well; in 1974, I can definitely recall various KHJ jocks doing a tease such as '....Captain John will be in tonight at 6 PM and he promises (the jock's emphasis, not mine) to play a track from Eric Clapton's '461 Ocean Blvd.' album', referring to 'I Shot The Sheriff' in an effort to present the same type of 'vibe' that chatty jocks such as Jim Ladd or B. Mitchell Reed became legends by doing.

Marv:

KHJ's "tempo enhancement" was more subtle than KCBQ's. Probably 46.5 or 47 RPM at KHJ...48 or a bit more at KCBQ. And again, only on KHJ for the year that Gerry Cagle was PD (1974).

KCBQ demolished KGB, which was more of a cousin than a sister to KHJ. It was owned by Willett Brown, who was a friend of Gene Chenault's. Brown saw what Bill Drake did for Chenault's KYNO in Fresno and hired Drake to consult KGB, which at the time (1964) was getting its tail handed to it by KCBQ. Drake did so well for KGB that Brown, who held a position on the RKO board of directors, urged RKO to hire Drake to consult KHJ.

KCBQ's victory in 1971 ended Drake's "golden boy" status in San Diego. Brown ended the relationship in early '72 and brought in Drake's first PD at KHJ, Ron Jacobs, who created a very different kind of Top 40/AOR hybrid.

B-100 was KFMB-FM. It had no relationship to Drake, RKO or KHJ (other than its first PD, Bobby Rich, had spent less than a year at KHJ as a nighttime and/or weekend DJ). It ultimately toppled KCBQ.

Jhani voicetracks overnights. What you heard was a technical problem.

 

[oldies76]

You know, "Brown Eyed Girl" hit #2 on KHJ in 1967, so the popularity in L.A. is justified I suppose! Popular then, popular now.

The number of 45-year olds today who were listening to KHJ 46 years ago is...............................................

And the number of 65-year olds today listening (I know, radio does not recognize them) were 19 in 1967.

 

[michael hagerty]

You know, "Brown Eyed Girl" hit #2 on KHJ in 1967, so the popularity in L.A. is justified I suppose! Popular then, popular now.

The number of 45-year olds today who were listening to KHJ 46 years ago is...............................................

And the number of 65-year olds today listening (I know, radio does not recognize them) were 19 in 1967.

But since radio does not recognize them, the song's popularity in Los Angeles then is irrelevant.

I think it would be fascinating, if there were a way, to know how many Angelenos alive at certain data points (50, 45, 40, 35, 30, 25, 20 years ago) still live in Los Angeles today.

There are 11 million more people in the L.A. metro today than there were in 1970.

The 1970 Census says 61% of Los Angeles residents were Anglo, 17.9% African-American, 17.1% Hispanic and 4.8% other (including Asian and Pacific Islanders).

Today (well, 2010)?

48.4% Hispanic
29.4% Anglo
10.5% Asian/Pacific Islander
9.6% African-American

Put all that together and you're dealing with a very small number of lifers.

 

[LKellerIII]

On another website, a lot of us frequently complain about what we feel is the most overplayed burned-out song on the radio, Van Morrison's Brown Eyed Girl. KRTH seems to play it five times a day and Sirius XM's 1960s channel also seems to play it five times a day. I guess we should be thankful that Morrison never recorded a 7-minute version of it!

Too bad too, because it's a good song. I bet the royalty checks are keeping Morrison comfortable in his old age.

I'm not sure what the Bay Area's most burned out song is, but I'd guess it's Let's Stay Togetherby Al Green. It's a little past its "Oldies" prime now, but 3 years ago, you'd hear it multiple times daily on KISQ ("Old School"), KBLX ("Soft R&B"), KKSF (Smooth Jazz), KOIT (Lite Rock), and any other station that dipped into 70s era hits.

 

[michael hagerty]

On another website, a lot of us frequently complain about what we feel is the most overplayed burned-out song on the radio, Van Morrison's Brown Eyed Girl. KRTH seems to play it five times a day and Sirius XM's 1960s channel also seems to play it five times a day. I guess we should be thankful that Morrison never recorded a 7-minute version of it!

Too bad too, because it's a good song. I bet the royalty checks are keeping Morrison comfortable in his old age.

According to Van, he's never seen a penny. He says Bert Berns screwed him over at Bang! Records and even after control passed to CBS, he's never been paid.