Some old Seattle sounds from the 60s and 70s

[Johnf]

Having grown up in Seattle (I now live in Oregon), there are some memories that particularly stand out from being an avid radio listener in my boyhood. Of course, like any kid back then, I was glued for years to KJR and KOL. But as I got a bit older, other stations caught my attention and there was some very enjoyable programming. I especially liked some of the automated music formats.

This is probably going to lead nowhere, as I am talking about some real ANCIENT stuff now, but thought I would still give it a try.....If anyone knows if any airchecks of the following are posted anywhere on the web, I'd sure appreciate knowing:

-- When KIRO-FM in the mid-1960s (then at 100.7) had "The Young Sound" automated music format that originated at WCBS in New York.

-- When KIRO-FM had Drake-Chenault's "Hit Parade" format in 1968 and 1969.

-- When KFKF-FM 92.5 carried "Hit Parade" and later Drake-Chenault's "Solid Gold" in 1969 to 1971.

-- When KIRO-FM (and later known as KSEA) had its beautiful music format in the 70s.

-- When KIXI AM (then at 910) and FM (95.7) had a beautiful music format in the 1960s and 1970s (I particularly remember the voiceovers on a harp background, and Dave Ballard's deep-toned voice)

-- When KTW 1250 AM had a short-lived morning news block around 1974 or 1975.

-- When KISM 92.9 FM in Bellingham carried Draper-Blore's "Olde Golde" music format in the early 1970s.

 

[LITTLEBOYBLUE]

Many of those automation formats were pretty tight and "clean" (meaning no jock clutter) making the FM music transition very attractive to a lot of people. I was even trying to put together a proposal for our AM station (Calgary) to seek an FM (Calgary only had one FM signal at that point) so we could program the Drake-Chenault top 40 on the new FM -- would have done PHENOMENALLY well. But the owners at the time were not very interested in FM ... and so it goes.

I should have seen the handwriting on the wall ... as I spent most of the next 40 years STILL trying to convince various broadcast owners to "do something new" only to get the usual "who ELSE is already doing this" pushback that separates visionaries from the "me too" population. Not many visionaries left, though I am very eager to see what Bezos has in mind for the Washington Post. Bringing new electronic publishing & marketing approaches, Kindle integration, etc. could be a badly needed shot-in the arm for a top-notch journalism company.

(By the way...worked at KSEA during their "beautiful music" days....Dave Ballard & I were fired on the same day, which completely took the sting out of it for me because I figured there was no LOGIC in the move, just politics!!)

 

[Bongwater]

Speaking of KSEA.....

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xk1zaPBQnug

 

[crainbebo]

Personally, I'd also like to hear some classic KERI/KNWR 104.3 stuff, before the flip to KAFE. (and 20 years before the flip to 104.1)

-crainbebo

 

[Johnf]

Actually, I meant to include KNWR in Bellingham on my list of desired airchecks. Thanks for mentioning that! KNWR "Northwest Rock" was my favorite station in the late 70s and early 80s when I lived in Anacortes.

 

[Bongwater]

KNWR was pretty much a snooze for me. The generic TM voice-over sounding the same liners over and over and over for most of the '80s was too much for me. They updated them in 1987 with another, even more ridiculous sounding set of voicers ("Crank her up and watch her cook! We're ROCKIN' at FM 104!!" into something like "Suddenly" Billy Ocean was just hysterically stupid.) They also had something that said "....That's when the power hits peak. And socks the knobs off your radio!" My buddy heard this liner and sarcastically said "WOW!"

But for KNWR's scrappiness, they did have a one up. In 1986, KISM's (a CHR until 1992) automation was sounding SLOW - I mean their music was at REALLY low pitch. I'm not sure what was going on, but it took a whole year (until 1987) to fix it. They lost a lot of Bellingham listeners during that time to KNWR and even CKLG (an AM station!) since the Seattle CHRs were multipathed, staticky and unlistenable in the downtown and most surrounding areas of Bellingham at that time except the east side of the city near Bellingham High School. (They still are.)

 

[crainbebo]

I wonder what the first few years of KAFE were like (long before Dave and Shari, now Dave & Mandy). Another TM automated jukebox? They've improved now. Since I now live in Monroe I flip between KAFE and KRWM. Scotty VanDryer is a good air personality with his "Cruise Home" around 4pm each day (I can hear some not-so-common AC stuff on that segment)

-crainbebo

 

[Bongwater]

I wonder what the first few years of KAFE were like (long before Dave and Shari, now Dave & Mandy). Another TM automated jukebox? They've improved now. Since I now live in Monroe I flip between KAFE and KRWM. Scotty VanDryer is a good air personality with his "Cruise Home" around 4pm each day (I can hear some not-so-common AC stuff on that segment)

-crainbebo

When KAFE started their morning show was hosted by Jeff Nelson (son of the late Larry Nelson of KOMO fame) They were automated but live assist. Dave Walker was moved to KAFE from KISM after Saga bought the stations.

 

[mimo]

KNWR had a very nice signal back in the 80's in a few parts of Vancouver and area but not all of it. The areas that did get it, there weren't many listeners. You couldn't get teens to switch from AM to hear less variety, no personality and no Canadian acts.

 

[crainbebo]

Which by the 1980s was getting rarer and rarer to see young people listening to AM - they were going to FM in droves! Now, with news/talk, sports, religion, Punjabi formats on AM - very few listen to AM under around the age of 40. What's even worse is teens, twenty-somethings etc. some of them don't even know what AM is!

