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What Songs launched out of Boston to become hits:

V

Varulven

According to recent guest Dick Peterson of THE KINGSMEN and his book "Louie Louie", Arnie "Woo Woo" Ginsburg is the guy who made Louie Louie a household title.

What songs launched out of Boston radio and who made it happen?

Didn't WAAF launch Tesla's "Signs" from a live broadcast? I'm pretty sure AAF did.

(WODS DJ Tom Kennedy's ex-wife worked at Geffen; she had me work the Tesla hit on the South Shore;
I had her help me with the Alvin Lee/George Harrison single I was working)


2)Carol what's her name - M.D. at WRKO, edited Rick Derringer's "Rock 'n' Roll Hoochie Coo" and started playing it??

3)Louie Louie - WMEX Arnie Ginsburg

4)Maggie Mae - John H. Garabedian on WMEX

5)Downtown Talk - Tom Dickie & The Desires (Mercury) - Oedipus & WBCN
 
Didn't BCN promote U2 in the States?? I remember reading that some place... I'll look it up.

Wikipedia says Carter Alan, BCN's MD in the 80's, heavily promoted U2.. Thats interesting
 
u2 the flip side of "I Will Follow" was recorded live at The Paradise Theater.
(Neither side hit the Top 40)

David Johansen's "Animal's Medley" was an MTV hit recorded Live at The Paradise in Boston
Buster Poindexter didn't make the Top 40 We Gotta Get Outta This Place/Don't Bring Me Down/It's My Life

http://cgi.ebay.com/CD-David-Johans...goryZ307QQssPageNameZWDVWQQrdZ1QQcmdZViewItem

Rick Derringer did "Rock & Roll Hoochie Coo" on his live in Paradise 1978 cd

Billy Joel's "She Got A Way" was a live version recorded in Paradise
His 15th hit release 12/12/81 Top 25

Carter Alan, indeed, wrote a book on U2 and supervised a live recording from The Orpheum for a broadcast

First Edition: U2 Wide Awake In America
http://cgi.ebay.com/U2-WIDE-AWAKE-I...yZ121786QQssPageNameZWDVWQQrdZ1QQcmdZViewItem


U2: The Road To Pop
http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/0571199305?v=glance

U2: The Road To Pop
http://cgi.ebay.com/U2-The-Road-to-...goryZ378QQssPageNameZWD1VQQrdZ1QQcmdZViewItem

This is from the Publisher so it is OK to post:

Publisher's Note
Picking up where "Outside Is America", an intimate look at the Irish rock band U2, leaves off, "U2: The Road to Pop" explores the chemistry between this religious, politically active, socially conscious band and their U.S. audience. Carter Alan describes the tours, concerts, and recording sessions and considers the price U2 has paid for its success in this backstage look at the work and travels of U2. 20 photos.

This is someone's Copyright so you have to go to the eBay site to read it:
Industry reviews
Alan, music director for Boston rock radio station WBCN and an early supporter of U2, updates his Outside Is America: U2 in the U.S. (Faber & Faber, 1992) ... (pretty informative if you go to the site)

You can pick the U2 books up for a couple of bucks. Carter also co-wrote Life On The Road with Dinky Dawson.
 
Varulven said:
According to recent guest Dick Peterson of THE KINGSMEN and his book "Louie Louie", Arnie "Woo Woo" Ginsburg is the guy who made Louie Louie a household title.
Click to expand...

Arnie did claim to break The Kingsmen's version of "Louie Louie" (originally a late 50's minor R&B hit for Richard Berry), but he did not originally break it in a complimentary way.

Arnie used to have a feature on Monday nights that he called "worst record of the week". When he first received The Kingsmen's "Louie Louie" in 1963, he thought it was an extremely badly produced record that would never make it, and he aired it as his pick for "worst record of the week". The station (WMEX), and local record stores, were swamped with calls for it the next day, and it soon became a huge national hit.

Coincidentally, Arnie produced/hosted many of The Kingsmen's live appearances in the Boston area in the mid-60's.

raccoonradio said:
WRKO, edited down Light My Fire and made it a hit
Click to expand...

I thought WRKO was simply playing the edited version available on the original Elektra 45, which all Top 40 stations played when it was a hit in '67. I don't recall WRKO doing their own edit of it.

I don't remember that WRKO made it a hit, either. The Doors first broke out in the Los Angeles area, where they were from, and the new FM "underground" AOR stations in L.A., San Francisco, and New York were all over the album in summer '67. The single version of Light My Fire quickly became a national hit on AM radio, which was where most Top 40 stations were back then.

