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What Detroit radio stations from yesteryear do you miss?

WIXIE (The first generation of personality Top 40): The legendary Mickey Schorr, Ed McKenzie, Jack Surrell, Fred Wolf and Paul Winter.
KEENER 13 (like the Andy Griffith Show, in top form years 2 through 5).
WJR: A glorious hodgepodge of live variety, documentaries, classical music and JP.
WABX: Underground, alternative radio.
CBE: During Viet Nam, the only way to find out what was really happening. Like Radio Free Europe was supposed to be - the truth from outside.
 
My 3 most missed are:

#1. Smooth Jazz - V98.7 (1995-2010)
I miss the real live FM version. Loved it at work and great company at home.
I still listen to it on the HD2 station, but It seems like they only play the same 400 songs, and I know it is all voice tracked.

#2. Lite-FM 93.1 WLTI - (1985-1996) Nothing like it anymore in Detroit today.

#3. WJZZ, Jazz 106 - (1970s - 1995) One of a kind, It was ahead of it's time.
 
93.1 WLTI: One of the best pure AC stations ever. I remember when it dropped off in '96 for WDRQ.

102.7 KISS-FM (WKSG): Fond memories of the Paul Christy morning show.

99.5 WTDX Debuted in late 1985. One of the best Detroit stations during the 80's.

CKLW pre 1984: Enough said.

WXYZ/WYXT pre 1999: One of the best local talkers ever in any market (Mark Scott RIP)
 
The Big 8 (CKLW) will always be a part of my youthful memories in high school and at Middle Bass Island, Ohio where I had the rare luxury of listening at night over forty summers ago.
Wished I could have been inside the Windsor studios to savor the magic...and meet the people who made it work and rock.

There will never be another one like it.

Thank you Charlie VanDyke,Super Max Kinkel,Ted Richards,Gary Burbank,Brother Bill Gable,Grant Hudson,Byron McGregor and the rest for making radio the fun thing it was meant to be and sadly something that should have stayed with us a little longer.

AM stereo as we knew it could have saved AM if only ONE system was approved and the home stereo manufacurers would have complied.
 
Anyone remember when WDRQ was an all-talk station in the early 1970s, I think? Local call-in hosts - lots of games and contests and night, and Russ Gibb was my favorite as a junior high school radio groupie. Can't remember the names of the other hosts. Used to listen on my brother's stereo from our home near the stateline in Toledo.

It was rather magical to listen to these hosts on FM, with the stereo light on, and the hi-fidelity audio on their mics. I sure miss that type of talk radio today -- when a host wasn't coached by partisan talking points, but conveyed a sense of their own personality. And you usually didn't feel violated listening to them, even when they got into heated political debates. Now, the national "personalities' on most right-wing conservative radio seem like they need serious psycho-therapy to me. Scary that they get such high paid radio gigs. Can't be 'cause they're so talented.
 
1996-2005 93.1 DRQ.....I absolutely MISS that station. Citadel made a big mistake flipping that format to whatever it is now.....

They need to bring that station back and FAST!!! Somebody need to teach AMP a lesson in how a Top 40 station should sound like.
 
Of course CKLW. It blows me away that the fine folks who own CIDR can let that station just wither on the vine instead of bring a different (CK's old one?) format to the frequency.

I miss Martha Jean the Queen on WQBH. RIP, Queen!

And let's not forget the Mojo days when he was at WGPR! Much better than his 98 or 96 days. There still ain't nobody bad like Mojo.
 
The more I think about it, the more I miss the real WJR. Not the ABC-Citadel-Cumulus imposter using the name. The real WJR was a class act (and a bit of an anachronism). Really local. Great personalities. Programming you couldn't hear anywhere else. No syndicated ideological talk.
 
I've enjoyed reading the comments here, and thought I'd add mine:

WCZY "Z95.5" (1984-1990)
Someone mentioned 95.5 WKQI when it was 'Hot AC', and then gradually morphed into 'Adult CHR' in the mid-late 1990s; you may have been too young to recall what 95.5 sounded like some 10 years earlier, when it was called "ALL-HITS, ALL THE TIME - Z95.5" In my opinion, "The Z" was one of the best sounding CHRs in America (it sounded very similar to KIIS "Kiss FM" Los Angeles) from '84 until its demise in '90 (when it became a boring, not-so 'Hot' AC); you can hear a nice 10-minute clip here:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BLNAyf9MQnk
And, by the way, the above clip is from the 'graveyard shift', so you can imagine how much more exciting Z95.5 sounded during peak listening. I always thought it was a mistake to flip it to Q95, and when it morphed back to Adult CHR as 'Q95-5' (sometime around '97), I considered it an admission of sorts that they never should've blown up Z95.5 in the first place. DJs like Brian Patrick, Kim "One H-Hot Babe" Carson, "Dancing" Denny Schaefer, "The Incredible" Bob Campbell, "Downtown" Ed Brown, and Chris King (anyone remember Chris? He was so much fun to listen to!) made Z95.5 such a fun station to listen to; these were talented, personable presenters who followed in the footsteps of the legendary on-air personalities of Top 40's heyday -- not the inarticulate hacks I hear on CHR radio these days. Musically, Z95.5 was always more adult-leaning (25-54), compared to WHYT 'Power 96', which skewed younger. But Z95.5 was hipper, in my opinion, and offered a far-more extensive playlist; I remember collecting the 'ALL-HIT Lists', a 4x6 flyer that listed the Top 40 songs of the week, available at Harmony House stores. Z95.5 actually played 40 different currents, if not a few more, and also included plenty of gold hits dating back half a decade. By the Summer of '87, for example, you'd hear "Funkytown" by Pseudo Echo into "Just To See Her" by Smokey Robinson into "Wipeout" by The Fat Boys featuring the Beach Boys into "Never Say Goodbye" by Bon Jovi. Neither WHYT or WDTX offered that kind of hit music variety, or had the upbeat, fun, personable DJs, in my opinion. 'The Z' also had the BEST radio Jingles (JAM, of course) ever! As you can see, I loved CHR radio in those years, and I just haven't been excited by any other CHR radio station in nearly two decades. Thanks for reading. Your comments welcome...
 
