"Don't be nervous, don't be rocky, you're our teenage, guest disc jockey now"
-
Get involved.
We want your input!
Apply for Membership and join the conversations about everything related to broadcasting.
After we receive your registration, a moderator will review it. After your registration is approved, you will be permitted to post.
If you use a disposable or false email address, your registration will be rejected.
After your membership is approved, please take a minute to tell us a little bit about yourself.
https://www.radiodiscussions.com/forums/introduce-yourself.1088/
Thanks in advance and have fun!
RadioDiscussions Administrators
What Stations Would You Describe As "Chicken Rock" In The 60s And 70s?
- Thread starter Schroedingers Cat
- Start date
I'd heard the term 'Chicken Rock' as early as 1966 or so, heard tell applied by some grumpy Long Island competitor stations to WGBB Freeport. While not a small market -- Long Island was #12 or so nationally -- WGBB was a small station, a class IV 'graveyarder' on 1240. A few of us used to visit them on occasion.
WPLJ programmer Larry Berger said that *he* heard the term when he was at WVOS in the Catskills -- also on 1240.
Though I wanted to be a music DJ and became one, I started out as a news guy at a station in Virginia. And I *did* wind up at WGBB for a spell -- lol, doing NEWS again! The references to the musical genre (of such stations) becoming 'Adult-Contemporary' is spot-on / bullseye. But it has to be noted that many such stations at the time of their initial rise in becoming, say, a substantial #2 niche car button, were also accredited full-service stations, dutifully heavy on news, community bulletin boards and such, jingles, and breezy talk-up DJs an accessibly notch or so subdued from their Top 40 brethren (but whose delivery was still 'modern' enough for an older audience).
1970 or so was when THREE of these developing A/C stations were on the air in the Tampa/St. Pete market. WDAE 1250, WFLA 970 and the more grudgingly-compliant WSUN 620 all could have been called 'chicken rockers'.
As I get it today (after me still being yelled at constantly for being more gauche) the newer term for the original Chicken Rock is now 'Sunshine Pop'.
So, marked by harmonies and friendly 'ba-ba-ba's and many female vocals and the avoidance of hard guitars in favor of gentler (but yet effective) alternate instrimentation, here's a list of some of those initial Chick ..... uh, Sunshine Pop songs for those here who weren't tuned in at the start, in no apparent chronological order :
'Up Up and Away' -- 5th Dimension (perhaps the genre's national anthem at the time)
'Windy' -- The Association
'Will You Be Stayingg After Sunday' -- Peppermint Rainbow
Just about any Pet Clark hit
'Happy' -- either the Sunshine Company or the Blades of Grass
'Talk To Me' -- Sonny and the Sunglows
Many Bacharach and Sergio Mendes compositions
'Can't Find The Time' -- Orpheus
'Sugar Sugar' - The Archies
'Kites Are Fun' -- The Free Design
Anything by the Will-O-Bees (a NYC test group for Mann-Weil songs)
Oddly, quite a few modern songs by MoR crooners (Andy, Sammy, Dean)
Name a Spanky & Our Gang or Mamas & Papas song and you'd be close
'Pretty Ballerina' or 'Walk Away Renee' -- by The Left Banke
And, well, this linked 1969 song. Music to Throw Frisbees Around the Campus To:
WPLJ programmer Larry Berger said that *he* heard the term when he was at WVOS in the Catskills -- also on 1240.
Though I wanted to be a music DJ and became one, I started out as a news guy at a station in Virginia. And I *did* wind up at WGBB for a spell -- lol, doing NEWS again! The references to the musical genre (of such stations) becoming 'Adult-Contemporary' is spot-on / bullseye. But it has to be noted that many such stations at the time of their initial rise in becoming, say, a substantial #2 niche car button, were also accredited full-service stations, dutifully heavy on news, community bulletin boards and such, jingles, and breezy talk-up DJs an accessibly notch or so subdued from their Top 40 brethren (but whose delivery was still 'modern' enough for an older audience).
