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WHTK-FM

This thread brings back a post Savage authored some time ago on another thread. He recalled working at CKLW in the 70s and driving back to Rochester while listening to radio stations in Toledo and other smaller markets under the influence of The Big 8. As I recall, RCS marveled how PDs and MDs at the US stations were so bamboozled by what The Big 8 played that they'd be coerced to play a ("piece of crap") song that was at best a mid-chart song in Canada but a couldn't crack Billboard's Top 40 charts, let alone any respectable local US chart, with an ice pick.

There were a number of Buffalo and Rochester bar bands that had their coterie of fans in their day and may have received airplay at the big AM Top 40s like WAXC and WBBF in Rochester or WKBW and WYSL in Buffalo. In the 60s and 70s, Barbara Sinclair and the Pin Cushions, The Tweeds (Thing of the Past), Big Wheelie and the Hubcaps, The Heard, Little Caesar and the Romans (Green Grass Makes It Better), Raven, The Road (She's Not There) and Wilmer (Give ME One More Chance), Chuck Mangione (Hill Where the Lord Hides) were very popular local groups that received airplay. I really enjoyed those songs, but if these groups were played in regular rotation on today's Oldies/Classic Hits stations, it's likely they'd be recognizable only by a small portion of the audience.

As the song plays, 12 listeners are saying "Yeah, way cool!" while 88 are saying "What is this? I don't remember this song." At that moment, the self-PD voice in your head says, "I really should have played Brown Sugar, Drive My Car or Good Vibrations." This admission from a person who likes local music and enjoyed the cheap thrill of occasionally warping the format as much as the next guy.
 
This admission from a person who likes local music and enjoyed the cheap thrill of occasionally warping the format as much as the next guy.
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Cudos JPB..it takes a Pabst man to admit the Real Thing (Coke?) :D
 
Sorry, but I gotta give props to Wilmer & the Dukes. "Give Me One More Chance" deserves just that. I'd also be willing to give Dyke & The Blazers original of "Funky Broadway" another spin.
 
I doubt just 12 people will know The Rustix song. I've had people flip out when I dj parties and play it!
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Hmmm...let's go with the "dj parties" thing. I'm sure they had a couple of tonics...so anything works. When you figure out mass media versus "parties"...then you won't get beat up on this board :D
 
I know the difference and they were sober.

Im talking a local VERY popular band, in Rochester only. The traditional numbers game for other music groups/radio stations doesn't apply.
 
"12 people" was a figurative reference. Nuance apparently is lost on some readers. As to the Rustix, again, reference prior posts by Savage and White, two guys who know Rochester radio far better than most. Their observations are benchmark.
 
Couple of different things happening here. Sometimes you had a local or regional act that got airplay as it was getting a little national traction, and then took off---like Chuck Mangione in Rochester or Spiro Gyra in Buffalo--or Bob Seger in the late 60s on CKLW, or Tommy James at KQV in Pittsburgh. Eventually they became major national stars, or even (in Mangione's case) a recurring character on a Fox TV animated sitcom.

Sometimes you'd get local bands that got a nibble from a major recording firm but never sold outside their home market--in most cases even their home market stations played it close to the vest.

What would be really interesting is to see what happened to local acts that kind of fizzled, only to see their individual members score big later--case in point; did the band Black Sheep ever get significant airplay in Rochester before it broke up when its equipment truck crashed and burned on the Thruway around the holidays in 1971? Its lead singer/songwriter, Lou Gramm, has had a huge international run fronting Foreigner and later out on his own starting in 1977...
 
What about gene cornish who made his mark locally with the unbeatables then went on to make it big with the young rascals.
 
Somewhat off topic...

When Bryan Adams was in town a couple of years ago for a solo acoustic show, he specifically thanked the Rochester area for helping to "break" one of his earlier rock songs (I say "rock" to make the distinction from some of his even earlier work-- which he probably would prefer you don't mention!) and then proceeded to play "Lonely Nights."

Meanwhile, Legends has made it into the 1980s with their playlist... almost the 1990's actually, having spun Cher's 1989 hit "If I Could Turn Back Time" last weekend.
 
umtrr-author said:
Meanwhile, Legends has made it into the 1980s with their playlist... almost the 1990's actually, having spun Cher's 1989 hit "If I Could Turn Back Time" last weekend.
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If you look at the LGZ's numbers over the past few books they have been trending downward 6+ (I have no idea of the the latest book or any 25-54 numbers), but the slide was consistent each book: a slow slow decline. I'm guessing adding 80s will freshen up the playlist, and as long as they stand true to their core, it might work. WCBS-FM has done very well at being gold old 'CBS-FM' but kicking it up a notch in the same way.
 
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