Sixties Radio : WARM and WBAX and .... who else?

[Steve Green NEPA]

(Jean Shepherd voice)

I'm this kid, see? And I have this GE clock radio, all my own. The same model sat atop the icebox in Happy Days. The prop might even have been the identical radio. The dial had minimal marking numbers, like 54, 60, Conelrad, 80, 100, 120, Conelrad, 140 and 160. Yet, a genuine, veteran overnight radio addict *knew* the difference between frequencies like 1460 and 1470, just by looking at the dial. You KNEW. The instant determination -- almost a casual arrogance -- was like having a seventh or eighth sense.

And on Lawn Guyland, and there I am, embezzling perfectly good sleeping hours from school the next day, this radio gets WARM the Mighty 590. And when 1240 WGBB signed off at 1 AM, there would be WBAX.

Did any of the other Scranton/Wilkes-Barre stations ever do, or try to do, Top 40 back then?

 

[Zenith Transoceanic]

Your Jean Shepherd imitation is right on! ;D

WPTS at 1540 AM on the dial, a 1,ooo watt daytimer out of Pittston, played top 40 from noon 'til four.
They had country and western music in the morning, and polkas at 4 pm.

WBAX included some "mild" top 40 (ex: "I'm Henry the 8th I am") in their mid-day mix. (The Dick Whitaker show)

WILK (980) went to top 40 some time in 1968, much to the chagrin of the big band generation.

WSCR 1320 in Scranton (1000 watts) did top 40 from at least 1966 on; possibly before.

I've heard that WICK (1400 Scranton) started out playing top 40, but I have no recollection of that.
All I can remember of them at the time was elevator music.

You got WBAX at night after WGBB would sign off the air on Long Island?!
That's pretty good! They were only running 250 watts!

 

[Zenith Transoceanic]

I should add as a postscript:
WBAX, which in the sixties was known for its "Polka Weekend" show, sponsored
by the Gibbons brewery, went WAAAAY out on a limb by allowing "The Gibbons
Experience" show on Saturday nights from 8 'til midnight in 1969.
It was the first playing of rock album cuts in the area, aside from what was
available on King's College's WRKC (a ten watt giant at the time).

FM radio hadn't really developed in the area yet*, the way it had on the coast,
so it was the only opportunity for people in this market to hear "underground" radio, 'though many of us tuned in to WSAN (1470 in Allentown) to hear their programming of it, in spite of the static.

*There were only about four local fm stations at the time, and only WYZZ had
a significant following.Many homes had no FM radio back then.

 

[L.A. Tarone]

WSCR indeed went Top 40 in 1966. Its goal was to take on WARM. Its "big name jock" was a guy named Frantic Freddie; Fred Milander. I think he was from Allentown. He did evenings, 6-10. I never actually heard him, but have been told he was very excitable - something like George Michael in his FIL days. Freddie recorded an album, which I have lying around here somewhere. It was done in Philly and had some very good musicians on it -- Bobby Eli, from example, later of Gamble/Huff's Sigma Sound is on it.
I've never been able to find ratings from back then, but apparently WSCR did pretty well with the format from a fairly long time. But it was severely handicapped by its signal. I worked there many years later after a call letter change to WBQW, and while you could get it faintly in Dorrance during the daytime, at night, there were parts of Scranton where it was weak.
The building was on Keyser Avenue. The tower was out back. There was still tons of SCR stuff in it -- including about a thousand of Freddie's albums.
Other than that, in this part of the state, there was little Top 40 until the late '60s, outside of WARM. As ZT noted, WILK sort of slid into the format starting in 1968. And while it's before my time, I was told WAZL in Hazleton briefly experimented with it circa 1964, but owner Vic Diehm hated it and it didn't last long.
By theway, by 1973, WBAX had the same Pams jingle package which WFIL used. Sounded great!!

 

[cowboy72]

I should add as a postscript:
WBAX, which in the sixties was known for its "Polka Weekend" show, sponsored
by the Gibbons brewery, went WAAAAY out on a limb by allowing "The Gibbons
Experience" show on Saturday nights from 8 'til midnight in 1969.
It was the first playing of rock album cuts in the area, aside from what was
available on King's College's WRKC (a ten watt giant at the time).

FM radio hadn't really developed in the area yet*, the way it had on the coast,
so it was the only opportunity for people in this market to hear "underground" radio, 'though many of us tuned in to WSAN (1470 in Allentown) to hear their programming of it, in spite of the static.

*There were only about four local fm stations at the time, and only WYZZ had
a significant following.Many homes had no FM radio back then.

the gibbons experience show was hosted by jack flynn, and he also did production for the station. he was a talented young man. also i cant remember his last name but his first name is bill. he did saturday nights too.both the polka weekend and gibbons experience shows made alot of money for the station.

