Shulke was most demanding in the large markets where he required live announcers. In the smaller ones, he was less adamant, just "requiring" but not inspectign.
And, remember, there were precursors such as WDBN in the Cleveland / Akron market that in 1958-1959 had a fairly well assembled precursor to the very later more famous stations like KABL and, then, the syndicated formats.
I used the concept of what was "easy listening" before Shulke and Bonneville for my Teleonda 95 in Quito. When I decided to syndicated such a format, updated my own model. The core values to me were...
- Suitable instrumental versions of Latin American standards done in contemporary styling. This meant stylized versions of genres like the tango, ranchera, vals peruano, cuecas, etc.
- A portion of instrumental versions of non-Latin American "modern era" songs that had wide age appeal and had been hits in Latin America, such as covers of some American Top 40 songs as well as covers of many of the big French and Italian pop hits of the 60's and later.
- Instrumental versions of Latin American pop (what would be considered Top 40 in American terms) songs that had been universal hits across the region.
- Vocals that were either contemporary "Light Pop" that also might have been exposed on Top 40 stations in Latin America or versions of traditional songs done by contemporary singers or choral groups.
WDBN used the harp before KABL.
In the very big markets, as I said. I doubt he paid much attention to stations in markets outside the top 20 to 25 and let his staff do that.
Remember, few stations ran "overnight" in the late 60's. There were some frequencies that were totally vacant in all North America after midnight in the late 50's and early 60's. So the few that were on all night might get considerable regional listening.
The other syndicators were executing a format, not a single person's approach. Some, like KalaMusic, RPM and Peters, tried to have fewer covers of standards and more contemporary sounds and vocalists.
This is just as Bill Drake and Rick Sklar both "did Top 40" in the 60's, but each had a different "sound" to their product. They were on the same highway, but in different lanes and at different speeds.
While I had no way of checking many of the stations that did instrumental based formats that far back, the use of the harp sound was based on the interval signals of short wave stations dating back to the 60's. At some point, that became a "stinger" for "good music" stations. But it was not a McLendon original. McLendon like taking proven ideas, such as Todd Storz' Top 40 and adding his own showmanship to them. Heck, he even took credit for "inventing" all-news when he had just simply copied what was created by Goar Mestre in Cuba about 12 years prior!
Again, those were the Beautiful Music / Good Music equivalent of jingles. And they were based on shortwave interval signals dating back several more decades.