1970 or so was when THREE of these developing A/C stations were on the air in the Tampa/St. Pete market. WDAE 1250, WFLA 970 and the more grudgingly-compliant WSUN 620 all could have been called 'chicken rockers'.
As I get it today (after me still being yelled at constantly for being more gauche) the newer term for the original Chicken Rock is now 'Sunshine Pop'.
So, marked by harmonies and friendly 'ba-ba-ba's and many female vocals and the avoidance of hard guitars in favor of gentler (but yet effective) alternate instrimentation, here's a list of some of those initial Chick ..... uh, Sunshine Pop songs for those here who weren't tuned in at the start, in no apparent chronological order :
'Up Up and Away' -- 5th Dimension (perhaps the genre's national anthem at the time)
'Windy' -- The Association
'Will You Be Stayingg After Sunday' -- Peppermint Rainbow
Just about any Pet Clark hit
'Happy' -- either the Sunshine Company or the Blades of Grass
'Talk To Me' -- Sonny and the Sunglows
Many Bacharach and Sergio Mendes compositions
'Can't Find The Time' -- Orpheus
'Sugar Sugar' - The Archies
'Kites Are Fun' -- The Free Design
Anything by the Will-O-Bees (a NYC test group for Mann-Weil songs)
Oddly, quite a few modern songs by MoR crooners (Andy, Sammy, Dean)
Name a Spanky & Our Gang or Mamas & Papas song and you'd be close
'Pretty Ballerina' or 'Walk Away Renee' -- by The Left Banke
And, well, this linked 1969 song. Music to Throw Frisbees Around the Campus To:
Good list, Steve. I remember most of those. My ideea of he ultimate chicken rock tune was not a big hit. But it definitely was heavy on the ba ba ba ba content in a Burt Bacharach/Jim Webb sort of way. The only station I remember hearing it on regularly was Davenport's KSTT/1170 (Where Bobby Rich was the PD)
Last edited:
Would the old WNBC (660 New York](W-N-BC) count? At one time, if my memory serves me well, they were top 40, but bordering on EZ listening. This was probably before Cousin Brucie and Wolfman Jack.
In the mid 1970's WSM AM played chicken rock during the day. Pat Sajak (Wheel of Fortune) did afternoons. He ended up doing weather on channel 4. Eventually ended up in LA and the rest "is history".
WSM AM ended up classic country. But a some stations like WHAS ended up a form of "Full Service AC" on their way to news talk.
WSM AM ended up classic country. But a some stations like WHAS ended up a form of "Full Service AC" on their way to news talk.
WCFL went through a brief transition like that in 1965 before they transition to Top 40.
I remember that. WWL was also chicken rock during the day in the mid 70s, With a heavy dose of news and sports. Overnight it was country with Charlie Douglas and the Road Gang.
@Ed Nielson
This NYC/Long Island punk here remembers back to Imus's first shows, 1971 or thereabouts, when he did mornings on WNBC.
They didn't play ANY songs by the crooners of the 50's and 60's, like the way the original Chicke .... Sunshine Pop .... stations used as filler ; mid-ground but melodic playlist comfort-zone placebos for those younger adult workforce demos who were graduating from the Cream, Ed Zeppelin, Amboy Dukes stuff but were way too young to tolerate The Four Aces or Mitch Miller or a lot of Sinatra. A midrange, gentler but modern pop sound sufficed.
Just an uneducated guess here would put the Chicken Rock target demos at ~ 21-35. And leaning female. And some C.R.s would go a bit more wound-up from 7-midnight. But the main 24 hour age spectrum bullseye is just my retro estimate.
WNBC's playlist was almost entirely Top 40 hits that weren't 'blemished' (if you will) by the quickly emerging and wildly scattered offerings from LP cuts of AoR's music scene.
WNBC's musical format truncation -- that wedge fitting between the sonics of more coarse (and often eclectic) album rock and that of the indiscriminate pop charters -- INDEED was the early form of the modern Adult-Contemporary we hear today.
