Songs heard on South Florida Radio will never be heard again.

[Stormychuck]

DavidEduardo, when you were GMing at Y-100 sister AM the calls changed from WWOK to what?

 

[Stormychuck]

and as far as scandals are concerned and good for a laugh, Arbitron by accident sent a diary to an employee of WRHC in 80 or 81 and for WRHC, a daytimer, their numbers really looked good until they discovered their error...........

 

[davideduardo]

DavidEduardo, when you were GMing at Y-100 sister AM the calls changed from WWOK to what?

WHTT, Radio Hit. I came in to do the country to Spanish conversion. I was not well liked in Sweetwater.

 

[Stormychuck]

DaveEduardo, not to worry, most of the people who lived out in Sweetwater (Swampwater) as it was known, wouldn't have been able to tell the difference anyway.

 

[isleyk]

Y-100 of the early 80s just did their own thing regardless of what Billboard listed as the biggest hits. Still, it all worked didn't it? How's this for a jog of the old memory. AT40 chart position included if available. Mama Used To Say (30)- Junior, Double Dutch Bus (30) - Frankie Smith, Genius of Love (31) - Tom Tom Club. The Gap Band was very hot in S Fla. Burn Rubber must have been an album cut or it just didn't make the AT 40. Even with all the high-energy stuff, I recall DeBarge and "All this Love" playing all over S Fla long before it went national where it just hit #17.

But probably the best example of going out on your own regardless of what anyone else was doing when Y-100 took a chance on a "A Night To Remember" by Shalamar. Never making the AT40 charts - it was #1 on the old Y as I recall for 4 weeks. My Lord, how I miss those days and I will be the first to admit - A Night to Remember is still among my favs from the 80s.

Besides the explanations already offered, another reason was that the Billboard charts were rather detached from reality in the early '80s. The Billboard Hot 100 was based on sales until summer 1973, when reported airplay was mixed in to create more "hits" and churn the chart faster. Paper ads and other shenanigans gradually distorted all of the national charts. The Miami top 40 stations tried to play the real hits (chosen by the audience), which were often differed from the national label priorities.

 

[davideduardo]

DaveEduardo, not to worry, most of the people who lived out in Sweetwater (Swampwater) as it was known, wouldn't have been able to tell the difference anyway.

Unfortunately, Sweetwater was "just the other side" of the WHTT transmitter site. It had the only country bar I ever saw that near to 8th St (which, of course, to the patrons, was "The Trail"). The place was like stepping out of Miami into a parallel universe where Flatt & Scruggs still lived.

 

[Groove1670]

I don't understand WHTT when I listened was a like a secondary y100 it actually simulcasted at times (if memory serves right).

 

[Stormychuck]

DaveEduardo, Sweetwater did have only one bar, right there on the canal, sort of, yes I had been there a couple of times, and yes it was another world, spooky people, but fun. I worked at WWOK/WIGL 73-74 so I fit in at the time. And yes they loved their country music...
True the transmitter site, what about 2 or 3 miles west, on 8th street past Sweetwater, turn right on the dirt road and a half mile or so in to the north, sweetwater could hear WWOK loud and clear no static at all.........

 

[davideduardo]

I don't understand WHTT when I listened was a like a secondary y100 it actually simulcasted at times (if memory serves right).

WHTT, which began in 1980 when it replaced WWOK, was a Spanish personality Adult Top 40.

During it's second year, the transmitter was firebombed, melting the transmitter and phaser of WHTT and the transmitters of WQBA-FM 107.5 which was the old WJOK. Due to the very tight pattern, the station ran at about 100 watts from a crane-suspended antenna downtown on the Miami river. Of course, it could barely be heard that way.

When it returned to full power, the format was switched to some kind of rhythmic oldies in English... I had left by then. Soon it was sold to Herb Levin, Enrique Landin and Julio Rumbaut and became Radio Suave.

 

[davideduardo]

DaveEduardo, Sweetwater did have only one bar, right there on the canal, sort of, yes I had been there a couple of times, and yes it was another world, spooky people, but fun. I worked at WWOK/WIGL 73-74 so I fit in at the time. And yes they loved their country music...
True the transmitter site, what about 2 or 3 miles west, on 8th street past Sweetwater, turn right on the dirt road and a half mile or so in to the north, sweetwater could hear WWOK loud and clear no static at all.........

Ah, I had forgotten the Wiggle call letters... it was WWOK and WJOK when I signed an option with Jack Roth to by the stations in 1979... unfortunately, the company I was with became entangled in the bankruptcy of the supermarket chain it had sold its NY operation to (Hill's) and the board could not spend the money for the Miami stations, WTFM in NY and WLVH in Hartford, all of them optioned to us.

Jack Roth was an interesting person, too.

The 1260 site was right next to a Rinker gravel crusher to the south side and one of those Rinker-created square lakes on the north... the ones CSI Miami is always pulling cars and stiffs out of.

Speaking of... one CSI Miami I actually watched referred to "East Miami" as a crime scene. I am trying to visualize a town out in the ocean...

 

[cd637299]

Was that anything like the East Side of Chicago? (Wasn't that the lyrics in "The Night Chicago Died"?)

This is what happens when writers (music or TV shows) don't do homework.

cd

 

[Stormychuck]

Your right CD, at times when if your watching Miami C.S.I. they slip and leave the Hill-shots in the back round, And Florida having no hill, its all filmed mostly, with exception of externals, in Los Angeles.

DaveE. I have met Jack Roth, he came and went on a regular basis from San Antonio, Cy Russel was the GM and they seemed always at odds with each other. Ted Creamer was PD then who answered to the both of them, so they lasted from the time I left for another 5 years and that was that enter your WHTT...

 

[cd637299]

Sorry to bump this....

Tonight I heard "Wishin' on a Star" by Rose Royce.....had me wondering.....

How did this one get so much airplay here, long after it was made? I know the remake by the Cover Girls going up to #2 nationally....but wasn't the original in the 1977 "Car Wash" soundtrack? I lived here 1977-78, then 32 months in the Air Force away from here, then back....from 1982 on, it was ubiquitous.

What did I miss? What gave it the push long after release?

cd

 

[Groove1670]

Wishin' On A Star was one of those songs that got picked to be a South Florida Favorite. Other ballads in the 70's included.

GQ - I do love you
Gato Barbieri - Europa

Another one upbeat to add to list (Stuart probably played these on I-95)
Freez - Pop Goes my love &
Electric Kingdom - twilight 22

 

[jcblanco]

General Hospi-tale- The Afternoon Delights
The Curley Shuffle- Jump N' The Saddle
E.T. Phone Home- John Williams
Shaddap Ya Face- Joe Dolce
Revelations- 2 Live Crew
Beat Box- 2 Live Crew
E.T.- Dickie Goodman

 

[cd637299]

I dunno what it is, but "Wishin' on a Star" sounds so depressing. I know it isn't meant to be, and it's a good song.

cd

 

[jcblanco]

One more to add-- "Suavecito" by Malo.

I remember Kid Curry did have it playing every so often back in the late 80s/early 90s on Power, but that was the last I heard of it on the Miami airwaves.

 

[Groove1670]

Two more... Pac Jam & Space Cowboy

 

[beefjerky]

"Wishing On A Star" got so much play because it was a huge audience favorite. Whenever we tested that song when doing audience research in S Fla at Y and later at other stations, it would be one of the top songs tested, and it was huge black, Hispanic and white. It was a very mass appeal song.

 

[cd637299]

But my question is.....didn't the song "take off" about 5 years after it was recorded? (Wishin')

cd