 

[Mark Cooper]

I just found this site by accident much to my absolute delight, I see some familiar friends are here too, Phil Galasso, Rev Tom Carten to mention just two I noticed. I absolutely loved the post by "Zenith-Transoceanic" ( of which I HAD a 1950's model at one time many years ago.. ) about WBAX and "The Gibbons Experience" , man, did that bring back very fond memories ! At 14 years old at the time and LOVING radio, I received permission to 'hang out' with the DJ on duty for the Gibbons Experience juast to observe.. That is where I first heard the very first 'Uriah Heep LP' I seem to recall that "The Gibbons Experience" started at 11:00 PM from my recollection but I see it mentioned that it actually started at 8 PM.. What an ULTRA-COOL time in local radio history !

Mark - WN3SIX

 

[Zenith Transoceanic]

Nice to hear from you Mark.

 

[Pinegroves]

Was reading about Bobby Eli? Where is he?

 

[Tmaan7]

I remember the Gibbons Experience on WBAX. I was at King's College where I served as
Assistant Manager for Eddie Smith the GM. WBAX was the only way to hear true progressive rock in Northeastern PA. I first heard Jesus Christ Superstar at that station and a lot of the Rock Opera until I was hired as Music Director for then automated WEZX-FM or FM 107 your 24hour rock concert until 1980 when we turned automation into Live Classic Rock at Scranton's true rock station Rock 107 where it remains. Wow those were swell memories. Thank you David DeCosmo, Frank Stanley and all who were at WMJW back in the early 70s. There were only a few that I can remember. I was a college student then. I wish those days never ended.

 

[ValleyDxer]

Wow, what an interesting site. I'm brand new here so please bear with me. Regarding the underground progressive rock on WBAX, I vaguely remember a whispering DJ on this station around 1967 or so. Does anyone else remember this or am I dreaming?

 

[cowboy72]

Wow, what an interesting site. I'm brand new here so please bear with me. Regarding the underground progressive rock on WBAX, I vaguely remember a whispering DJ on this station around 1967 or so. Does anyone else remember this or am I dreaming?

if i remember, there are two names that come to mind ..jack flynn, and a bill, i cant remember his last name..maybe someone else can..your not dreaming, it was called the gibbons experince, sponsored by gibbons beer. they also sponsored a gibbons polka weekend show that made wbax alot of cash..hope this helps out..

 

[Zenith Transoceanic]

Bill Bachmann? He worked at WBAX very briefly after a long stint at WBRE, in 1969 or so.
I was out of the area after 1970, so I don't know whether he ever did any whispering.

 

[ValleyDxer]

Interesting information for sure. All I remember was the whispering and it was annoying to me so I didn't listen for long. Being that this time was in the middle of the psychedelic era I guess "the Gibbons experience" fits but I would imagine that many listening were getting an experience on something other than Gibbons.

 

[Zenith Transoceanic]

Ha ha. Well, to be honest, pot was just starting to be available in the area in the late '60s,
and all the other stuff really hadn't made its way here yet.
I think you might be surprised at how relatively sober the audience probably was.
It really was the music that was "the experience" for most of us.

In fact, your comment reminded me of how when "Light My Fire" came out, WARM refused to play it; presumably because they thought it was a "drug song".
I was hearing it on WBZ, WABC, CKLW, and everywhere else, so I called WARM and asked them why they weren't playing it.
The person who answered the phone offered no explanation, but said, "That's right; it's not being played here, and you won't hear it on WARM either!"
A week later it was number one all across the nation.
With no explanation at all, WARM played their "It's now number one!" jingle, and
there it was! Dee deedle eee dee dee dee dee dee ;D

 

[ValleyDxer]

This is not a surprise about WARM being very selective about what they played. I like looking at the music surveys of some the much larger stations in the country on oldiesloon.com. While I listened to WARM a lot from the late 50's through the 60's I see a lot of songs I don't remember on these stations surveys including a lot from black artists I don't recall hearing on WARM.

 

[Steve Green NEPA]

Maybe a little off-topic, but it might illuminate that late-60's era ; that divergence of Top 40 and AoR* ......

I had been doing news (just for a month or so) at a Susquehanna station. Over the AP wire one afternoon came some fatality/disaster story out of Scranton. Our news director saw 'Scranton' in parentheses, and -- this is the news director! -- actaully asked which of the smiling Susquhanna stations were in Scranton. He wanted to call them and get some live Scranton radio voicer, to complete the news story with a :40 or so 'wrap' presentation for that newscast and for later use. Intro ... voicer .... outro. You know -- 'our Scranton correspondent reports ....' It would sound really official and exclusive.