Come to think of it, the old WJR "The Great Voice of the Great Lakes," much like WGN in CHicago "Back in the day" were pre-cursors to the public radio talk formats we have today. Except they relied more on personality-based hosts for much of their programming than you'll ever get on WUOM, WDET, or WBEZ. I really miss the straight-forward delivery and clear diction, without sounding stuffy -- even how they handled their spot breaks and especially the hourly local newscasts. No snarky liners packed in there to "reach the younger demographics," as if sounding mean and stupid is how to grow an audience. Take note of that, CBC Radio One and Two. Otherwise, I think the people who had relied on the full service stations have turned to the all-talk NPR affiliates, if they have one. I still wish a few of those 50kw clear channels frequencies would be given over as a tax write off to Michigan Radio (WUOM), IdeaStream in Cleveland (WCPN), or one of the other well-run, well-staffed NPR affiliates in the region.

I even miss the good Dr. Karl Haas, RIP, and his daily "Adventures in Good Music." I know it was a big tune-out for WJR, but it said a lot about their willingness to include him for a long time in their block programming schedule. Wasn't he at 11am daily?

I think it's true for most people that if the voice on the station doesn't sound like somebody that you'd enjoy sitting down with, one on one, for coffee or a meal and conversation, you're not likely to stick around for long. I believe that also affects how many listeners will perceive what they hear as credible and worth coming back to on a daily basis. (The exception might be the angry white folks who think neo-Confederates on all-ultra-conservative stations are looking out for their interests.)

Instead, a lot of the announcing I now hear on these legendary "full service" stations sounds like someone who wants to lead a vigilante mob, and so do their syndicated talk hosts. Utterly inappropriate in Detroit, unless they're trying to exploit the residual attitudes of the white flight to the suburbs of the 1960s. That's not really a service to anybody except a few political and corporate mobsters. Like that's what America's really supposed to be all about.

These grand old stations were really an important part of their communities. If there was severe weather, or the chance of it, that's where you knew you'd get the info you needed. The reasons they aren't top of their markets any longer has little to do, in my opinion, with what the local markets will support, and more to do with the new mega-corporate licensees and their well-orchestrated campaigns to upend the two party political system and destroy the American form of government, with its checks and balances, and a reasonable level of regulation, in favor of a corporate-run fantasy state for the ultra rich and their obedient servants. Wow, how things can change in one generation.
 
CKLW was king back in the 60s & 70s, the Canadian Government ruined many of the boarder zone stations across from the states, too much restrictions of playing 30% content durning business hours killed them, today most stations around the boardering states, can now play 20% content. Back when the law took effect there was not many rock bands that where from canada, other then Rush and Anne Murry, today there are many more band coming from Canada into the mainstream of rock onto American stations.
2. WXYZ 1270 AM Mark Scott was King of talk of the Detroit Market, RIP
3.WDRQ 93.1 Bill Baily in the morning was funny and took over CKLW more of less, when I found the FM Radio band. We had a portable transistor radio, we would fight over.
4. When Detroit had 4 real rock stations at once... WABX, WRIF, WLLZ and W4 it was the best, unlike today where Detroit has 1 1/2 stations. WRIF and CMIX 88.7, I'll be posting a new topic about the state of Rock in Detroit shortly.
5. CFPL 95.9 - London . A 300 KW powerhouse who I used to receive, but not anymore, except for the internet, they put another country station on that frequency in Windsor, so it is impossible to pick up.
6. WMNS 100.7 - Clevland. - Same problem as above for some reason the Candian stations like put another traslator station of CHUE Chatham ON 100.7. I can only listen them online now, which doesn't sound as good, and neither does the traslator station, it lacks dynimic range and lower end frequencies, compared to the orginal signal from Chatham.
 
I don't think Can Con rules had anything to do with CKLW dalling in popularity. If anything, your claim that there are many more Canadian rock bands and pop acts now only proves how the regulation has done what it was intended to do - promote homegrown talent on Canadian radio. In CKLW's case, the powerful signal meant they also got an audience on the US side of the Great Lakes, and much further at night.

We American listeners rarely knew, or cared, if a musician was from Canada. Hell, most of my schoolmates didn't even know CKLW was from Canada.
 
While we're at it, I miss Mason and Company on FM 98 WJLB "Jams and Strong Songs" (I'm mad I know that positioning statement LOL)

I also miss 96-3 when it played Rock/Alternative and Hip-Hop (forgot what year that was....but that was awesome until 89X came and ruined it for everyone :mad:

P.S. I still miss DRQ. Jay Towers and the Morning Revolution.....Tic Tak at night.....Lisa Lisa on the drive home.....NUFF SAID! ;D
 
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