Greetings everyone! I stumbled across this thread and felt compelled to throw in my two cents. I was part of what Kenny Bosak has kindly referred to as the 1975 "legendary lineup" at WMPS. My tenure there was absolutely one of the finest experiences of my life. What made WMPS so special, almost magic during that time period was the people…a cohesive group of incredibly talented and just plain nice individuals…not a prima donna in the bunch! Wayne Hudson and Roy Mack are due all the credit for assembling that superior lineup of talent. I will always have utmost respect for every individual on that entire crew. Earlier in this thread, Dan Sears and Kenny have done an excellent job of listing most of those people.
In the first couple of weeks I was at WMPS, I found it odd for a station to have a Porter and a Maid…both in uniform and both with a degree of attitude from time to time. If memory serves me correctly, his name was Paul and she was Blanche…Blanche Moore, I believe. I questioned Roy Mack about the pair and he quickly told me to show them due respect…it seemed they both held large amounts of Plough stock. The story was: back in the early days of Radio Center, there were times Harold Krelstein couldn't pay their wages in cash, so he paid them in stock. Over the years, they held onto their stocks, which had subsequently split a number of times, making Paul and Blanche two of the most financially well-endowed employees of Plough Broadcasting!
The earlier description of the facility is accurate, but there was reason the Control Room, Back-up Control and the Production Control Room were 24+ inches above the News Room/Booth on the east side and the Production Studio to the west. When Radio Center was built in 1947, most of the programming was live…bands and such. The News Room/Booth and the adjoining Jocks Lounge were one large Main Studio back then. The raised control areas enabled the engineer to easily see each individual/mic in the studio. The entire studio complex was physically "decoupled" from the rest of the building for sound isolation. The walls were close to 15 inches thick with about 3 inches of folded canvas in the middle around every outer door frame. The studio complex stood on a suspension mechanism (I was told coil springs and cork) that completely isolated it from the outer building. According to Ed Crump, there could be an explosion on Union Avenue and it wouldn't be heard or felt within the studio complex. Another holdover from the early days was the huge (inoperable) RCA intercom system that was still mounted in the Control Room, Back-up Control and Production Control. In the Control Room, it was to the jock's immediate left, above the two ITC triple deck machines. The panel was 19 inches wide and about 24 inches high with 50+ buttons with a light beside each button. Still another, during the first two or three years I was there, was a full compliment of old RCA 77DX (think Larry King logo) mics in most on air positions. It wasn't until Mike Dorrough was hired on as a consultant that we stepped up to Shure SM7s.
I'm old now and suffer from sometimers disease…sometimes I just don't remember some stuff…but I don't recall Rick Dees being PD. For several months, Rick did indeed have his office in the small room that eventually became the Program Director's office. But, if memory serves me correctly, Rick played 'Disco Duck" one fateful morning (even though it had charted to #1, corporate had banned playing it in all dayparts on WMPS because it was seen as a conflict of interest)...Mr. Dees was summarily and immediately terminated for his heinous act (shortly thereafter, Rick was mornings on WHBQ). Almost immediately, Roy Mack resigned, followed the same day by Ron Jordan. I held on for two or three weeks, but resigned after some serious disagreements with incoming PD and still wet behind his ears, Michael Saint John. Dan Wilson was the last of the "legendary" airstaff to leave a few weeks later. The Rock on the River, 680 WMPS went from the very top of the heap (with something like an unheard of 30+ share of the market) to the basement within about six weeks…and sadly, never to recover.