-crainbebo

 

[Bongwater]

KNWR had a very nice signal back in the 80's in a few parts of Vancouver and area but not all of it. The areas that did get it, there weren't many listeners. You couldn't get teens to switch from AM to hear less variety, no personality and no Canadian acts.

They did have a few Canadian advertisers (Granville Toyota) before the CRTC put the kibosh on cross-border radio advertising.

I listened to CKLG almost exclusively for my CHR fix when I lived in Bellingham in the '80s. Their music format and level of personality made up for their AM signal very nicely compared to the Bellingham FM stations. Plus I got introduced to some awesome Canadian music I would never have heard anywhere else. Even when I moved back to the Seattle area, I still listened to primarily them for CHR and put up with the weak signal and gradual rising noise floor level until they started adding talk programming in 1992 (which didn't last long, but it was annoying.) and still kept a button on 730 until they left the air for good in 2001.

 

[Grounded Grid]

(By the way...worked at KSEA during their "beautiful music" days....Dave Ballard & I were fired on the same day, which completely took the sting out of it for me because I figured there was no LOGIC in the move, just politics!!)

I had a feeling there were a lot of "classic" broadcasters here! ;D

 

[LITTLEBOYBLUE]

(By the way...worked at KSEA during their "beautiful music" days....Dave Ballard & I were fired on the same day, which completely took the sting out of it for me because I figured there was no LOGIC in the move, just politics!!)

I had a feeling there were a lot of "classic" broadcasters here! ;D

I'm grateful you steered away from using the "Oldies" term.

 

[mimo]

Which by the 1980s was getting rarer and rarer to see young people listening to AM - they were going to FM in droves! Now, with news/talk, sports, religion, Punjabi formats on AM - very few listen to AM under around the age of 40. What's even worse is teens, twenty-somethings etc. some of them don't even know what AM is!

-crainbebo

It was different in Canada as recently as the mid 90's. AM was where the hip music was..FM was for your dad. I finished high school in 1992, and 99% of my scho0l listened to AM 106 or another AM station. No one thought about FM. Vancouver had a very tough war going on on AM for top 40 back then. LG 73 had to battle AM 1040, CKST 800 and CKDA 1200 Victoria. Back then I'd flip rapidly between the 4 stations to find the song I liked best. I'd often skp a favourite song on LG 73 if CKDA had something even better. In the 80's if you were under 30, you were listening to AM if you lived in Canada.

 

[Bongwater]

Which by the 1980s was getting rarer and rarer to see young people listening to AM - they were going to FM in droves! Now, with news/talk, sports, religion, Punjabi formats on AM - very few listen to AM under around the age of 40. What's even worse is teens, twenty-somethings etc. some of them don't even know what AM is!

-crainbebo

It was different in Canada as recently as the mid 90's. AM was where the hip music was..FM was for your dad. I finished high school in 1992, and 99% of my scho0l listened to AM 106 or another AM station. No one thought about FM. Vancouver had a very tough war going on on AM for top 40 back then. LG 73 had to battle AM 1040, CKST 800 and CKDA 1200 Victoria. Back then I'd flip rapidly between the 4 stations to find the song I liked best. I'd often skp a favourite song on LG 73 if CKDA had something even better. In the 80's if you were under 30, you were listening to AM if you lived in Canada.

And it wasn't bad radio either. While on this side of the border, some people were automatically biased against AM (and especially if it was from Canada) the rest of us didn't care and it was fairly common to hear CKLG, CFUN (until they went soft) and even AM 106 at night blasting out of radios around Northwest Washington in the '80s. What else was there? Lame automated Bellingham FM radio or unlistenable Seattle FM signals. We certainly weren't suffering.......

The closest we have today is KWLE 1340 Anacortes, which plays CHR currents (as well as a grab bag of anything else.) It's not exactly LG-73, but certainly better than anything else on AM in Puget Sound these days (save KGRG-AM.)

 

[boombox]

I used to regularly tune into C-FUN (and CKVN before they changed calls) and CKLG to hear some of the Can-con pop rock played on those stations that never saw the light of day south of the border.

 

[dtuba]

I remember tuning into LG73 at night down in Southern Oregon and hearing some Canadian bands not heard south of the border, like Saga, Toronto, and the Headpins.

 

[Bongwater]

I liked Gowan, The Partland Brothers, Honeymoon Suite and Platinum Blonde. Also Kim Mitchell and the Headpins.....

 

[mimo]

I liked Gowan, The Partland Brothers, Honeymoon Suite and Platinum Blonde. Also Kim Mitchell and the Headpins.....

Me to0. They were some great bands, at that time I was also a heavy KJET listener, and AM 106 was 7 months ahead of every other station with the music they played. What a rock of a signal they have on the west coast. In Tsawassen they were as loud as 1040. When 1040 went top forty they would ask listeners what station they switched from. There's audio of it somewhere on the net and only 2 stations were listed. LG 73 and AM 106. When I moved to Calgary I was at an AM 106 remote and talked with the dj about how I used to listen to them in Vancouver and he said he got calls all the time from the west coast. I asked them about going stereo and said I listened to CHED during the day because of the stereo sound. He said they had no plans, but they did eventually go stereo 3 years later. Every other AM in Calgary was stereo except for CBR 1010.

 

[Bongwater]

CKLG 730, KISD 1110, KKFX 1250, KRFE 1380. KJET 1590.

MY 5 AM radio presets were clear in 1986.