Reflections on Radio and Records... from half a century ago

[davideduardo]

I know that part of the litigation with RCA was over the patents which they were claiming as well. But I question whether this stopped any manufacturer from offering FM if they wanted to do so. A number of companies, including some out of the U.S. made FM receivers.

But, as BigA mentioned, there were far fewer options available, and they cost more due to the copyright payments

You probably are aware that Armstrong's Alpine NJ FM, which ceased operation after his death, though primarily an experimental laboratory, broadcast primarily Beautiful Music from ETs.

In a sense, Armstrong broadcast whatever suited him in the moment. His objective was the development of the technology and not the operation of a particularly profitable radio station.

And in the period prior to Armstrong‘s death, the light classics and instrumental music format was not yet to be named “beautiful music“.

 

[TheBigA]

There were a lot of instrumentals that were hit records played on the regular Top 40 stations,

At that same time, Top 40 included country songs by Buck Owens and Johnny Cash. That changed as country music got its own major market stations around the country. That happened in the late 60s.

I don't know of any instrumentals that were hits in the last 30 years.

I think you can attribute that to the research being done in smooth jazz. It had originally been an instrumental format, but shifted to include vocals in the late 80s with artists like Anita Baker. Also the Bill Withers vocal on Grover Washingron Jr's Just The Two of Us. Adding a vocal helped change a song into a multi format hit.

 

[TheBigA]

But, as BigA mentioned, there were far fewer options available, and they cost more due to the copyright payments

In addition the electronics industry itself was changing at that time. What had been a largely American industry was facing global competition mainly from Japan. American companies were outsourcing their manufacturing to Japan and others to deliver cheaper electronics. By the mid-70s it was possible to buy a complete home stereo system, with record changer, AM/FM radio, and detached speakers for $99. That was something pretty much anyone could afford.

 

[TexasTom]

In addition the electronics industry itself was changing at that time. What had been a largely American industry was facing global competition mainly from Japan. American companies were outsourcing their manufacturing to Japan and others to deliver cheaper electronics. By the mid-70s it was possible to buy a complete home stereo system, with record changer, AM/FM radio, and detached speakers for $99. That was something pretty much anyone could afford.

Another relevant change that happened in the latter part of the 60s and into the 70s was the transition from vacuum tubes to solid state in home radio receivers. The vacuum tube stuff drifted at FM frequencies, which could make tuning a pain. The solid state equipment was far more stable and didn't drift anywhere near as much.

 

[ted chittenden]

At that same time, Top 40 included country songs by Buck Owens and Johnny Cash. That changed as country music got its own major market stations around the country. That happened in the late 60s.


I think you can attribute that to the research being done in smooth jazz. It had originally been an instrumental format, but shifted to include vocals in the late 80s with artists like Anita Baker. Also the Bill Withers vocal on Grover Washingron Jr's Just The Two of Us. Adding a vocal helped change a song into a multi format hit.

One of the theories that makes sense to me regarding the decline of instrumental music on the pop charts has to do with how top-40 stations used instrumental music. In the early days (from what I've been told), the clocks weren't always accurate and you couldn't always time your last record to finish at the top of the hour (or whenever your station's news began). So, to fill in the time between the last record on the hour's playlist and when the news (or other special programming) began, deejays would play instrumental music leading up to the newscast or whatever. The most popular of these instrumentals showed up on the Billboard charts.

However, by the 1980s with the development of satellite and easier and less expensive ways to measure time, music programmers could plan out an hour so that the last record played ended exactly when the news or other programming began, negating the need for instrumental filler not only on top-40 but on outlets of other generes as well. The result was the exodus of the instrumentals from Billboard's pop charts.

 

[TheBigA]

So, to fill in the time between the last record on the hour's playlist and when the news

I think that was more of an AM thing. Once Top 40 moved to FM, not many did news on the hour. Clocks were less rigid.

My take is that instrumentals were played then because AM Top 40 was trying to be all things to all people. Rick Sklar called it "mass appeal."

