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Ohio 60s/70s Top 40 roll call
- Thread starter gr8oldies
- Start date
And I worked at WMHE when it was mono, beautiful music, and a Westinghouse transmitter. (1968). This was when the stick was right there on Bancroft Street.
I was telling Playboy-J this morning that I was visiting a web site of a Cleveland Radio Museum, looking at all the old equipment, and then it suddenly dawned on me. CRAP! I've actually had air shifts on that old stuff!!
Here's the link that depressed me: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BD6E260vv34
There is some good audio in there as well.
I was telling Playboy-J this morning that I was visiting a web site of a Cleveland Radio Museum, looking at all the old equipment, and then it suddenly dawned on me. CRAP! I've actually had air shifts on that old stuff!!
Here's the link that depressed me: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BD6E260vv34
There is some good audio in there as well.
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nightfly61
Guest
5665 West Bankroft? I remember in the 80's they had Muzak as 1 channel & "Ninety-two-five WMHE" which was CHR. I remember the restaurant I worked at as a teen circa 1985, as soon as the last customers left we switched the RCA plug on the back from Muzak to 92.5. Usually that time of night "Rick Dees American Music Magazine" was on, or Rob Thomas. They never used jingles or said much except the morning show...and "Second Thoughts with Mort Brimm" dropped in overnights. what are some other old names of WMHE announcers from that era?FredRichards said:And I worked at WMHE when it was mono, beautiful music, and a Westinghouse transmitter. (1968). This was when the stick was right there on Bancroft Street.
I was telling Playboy-J this morning that I was visiting a web site of a Cleveland Radio Museum, looking at all the old equipment, and then it suddenly dawned on me. CRAP! I've actually had air shifts on that old stuff!!
Here's the link that depressed me: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BD6E260vv34
There is some good audio in there as well.
Oh, Fred LeFever(SP?) was another...I guess that's his real name but was a perfect radio name.
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nightfly61
Guest
I remember some of the "flavor oldies" they threw in with the hits. One minute you were hearing Nu Shooz or Ready For The World...next wou'd hear stuff likegr8oldies said:
We Just Disagree
Colour My World
Beginnings
Loves Me Like a Rock
Listen To What The Man Said
Midnight at the Oasis
...they mostly did this on overnights
nightfly61 said:
I think that was the address. For me, evening guy, to get in the station I had to walk across the lawn to the west side of the building and enter next to the Westinghouse transmitter. Charlie Myers was the PD then, Don Kierstead was head announcer, and I'm at a loss to remember the lady who was the GM.The board in the studio was hand made, and there was two turntables, and three Magnavox reel to reel machines. In the other room was the big 14" reels of Muzak tapes which we had to change during an air shift. And, in an emergency, you could bring up the Muzak on the main channel to fill. This was before they had stereo, so it was really of no concern.
A humorous story about Don, we used to call him Carny Kierstead because he had sort of a manor of talking like W.C. Fields and he always had an angle. I remember when I first started, age 16, I was making $1.60 an hour working an 8 hour shift. Don came to me and said, "I'm going to make you a RICH man." He accomplished this by giving me weekend shifts of 12 hours straight, at $1.65 p/hour. But for a kid with an old VW and a job in radio it was OK.
It was, as you can expect, a stepping stone to better employment. I left before it became stereo, had the short lived Pams beautiful music format, or went rock.
Ruth Ray was the GM.
nightfly61 said:
I don't remember WGCL using this slogan, though they well could have...they were basically known as "G98" as far as I remember from my misspent youth.
I also remember "Zip 106", the first contemporary format out of the former ethnic giant WXEN.
Akron had stations like WHLO "Hello Radio" in this time frame, and a little later on, WCUE "CUE 1150".
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nightfly61
Guest
They did have it on some taped liners & "Mr. G" Lee Gelette called it that plus I remember on the office answering machine they had Gelette's voice on it and at the end saying"...and thanks for calling the Great 98".
Instead of having an imaging guy I liked (& still do) the idea of having the jocks do the imaging. Travis' voice just saying, "You're listening to the great 98...WGCL(missle explode fx)...Cleveland".