But per the O/P, Chicken Rock was different, inasmuch as (as the label suggests) there was some understandable unease from management about going full-fledged current chart hits while there was still a choice. Our WGBB's parent company Susquehanna also housed variations. For example, WSBA in York was gentler in the day than the more excitable WARM in Scranton was.
The 70's WNBC, and later WABC plus other big stations moved away from the teener and hippie rock and played solely the remaining, more numerous Top 40 survey songs.
This NYC/Long Island punk here remembers back to Imus's first shows, 1971 or thereabouts, when he did mornings on WNBC.
They didn't play ANY songs by the crooners of the 50's and 60's, like the way the original Chicke .... Sunshine Pop .... stations used as filler ; mid-ground but melodic playlist comfort-zone placebos for those younger adult workforce demos who were graduating from the Cream, Ed Zeppelin, Amboy Dukes stuff but were way too young to tolerate The Four Aces or Mitch Miller or a lot of Sinatra. A midrange, gentler but modern pop sound sufficed.
Just an uneducated guess here would put the Chicken Rock target demos at ~ 21-35. And leaning female. And some C.R.s would go a bit more wound-up from 7-midnight. But the main 24 hour age spectrum bullseye is just my retro estimate.
WNBC's playlist was almost entirely Top 40 hits that weren't 'blemished' (if you will) by the quickly emerging and wildly scattered offerings from LP cuts of AoR's music scene.
WNBC's musical format truncation -- that wedge fitting between the sonics of more coarse (and often eclectic) album rock and that of the indiscriminate pop charters -- INDEED was the early form of the modern Adult-Contemporary we hear today.
But per the O/P, Chicken Rock was different, inasmuch as (as the label suggests) there was some understandable unease from management about going full-fledged current chart hits while there was still a choice. Our WGBB's parent company Susquehanna also housed variations. For example, WSBA in York was gentler in the day than the more excitable WARM in Scranton was.
The 70's WNBC, and later WABC plus other big stations moved away from the teener and hippie rock and played solely the remaining, more numerous Top 40 survey songs.
The first Top 40 Survey of that transition was for 12-23-65. Top 40 ended 3-15-76, though the last published survey was 2-21-76, so it lasted 10 years and 3 months. Before that, there were forms of published surveys in newspapers and similar listings. By 1979, they were doing AC, at least in some air shifts, after the Beautiful Music format stopped.
In researching this post, I discovered that Bob Dearborn actually did work at WKNR Dearborn, earlier in his career. WKNR Keener 13 lasted from Halloween, 1963 until early 1972. I don't know if Dearborn was his given name. He was Mark Allen at WKNR, according to 440int.com.
I'm often amazed when I discover that an on air name that didn't use a middle name as a surname wasn't anywhere near their real name. Often, you don't know their real name until they pass away. Starship Radio 73 has some clues in the personality history.
Last edited:
DXers have heard many stations and formats from many markets over the years, and are some of the best judges of which stations were what format at any point in time. Many of the best are right here on this message board.
I could not find another forum that fits well that met those objectives.
National Radio. Moving it jnow.
Reminds me of what WHO Des Moines sounded like in the late 1960s in certain dayparts, notably "The Road Show" with Duane Ellett, who would run the show after doing "The Floppy Show" with his hand stuck up a dog puppet named Floppy and introducing cartoons on WHO-TV at 4 pm every weekday. WHO was still basically block-programmed in those days, as I recall.
Your memory of block programming on WHO is what I recall from my college days in southeast Iowa. I was dating a girl from a small own in western Iowa curing my junior year, and her folks had the kitchen radio glued to WOW (Omaha) all day long. Similar music approach to what was on WHO. Only no block program and no "Floppy"....LOL.
Meanwhile my GF was a KIOA/WHB girl. Much to her credit.
I would think that in small markets the response of advertisers could be a major factor. I suspect it still is.