FM added another group of stations, that allowed new formats to happen, and the music splintered. It continues today.

 

[CTListener]

So, to fill in the time between the last record on the hour's playlist and when the news (or other special programming) began, deejays would play instrumental music leading up to the newscast or whatever. The most popular of these instrumentals showed up on the Billboard charts.

You're putting the egg before the chicken. Those instrumentals -- from "Green Onions" to "Java" to "A Taste of Honey" -- would never have become the familiar fillers they did if they hadn't already been hits.

 

[davideduardo]

There were a lot of instrumentals that were hit records played on the regular Top 40 stations, songs by the Tijuana Brass, Booker T & The MGs and others plus various TV themes and on movie soundtracks.

But at most given times, out of the typical Top 40 playlist of 40 to 50 songs (including "hitbounds"), there were maybe one instrumental song. And often, none.

And many instrumentals were very similar stylistically with the vocals. The Ventures were not Percy Faith in style... they were mid-60's rock. Yes, there was Love is Blue, but well into the 60's top 40 still had significant vestiges of the pre-1955 kinds of songs that also gave us Nat "King" Cole and Andy Williams hits back then.

I don't know of any instrumentals that were hits in the last 30 years. I considered the "Beautiful Music" radio format of my childhood to be boring sleep inducing elevator music that I had to listen to in my parent's car.

When I was doing much of my homework (three to four hours a night) in 9th and 10's grade, I listened to local "good music" station WDBN in the Cleveland metro. That station was a precursor to what we called Beautiful Music later on, but complete with harp notes between sets! Of course, when that got tiring, I'd play my tapes from the night before of HJED from Cali and its cumbia music for truckers. And at work in the the afternoon and weekend, it was all R&B and jazz.

 

[davideduardo]

I think that was more of an AM thing. Once Top 40 moved to FM, not many did news on the hour. Clocks were less rigid.

Even before that, the "20-20 News" of many Top 40 stations was roughly on the 20 and 40 minute mark. Those precise news start times came from network news, which required us to backtime and pick the right fill songs.

Back as far as I can remember, the big Top 40's in Cleveland (the later 50's) like WERE and WHK did not have anything but "news starts when the song ends" and often as much as a minute early or two minutes late.

My take is that instrumentals were played then because AM Top 40 was trying to be all things to all people. Rick Sklar called it "mass appeal."

Most of the ones I see from the later 50's and 60's fit the format, although as you say, the format was often very broad.

FM added another group of stations, that allowed new formats to happen, and the music splintered. It continues today.

It is hard to blame FM for this. The splintering of Top 40 into rock formats and traditional Top 40 and the early forms of AC happened not just when music fragmented into "album rock" but when FM added twice as many viable stations to the dial in most markets. So was it the need for FMs to do something else, or a change in tastes?

 

[TheBigA]

So was it the need for FMs to do something else, or a change in tastes?

Both plus the music itself was changing. There was a huge burst of musical creativity in the 60s, and a lot of it didn't fit in the existing formats.

It was interesting to see how quickly these new and offbeat formats gained listeners, and that was because of the music.

Then the labels learned how to do a better job of marketing their music. They expanded the use of TV. Then came MTV.

Remember what Cornyn was saying in 1975? The labels were looking for an alternative to the confines of radio. They found it.

 

[davideduardo]

Not sure about the Armstrong estate. Certainly FM was around and available long before 1965. Companies did not produce so many FM receivers because there was not a big market for them.

FM radios did not sell because, in the early years (1940's) we had a world war and then more than the doubling of AM stations in the later 40's. And radio in the 40's and early 50's was mostly TV without the pictures, with the family around the radio listening to drama. Format music radio was not even created until 1951, and took half a decade to be widely available.

FM radios were available. I used some of one of my earliest paychecks to buy a Zenith portable AM/FM in a neat leather case for under $50.... around 1959.

The problem was that many FMs, put on in thee 40's by big AMs, were now simulcasting and offered nothing new. And a third of all the FMs on the air in 1950 were gone by 1960.

There was no big market for radio sets because there was not much to listen to that was not already on AM.