They also went by "Cleveland's Music Giant" around 1980 or so because when I'd watch "America's Top 10" with Casey Kasem on (?) Cleveland t.v station & they had a promo where local radio could overlay their logo overtop, that had something that looked like a red white & blue Transformer(the giant) on their logo with call letters saying to "Tune in Sunday morning from 8 to noon for American Top 40 on Cleveland's Music Giant, WGCL 98".
I was disheartened as a teen when they got rid of the Beau Coup jingles & started going by "98 point five"...and then "The All New G-98" when Kim Colebrook was there. The G Morning Team with Phil Garner, Bob Travis, Tom Jefreys, Diane Burr, Al Roker were all history including Lee Gelette, Jobo Hannon, Danny Wright, Uncle Vic, were all replaced by the likes of Dave Sharp, Commander Dave Kelley, Bumper Morgan, J. Michael Wilson & Mother Love & only one of a couple to stay thru the transition was (E)Rick Kramer who I believe is still there to this day as Prod Director on WNCX. Any other old names, like Brandy "Buns" Kellog, Jim King & Chico the Wonder Dog(pre G-Team era)?
It's kind of odd how the "Great 98" moniker didn't register with me at all. But I wasn't really a P1 for WGCL...and pretty much all of my listening was with one Mr. Dancin' Danny Wright.
We're also starting to push past the 70's with stations like this, and Akron's WKDD/96.5, which served that role south of the Turnpike by the early 80's...
We're also starting to push past the 70's with stations like this, and Akron's WKDD/96.5, which served that role south of the Turnpike by the early 80's...
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nightfly61
Guest
I know there wasn't such a "titled" thing yet, but wasn't WBEA("B-107")(107.3) in Elyria a light hits/local full service format before they flipped to "WCZR, Z-Rock" around '85, then finally WNWV "The Wave" around 1987?
K
kirkiefan
Guest
WPFB-FM was then WPBF "Mellow 106"
It tried southern gospel in 1986 before moving to country.
It tried southern gospel in 1986 before moving to country.
1520/WTTO, Toledo, was Top 40 in the early seventies and did okay--decent shares--but was overshadowed by The Big 8, one of the truly great radio stations of any era (Gary Burbank, Byron McGregor, Brother Bill Gable, Super Max Kinkel, et al). WTTO had one of the weirdest transmitter set-ups in the U.S., with two separate 6-tower directional rigs--one down around Perrysburg and one up in Michigan (years later the FCC gave the okay to ditch one of those sites). Could hear both of them in a four-block area downtown, but nowhere else. Sold and flipped to Country in late '73 or early '74 and changed the calls to WTUU ("15-2") thinking that their fulltime signal could beat WTOD's daytimer on 1560. Bad call. Sold again a year or two later and stayed afloat as an urban/black format until FM made all Toledo AMs aside from Speedy museum pieces...
WBEA 107.3 FM in Elyria Ohio was "Beautiful Music" for "ages". Then in the early-mid 1980s went "Top 40/CHR". They were definitely doing it in late 1986 because I have a distinct memory of them playing "Walks Like An Egyptian" by The Bangles which became a big hit in late 1986 and into 1987. Then they went to the syndicated "Z-Rock" hard rock format for "a long weekend" before changing over to the first version of "Smooth Jazz", which is where they are now. I had heard that they went to Z-Rock because the Dallas Texas company who marketed Z-Rock wanted very badly to get into the Cleveland market, and gave them the equipment they needed for free. Then after leaving it on what could be considered a reasonable amount of time, they changed. I remember as Z-Rock they had PSA's covering some of the time meant for commercial inventory, but they kept playing the same :60 PSA's over and over to a very annoying degree.
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nightfly61
Guest
Another early 80's was 88.7 FM, CHOM("Ohm Radio")...came in crystal clear in Northern Ohio but tower is in Windsor. Before they flipped to 89X(what they are now) they claimed to be the first all digital c.d playing station. I remember them around '87 playing lots of George Michael, the Bangles, B-52's & the Joshua Tree.
I remember Z-Rock 107.3 struggling in sales. Someone who board-oped there told me they had to flip because all they could sell on Z-Rock was Oxy & Bubble Yum.
I remember Z-Rock 107.3 struggling in sales. Someone who board-oped there told me they had to flip because all they could sell on Z-Rock was Oxy & Bubble Yum.
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