In the dying days of tape automation (around 1990), a station north of Dallas in the Sherman/Denison market dropped an automated Top 40 format that leaned adult because their tape automation gear was getting old. They replaced it with Satellite Music Network's CHR format, which was called "The Heat" (the grapevine said that SMN covered the equipment costs, thereby making it an easy and affordable transition). I have no idea what the ratings were like for either format, but advertising just tanked. With the new format, it was perceived (incorrectly) as "that rap station" and the advertisers just didn't want to be there. After a couple years, the format shifted again, but the story served as a reminder that in smaller markets advertiser perception matters a lot.
The particular music that may drive away those small market advertisers will vary over time (whether it is psychedelic hard rock, rap, or just music with too many "swear words"), but I can still see how it would have been as much a factor in 1970 as in 1990...or today.
Big markets, too. When I owned stations, three of my 4 AMs had identical signals on good low band frequencies. But one of them billed less than 50% of what the other two billed.
That lower billing station played "national music" which was the broad term for Ecuadorian music. It mostly appealed to indigenous peoples and those with considerable indigenous heritage; in both cases that was a lower income group and fewer advertisers wanted to be on that station.
Most of my clients were agency accounts. They did not advertise their expensive (one can cost about 3 to 4 day's pay for a day laborer) instant coffee account on that station. But they had one spot an hour on my "Beautiful Music" FM.
I kept the lower billing station as it got huge overall ratings, and allowed me to say that I had over 50% of all the average hourly ratings share. It made my group a must buy.
This was when I only had 4 stations in the market.
Oh man, I love this! There's something so wonderful about this genre of music. Possibly the most late-60s sounding music there is. Granted, I wasn't there (22 now) but when I hear a song like this, I start getting sentimental seeing Corvairs and Fairlanes cruising down a small town street on a sunny afternoon through Kodachrome... A real swell arrangement here, too. Thanks for turning me on to this gem
And now these are on America's Best Music, which the industry calls adult standards.
Well, I don't think America's Best Music would be called Adult Standards at this point. In the early 2000s, it began making the transition away from Perry Como and Nat King Cole to Soft AC and Oldies. Today, only once or twice per hour will you hear what we'd call an Adult Standard, usually an MOR song that also scored on the Top 40, like "Strangers in The Night" or "Everybody Loves Somebody Sometime."
But that said, the term Chicken Rock is pejorative. Sometimes a four-letter word would go between the Chicken and Rock. I don't think anyone's taste in music should be a put-down. If the audience's interest in music only includes the softer half of the Top 40, that's not a bad thing. Sure, when I was younger and I noticed WABC gradually eliminate the harder-edged rock and R&B, I didn't like it. But the station was transitioning to Full Service AC in advance of eventually going All-Talk.
By that point, the AM band was not the place to hear anything too youthful. There were plenty of stations on FM that played everything on the Top 40 charts, on the Album Rock charts and on the R&B charts.
But that said, the term Chicken Rock is pejorative. Sometimes a four-letter word would go between the Chicken and Rock. I don't think anyone's taste in music should be a put-down. If the audience's interest in music only includes the softer half of the Top 40, that's not a bad thing. Sure, when I was younger and I noticed WABC gradually eliminate the harder-edged rock and R&B, I didn't like it. But the station was transitioning to Full Service AC in advance of eventually going All-Talk.
By that point, the AM band was not the place to hear anything too youthful. There were plenty of stations on FM that played everything on the Top 40 charts, on the Album Rock charts and on the R&B charts.
Outside of the industry, who even knew the term existed?
Definitely it was a put down, usually by competitors that were Top 40. Some stations changed a number of times from Top 40 to Chicken Rock to AC, sometimes back, depending on sales being easier for AC. I'd grown into an AC format about the time they started showing up. If I really liked a rock track, I'd tune to the Top 40 or AOR station to hear it. Now that we can compare contemporaneous Surveys for two or more stations in a market on ARSA, you could see that the AC was influencing the Top 40 stations to add more AC tracks.
- Status