Most FM broadcasting duplicated what was on the AM stations. Very true that there was an explosion was FM receivers in 1965.

No, there was a gradual increase all during the early 60's because radio got cheaper and FM stereo encouraged a few stations to do something original... full-time classical, all jazz, many ethnic stations in everything from Italian to Polish.

But the big change was in the 1967-68 period when the FCC required most FMs to offer unique programming. We built it, and they came. By the latest of the 60's, FMs were "making the book" in lots of markets.

Which was when I bought my first set. Though my father had got one buying his ship to shore band radio in 1958. And attractive consoles including FM receivers as household furniture were around before. For instance the Magnavox Astro Sonic Stereo of 1962.

Those who assembled or built their own systems in the 1950s often did enjoy the new Classical recordings which were improving sonically year by year. They also listened to Beautiful Music. Read the Hi-Fi and Stereo mags of the 60s and they are full of reviews of the latest beautiful Music recordings as they are of the Classical.

Again, the format was not called "Beautiful Music" except as a positioner for a few instrumental stations until the days of Shulke and Marlin.

As I interpret history, Beautiful Music radio had a lot to do with the rise to prominence of FM from the mid 1960s. because lots of people were buying FM by '65 as an alternative to what they were getting on AM which was either Top 40 or personality-dominated MOR. They bought FM to access more and what they thought was nicer music which was available all over the band by then.

Most of the "Good Music" stations up till SRP and Bonneville arrived were extensions of long-time good music stations like KPOL, WPAT, WDBN and the like. Many of those were insturmental-heavy MOR stations. Here is WVCG in Miami from the early 50's:



That was a precursor of what, about 15 years later, became Beautiful Music. Lighter Big Band, MOR vocals, crooners and the like. Nothing like Beautiful Music, but one of that format's ancestors.

Oh Classical Music never dominated the FM band. But in the newspaper radio columns they would invariably list the programmed Classical selections on a station. Even though that station might have only played two evening hours of Classical a day and Beautiful and/or vocals all the rest of the day. Yes there were all-Classical stations but these, in those days, were often on AM as well as FM.

Fulltime classical FMs mostly came into the world as either the extension of AM stations like WQXR, WGMS and KFAC in LA or new FMs like WCLV in Cleveland. But those were all classical... with a bit of opera and modern compositions, too..

Remember, that roughly 1000 new FMs licensed by 1950 had declined to around 700 or less by 1960, and most were simulcasting. Some tried unusual things like programming piped into all city busses or a bunch of paid programming outlets and foreign language operations. In 1960, Cleveland had two fulltime stations with over 10 different languages, making lots of money, too.

 

[davideduardo]

Then the labels learned how to do a better job of marketing their music. They expanded the use of TV. Then came MTV.

Remember what Cornyn was saying in 1975? The labels were looking for an alternative to the confines of radio. They found it.

But MTV did not affect Classical, Jazz, R&B, AC, Country, Regional Mexican, Latin American pop and tropical and other genres. It was initially Top 40. Efforts at anything else had no impact or limited influence. And outside the U.S. and Canada initially, MTV did not influence most of the rest of the world that was 10 to 15 years behind the U.S. in TV content and delivery systems.

The U.S. had about 4% of the world's population and there was a lot going on in music that had nothing to do with MTV or even with this country.

It's interesting that the whole "British Invasion" happened without local music radio and with a decidedly different system of promotion of product to consumers by record companies.

 

[TheBigA]

But MTV did not affect Classical, Jazz, R&B, AC, Country, Regional Mexican, Latin American pop and tropical and other genres.

You know what they say about a rising tide lifts all boats? That's what happened. The growth in some genres led to investment in other genres.

Plus as far as country, you had TNN and CMT all happening at the same time as MTV. MTV split to VH-1. BET for R&B.

It's interesting that the whole "British Invasion" happened without local music radio and with a decidedly different system of promotion of product to consumers by record companies.

But the British invasion was very short-lived. It really only lasted 3-5 years max. It burned itself out, and people were looking for something else.