Upon being informed that WARM was the station, the news director then spent about fifteen minutes getting someone from WARM -- after a while, ANYONE -- on the phone to provide some voice. But what he wound up getting was obviously some jock, not a newsman. Good Lord -- all that was missing from the telephone report were reverb and maybe a Mighty 590 jingle. The WARM voice really gave this Ron Radio Top 40 treatment to the script.

Our news director, now the visage of Scowling Susquehanna after fifteen minutes of this inter-company communications, played the result back once, then twice, then said, 'Nah .... nah. He sounds like he's at a party, taking dedications'.


* The format wouldn't be called AoR for maybe another four years. We always considered WNEW to be 'progressive' and 'snobs' .... and WPLJ to be pushy jerks. Other markets really got the format right between those two extremes. In 1969 it was beginning to be regarded as 'Pop-progressive'.
Or maybe 'Smiling Progressive' in Scranton, on Long Island, in York, etc

 

[MadDrummer]

Anyone remember the "Peter Max-style" Gibbon's Experience logo?

Jack Flynn was a true gentleman. He could read a phone book and make it sound compelling yet casual. He had tone. Then the flood came and HUD made him an offer he couldn't refuse.

I once was invited to sit in on "Amos, the Organizer" sometime in 1968. I brought a tape of a band - Praeter Violet - with 2 songs. Amos was very interested in local music. He whispered an intro and rolled the tape. The band said they got chills hearing the songs that night.

It fascinated me that someone could whisper nothing but listener names between the songs they requested - sometimes inserting something like "sitting around 'puppy's' porch". Talk about visuals.

The phones rang off the hook. He would write down the request in some kind of cryptic chart and ran the show around it. I loved the knobs, the sliders, the monitor speakers, the analogue dials with the bouncing needles. That night I vowed I'd try to discover "the secret".

Two years later I had my 3rd class and was bugging Si Bosco and Dick Pine at WRKC for a slot. They gave me a 4pm classical show - probably figuring if I could stick it out I'd show up for anything. That started the most magical time of my life. I still thoroughly enjoy reconnecting with the folks at 'RKC - most recently JJ O'Malley and Steve Wallmark. When I die I pray to God he allows me to slo-mo thru that period of my life.

It was fun searching for that secret...until the consultants showed up.

Thanks for starting this thread - think I'll grab a bottle of Boone's Farm Apple and hope the "WayBack" shows up.

 

[Zenith Transoceanic]

"When I die I pray to God he allows me to slo-mo thru that period of my life."

The famous play "Our Town" by Thorton Wilder is about just that: a girl gets to re-experience a day in her past after she has died. As an audience member, you share the experience vicariously, and it is quite moving. You come away with the realization that every day is special.
I think you'll get your wish.
In any case the NDE-ers always say your life passes before your eyes, and you get to feel what others felt, in addition to what you were feeling at the time.

I did a google search for "The Gibbons Experience", and I came across a 2007 thread here, similar to this one.
Yonkster said in that one that Merv took over WBAX in the early '70s, but in fact it became "a Merv Griffin station" in about 1968, though Jim Ward ran the show. Merv had little involvement with it, or his other stations, which included WWCO (also 1240) in Waterbury, Ct. though he hired Mr. Ward as a consultant for a year when he got into the radio business.
Prior to that, I believe WBAX was owned by Jim Ward, a Phillips from the "Phillips Seafood" family, Frank Henry of Martz Trailways, and a 4th individual, whose identilty escapes me at the moment. Local business men. It went from 250 watts to 1000 at the end of 1964, as did many other "local" stations, but ran the low power (250w) at night, when The Gibbons Experience was on, and still there were listeners in Scranton!

 

[sam liguori]

before merv bought wbax, the co-owners were paul phillps, frank henry, an investor by the name of seymore from scranton, and jim ward, who was also the g.m. and one of the great radio pioneers in broadcasting. jim did work for merv,and was given a nice salery, and perks, but he always wanted to own his very own radio station.he got 250.000 dollars from the sale of bax.thats when he bought 1540 wpts off rose and angelo ferrani of scranton. it was a 1000 watt daytimer until jim applied for a 10,000 watt licence. the fcc aproved a 5000w licence, and thats what he ended up with. when i worked at bax before merv bought it, we were always treated fair, and they always were nice to us for each and every holiday. frank henry was very good to all his empoyees. yes the gibbons experience, and the gibbons polka weekend show were very successful, as were the talk shows.alot of great radio, and tv people came out of that era of broadcasting..

 

[MCNDRWS]

Around 1969 or so WSCR had a show that aired at either 11PM or Midnight that played cuts from albums called "UNDERGROUND" that was hosted by Jim Drucker, who later went on to WARM and then left to become a priest.