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TOP 40 on KD

M

MsMusicRadio

Guest
Anybody know any links to KD in the Sixties? Like Clark Race or Terry McGovern overnights when they were the purest TOP 40?
 
I never see many '60s airchecks of KDKA radio in collectors circles. There's a poor quality half hour of Clark Race playing Beatles records in '64, but that's about it for him. There's stuff of Terry McGovern from his San Francisco days, but I haven't come across anything from his time at KDKA. He has a website: www.terrymcgovern.com that you can check out.
 
Guess KD never made "legendary" level as TOP 40. However, I read that at one time they used the same jingle package as WABC, so I thought maybe I could hear a little of them again. They were clearly my second choice, but they weren't that bad during certain hours.
 
MsMusicRadio said:
Guess KD never made "legendary" level as TOP 40. However, I read that at one time they used the same jingle package as WABC, so I thought maybe I could hear a little of them again. They were clearly my second choice, but they weren't that bad during certain hours.
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Well, they were never full-time Top 40. They didn't play music at all for part of the day, and even when they played music, it was dayparted so the harder stuff was confined to Clark Race's show. They didn't sound like a Top 40, either, even during Race's show. They didn't use jingles the way a Top 40 did, and the pace was much different than it was on a true high-energy Top 40 like KQV.
 
The story was similar on other Group W Westinghouse 50kw'ers, such as WBZ and WOWO, which when they played music sounded pretty much like what was then called "chicken rock."

The exception was 1010 WINS which was pretty much Top 40, albeit briefly.

As far as PAMS jingles go, they were everywhere in the early to mid-60s in big-market radio. The other jingle companies, Gwin, Pepper-Tanner and CRC, were mostly producers of jingles for smaller stations and second-rung stations in bigger markets.
 
If I remember at all, I thought KD sounded like a real TOP 40 during PM drive and overnights. WKYC in Cleveland was an easy listen in Pittsburgh and even in Westrn NC. They were only talk 2 hours a night which was no different than Barry Gray on WMCA or Lee Vogel on WQAM. A lot of the WCFL jocks came from WKYC and I thought they sounded like the real thing. But then my memory might be fuzzy. They had Jim Stagg and Jerry G.
 
MsMusicRadio said:
If I remember at all, I thought KD sounded like a real TOP 40 during PM drive and overnights. WKYC in Cleveland was an easy listen in Pittsburgh and even in Westrn NC. They were only talk 2 hours a night which was no different than Barry Gray on WMCA or Lee Vogel on WQAM. A lot of the WCFL jocks came from WKYC and I thought they sounded like the real thing. But then my memory might be fuzzy. They had Jim Stagg and Jerry G.
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I remember KD doing news in drive and not having much after Ed & Wendy signed off. Jim Horne, Terry McGovern and Clark Race played most of the "hits", though I can't be so sure about Art Pallan.
 
Savage said:
The story was similar on other Group W Westinghouse 50kw'ers, such as WBZ and WOWO, which when they played music sounded pretty much like what was then called "chicken rock."

The exception was 1010 WINS which was pretty much Top 40, albeit briefly.

As far as PAMS jingles go, they were everywhere in the early to mid-60s in big-market radio. The other jingle companies, Gwin, Pepper-Tanner and CRC, were mostly producers of jingles for smaller stations and second-rung stations in bigger markets.
Click to expand...

1010 WINS was New York's "big" Top 40 station, preceding WABC and WMCA jumping in. 'Murray The K' was the best known of their announcers, and he hung on even through the Beatle days. Group W also had KFWB in Los Angeles, which was also a big Top 40 station in the early days. I don't know why they succumbed - but they did - and were turned to "all news" before that format had really proved itself. (There were one or two others, but nobody made money in that format for a decade. Luckily, Westinghouse had TV stations which were simply pouring out money, so they let them linger - and eventually the All-News format became a cash cow in its own right.)

WBZ and perhaps others had, at least for a time, highly hybrid formats. In Boston Dick Summers used to play the (nearly) full version of Alice's Restaurant on his evening program, and I definitely heard lots of stuff that was kick-ass rock and roll, at least in PMD and the evening. Don't know about the other stations in the group, though.

You can still hear PAMS jingles on their website, although they only use New York and one or two other large market demos. So no KDKA jingles there.
 
With Jim Runyun, Jim Stagg, and Jerry G, WKYC sounded pretty authentic at that time
 
Speaking of old KD'ers, does anyone know what ever happened to Ed Sherlock or where he is now? I think I heard that he bought a small station somewhere in PA but I don't know anything else about him. I think he also worked at WJPA.
 
B said:
Speaking of old KD'ers, does anyone know what ever happened to Ed Sherlock or where he is now? I think I heard that he bought a small station somewhere in PA but I don't know anything else about him. I think he also worked at WJPA.
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Ed Sherlock (along with Neil Hart) bought WAMQ in Loretto PA in 1979, adding an FM in Cresson in 1981 which I helped to sign
on. He remained in the Johnstown-Altoona area for many years, last serving as general manager of WCRO, which was by that time owned by the Greater Johnstown School District. Today, he owns and operates an AM station in Cobleskill, New York.

Here's their website:

http://www.1190wsde.com/

C.
 
cingram said:
B said:
Speaking of old KD'ers, does anyone know what ever happened to Ed Sherlock or where he is now? I think I heard that he bought a small station somewhere in PA but I don't know anything else about him. I think he also worked at WJPA.
Click to expand...

Ed Sherlock (along with Neil Hart) bought WAMQ in Loretto PA in 1979, adding an FM in Cresson in 1981 which I helped to sign
on. He remained in the Johnstown-Altoona area for many years, last serving as general manager of WCRO, which was by that time owned by the Greater Johnstown School District. Today, he owns and operates an AM station in Cobleskill, New York.

Here's their website:

http://www.1190wsde.com/

C.
Click to expand...

Thanks C. Ed and I were casual friends. He's a real good guy. It looks like his wife (or daughter?) is his office manager.
 
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