Boston didn't have an "underground" AOR station until WBCN flipped in spring 1968. The only place where I heard the long album version of Light My Fire on Boston radio in 1967 was the MIT college station WTBS (now WMBR).
 
bostonmusicman said:
Didn't BCN promote U2 in the States?? I remember reading that some place... I'll look it up.

Wikipedia says Carter Alan, BCN's MD in the 80's, heavily promoted U2.. Thats interesting
Click to expand...
Carter Allen did quite a bit with/for U2. He wrote a book, Outside Is America: U2 in the U.S. I think he even went on part of one of the bands tours.
 
Eli Polonsky said:
I thought WRKO was simply playing the edited version available on the original Elektra 45, which all Top 40 stations played when it was a hit in '67. I don't recall WRKO doing their own edit of it.

I don't remember that WRKO made it a hit, either. The Doors first broke out in the Los Angeles area, where they were from, and the new FM "underground" AOR stations in L.A., San Francisco, and New York were all over the album in summer '67. The single version of Light My Fire quickly became a national hit on AM radio, which was where most Top 40 stations were back then.

Boston didn't have an "underground" AOR station until WBCN flipped in spring 1968. The only place where I heard the long album version of Light My Fire on Boston radio in 1967 was the MIT college station WTBS (now WMBR).
Click to expand...


Didn't WBZ have a progressive rock show in 1967 called "Subway" (or something similar) Sunday evenings hosted by Dick Summer? I would imagine he played the long version then. Growing up in the boonies of northern N.H. that show was my first exposure to that style of music.

WRKO did produce a lot of custom edits of songs, especially in the late 60s, but I agree, they probably just used the 45 version of LMF. One of my favorite edits they did was of "Suite Judy Blue Eyes"...apparently they knew it would be the next single from the album & wanted to scoop WMEX but thought 7:00 was too long. They took the album version & edited out the whole "Sunday morning, Tuesday in the afternoon..." part in the middle. To this day the song doesn't sound "right" to me with that part intact!
 
Oldbones said:
Eli Polonsky said:
I thought WRKO was simply playing the edited version available on the original Elektra 45, which all Top 40 stations played when it was a hit in '67. I don't recall WRKO doing their own edit of it.

Boston didn't have an "underground" AOR station until WBCN flipped in spring 1968. The only place where I heard the long album version of Light My Fire on Boston radio in 1967 was the MIT college station WTBS (now WMBR).
Click to expand...


Didn't WBZ have a progressive rock show in 1967 called "Subway" (or something similar) Sunday evenings hosted by Dick Summer? I would imagine he played the long version then. Growing up in the boonies of northern N.H. that show was my first exposure to that style of music.
Click to expand...

By the time I heard Dick Summer in late '67, he had already changed the show from "Subway" to "The Lovin' Touch", which was the softer and more romantic side of progressive rock, sort of a predecessor to what eventually became contemporary "soft rock" radio. I think "Subway" was slightly earlier, like 1966 and maybe early '67. I don't recall hearing "Light My Fire" on his show, but I may have just happened to miss it.
 
Oldbones said:
WRKO did produce a lot of custom edits of songs, especially in the late 60s, but I agree, they probably just used the 45 version of LMF. One of my favorite edits they did was of "Suite Judy Blue Eyes"...apparently they knew it would be the next single from the album & wanted to scoop WMEX but thought 7:00 was too long. They took the album version & edited out the whole "Sunday morning, Tuesday in the afternoon..." part in the middle. To this day the song doesn't sound "right" to me with that part intact!
Click to expand...

I remember in '79 when the live version of Cheap Trick's "I Want You To Want Me" was a hit and what WRKO did was keep the cheering at the start and end and then patch in the much lighter-sounding studio version instead of playing the harder-rocking live one.
 
AAF launched Shinedown's unplugged version of Lynyrd Skynyrd's Simple Man which was originally recorded live in the AAF studio, then became so popular Shinedown added it and released it on one of their CDs.
 
Charles and Eddie "would I lie to you" broke out of Boston, Kiss 108.

Also V66 basically broke "Take on Me" A HA
 
True "rotoscoping" was the process used. V66 was hammering that even before Mtv.
 
I used to like V66,my foggy memory seems to recall seeing a Dumptruck video on there.


WFNX=The Mighty Mighty Bosstones.
WAAF=John Butcher Axis

I also seem to remember the pirate in Braintree playing a demo of November Rain by GNR long before the album came out.
 
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