Motown exceeded and outlasted it, and it was driven by local radio.

 

[davideduardo]

You know what they say about a rising tide lifts all boats? That's what happened. The growth in some genres led to investment in other genres.

Plus as far as country, you had TNN and CMT all happening at the same time as MTV. MTV split to VH-1. BET for R&B.

But none was as commercially successful or as influential. Much faster than MTV, they became lifestyle channels.

But the British invasion was very short-lived. It really only lasted 3-5 years max. It burned itself out, and people were looking for something else.

But it put the UK on the map musically for the U.S. We continued to get everything from Boy George to Bono (I know, he is Irish but it's the concept) while the first decade of Top 40 in the U.S. barely ever heard from the U.K.

Motown exceeded and outlasted it, and it was driven by local radio.

I was trying to show that the British Invasion happened in the UK basically without local radio, local record promoters calling on stations and, of course, and much less TV exposure. Radio Caroline and Radio Luxembourg did not create the trend... they reflected it.

In fact, except maybe in Mexico and Argentina, "Top 40" exploded in Latin America with little record company effort and almost not product available at retail. The whole "Nueva Ola" trend was accomplished almost entirely through radio. As an example, more than half the weeks of a year my Top 40 stations in Ecuador did not play a single record that was available locally at retail. Same in much of the world.

 

[ted chittenden]

You're putting the egg before the chicken. Those instrumentals -- from "Green Onions" to "Java" to "A Taste of Honey" -- would never have become the familiar fillers they did if they hadn't already been hits.

Sorry but I argue it was the other way around; that is, those songs became popular because they were used as fillers before newscasts and then people requested them making them hits.

 

[TheBigA]

But none was as commercially successful or as influential. Much faster than MTV, they became lifestyle channels.

Because the potential audience for a channel using that music was larger than the potential audience for any other genre of music. That's why they chose that type of music. Ultimately MTV incorporated some forms of rap and rock into what it did. It became less of a pop channel and more of a "mass appeal" channel.

Country music wasn't as big as pop music. The purpose of TNN was to promote tourism, and get people to stay at the Opryland Hotel. Music was the tool, as it was The Opry, which was part of TNN.

But it put the UK on the map musically for the U.S. We continued to get everything from Boy George to Bono (I know, he is Irish but it's the concept) while the first decade of Top 40 in the U.S. barely ever heard from the U.K.

Because the record labels were becoming global. By the 80s, record labels were no longer owned by US companies, but rather companies in France, Japan, and Germany. Even EMI, the British record label, ended up being bought by the French Vivendi.

You'd be surprised how many American artists had hits on the British-owned Decca record label in the 50s and 60s. Meanwhile, the US owned Columbia signed some of those "British invasion" artists. Columbia was bought by Sony. Decca was bought by the German Polygram. Music was no longer being made strictly for local audiences anymore. It was all global.

 

[CTListener]

Sorry but I argue it was the other way around; that is, those songs became popular because they were used as fillers before newscasts and then people requested them making them hits.

Still sounds far-fetched to me. David? BigA? Anyone out there who can settle this?

 

[TheBigA]

Still sounds far-fetched to me. David? BigA? Anyone out there who can settle this?

I don't think you can make generalizations about what came first. Dan Ingram used the instrumental Tri-Fi Drums as his closing theme, and the song was never a hit. He never introduced it. It was just something he used. But the concept of using theme songs like this ended with AM Top 40. It didn't really transfer to FM. On FM the show never ended, so there was no theme.

 

[kevtronics]

Sorry but I argue it was the other way around; that is, those songs became popular because they were used as fillers before newscasts and then people requested them making them hits.

"A Taste of Honey" was a hit because of the provocative cover of the album it was on, not because radio DJs were using it as a filler.

Whipped Cream & Other Delights - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

 

[TheBigA]

"A Taste of Honey" was a hit because of the provocative cover of the album it was on, not because radio DJs were using it as a filler.

It also didn't hurt that his music was used by the popular TV show The Dating Game.