MsMusicRadio said:
60's Top 40 radio seems like a magic kingdom from a lost era.The storied calls give me goosebumps. The names of the stations, personalities, and even ownership groups glitter looking back. All these stations are something else now only living on as WCBS or KRTH. So many greats have passed on. I always thought that great jocks just don't die. They are way too cool. I wonder if MTV holds the same memories for GenX? If Twitter will be a nostalgia trip in 40 years? ( in 4 years?). I hate to think that to some it was just bidness , but I guess it was just showbiz as it is today.
Once upon a time it was like a magical kingdom with lots of sparkle and shine. You may recall the scene from
American Graffiti in which the love sick boy decided, in an act of final desperation over the girl in the T-Bird, that the ultimate solution to the entire situation was to pay Wolfman Jack a visit. It was really that way in many cities, although it was not an act of desperation to solve the love sick blues; rather, it was on the way back from the dime store where you had just purchased a three pack of 45s for 69 cents and wanted to show off for the jocks. They loved their work and had a darned good time on the air.
The transition to trash in the gutter radio began slowly, probably around the summer of 1988. It got progressively worse through 1989 until the streets and homes were full of trash, raw sewage and toxicity, although not all people in radio went with it, as they do not to this day. Some jocks who worked in it simply loved their work, did not see it coming, were blindsided by the new trend of the colleague cutting their throats and either adjusted so that they could continue on with the work they love or were run out by any number of methods, but never abandoning the high standard to which they held themselves. In short, people with backbones who figured it out and refused to stand for it. There is the occasional garbage top 40 oldies station that has a slick operator from the new school, but these days they don't last but a few years. It usually runs its course by no more than seven years, when somebody comes along who quietly and discreetly makes them go away, but by then the damage is done and it's too late; so the gutter snipes go away, and then the stations go away.
As recently as a few years ago we had a disc jockey, about my age, who still traded music with listeners. Part of the magic was that a few people realized that he just did not have the collection of music that he needed, as he was in from a larger market, but was on his own pretty much. He needed music either on CD or records, so that he could work in his basement to put everything on mini discs. Everyone stopped by with their collections on loaner, myself included, so that he could build his library. I loaned him all at once 135 compact discs, 180 45 rpms and several albums. When I got my music back several months later I was missing a few 45s, but other 45s took their place. There was a time when such occurrences were welcomed as happy surprises. I got a few Cadillacs, some Excellents - you know 3 for 69 cents stuff. In addition, each of us who had contributed to the library received a customized radio station cassette tape for ourselves from the disc jockey. He and his wife were the kind of people who would see you out for a bite at the diner with friends and invite everyone over to dine with them, or we would invite them over our way if we had the bigger booth. We usually had to accommodate the life sized doll that came with his little girl. He is somewhere on the AM band now, semi-retired.
So, to answer your question, yes, there was a time when top 40 60s and 70s radio was a magical kingdom. Those who managed to hang on because of their love of their work - sometimes making it through by the kindness of a stranger - continue to make it magical in spite of the tremendous obstacles that are thrown in their paths.
Never fear, it is a magical kingdom as long as we continue to make it one and do our part to sweep out the occasional horse&*%# that slips in every ten or twelve years.
