• 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

WIFE Lucky 13's Song about Indianapolis

T

tomkean

Back in the mid-60's, WIFE radio played a homegrown song about Indianapolis. I can't remember all the text, or the official name of the song. One of the lines I remember was:

"Home of the poet, James Whitcomb Riley, and WIFE."

Does anyone else remember this, and know how to obtain either the song or the lyrics?
 
I have a copy of the song. Will be happy to post it as an audio file, somewhere, any suggestions?
I'll try to copy the lyrics and post them here.
 
@media1170: I just sent you a Private Message concerning a possible upload place for the audio file. let me know if this a solution that might interest you.
 
I remember the jingle (song) as well....some lyrics making reference To Garfield Park, Clowes Hall, and "giving a big hurray on Memorial Day when they roar past that 500 mark." I'd love to have a copy of that one myself. I'm thinking it was part of a Pam's package they bought.
 
Not PAMS, part of the custom jingles written by Tom Merriman they purchased and put on the air when the launched the call letters in Jan. 1964. Don't think WIFE used PAMS until late 1964.

The WIFE song was wrtitten by Tom Merriman, the male solo "giving a big hurray on Memorial Day when they roar past that 500 mark" was Rod Kinder.

Kinder and Merriman wrote several city songs for stations when the worked for the PFO/Ullman company in Dallas.
 
IN 1964, Tom Merriman was running CRC (Commercial Recording Co.). I think PFO/Ullman got involved in marketing some CRC product in those days, but I beleive the credit rightfully goes to CRC. That cut seems to have been based on a somewhat similar city song done as part of CRC's "Dimension Radio" package that was piloted for WERE Cleveland. The melody is a little different but the style and vocal mix are identical.

As I posed elewhere on this board, I'm currently putting together a compilation of city-centric jingles done for radio and TV stations. If anyone has the city song done for WOWO by Heller, circa 1966 ("You can hear Ft. Wayne when a breeze blows cross the plain....) I'd love to hear from you.
 
I wasn't even in Indiana till 1969 so I probably missed this little jingle or....did I? It does sound familiar. Would it have been played in 1969 on WIFE? I really like to listen to jingles so this was a really great one and a huge round of applause to Tom Kean... Thanks Tom!! Nice Job~! ;)
 
Betelguese said:
I wasn't even in Indiana till 1969 so I probably missed this little jingle or....did I? It does sound familiar. Would it have been played in 1969 on WIFE? I really like to listen to jingles so this was a really great one and a huge round of applause to Tom Kean... Thanks Tom!! Nice Job~! ;)
Click to expand...

I'll second that! I can distinctly remember the late T.J. Byers playing it on WIFE on his weekend shift....the year? I wanna say around 1966-67. Tom, I appreciate your making the jingle available to all of us....talk about a flashback!
 
I appreciate the praise (who doesn't?), but if you read this complete thread, you will discover that "media1170" created the MP3 file from a record .. I only offered some webspace for the download.

My part in the process was the easy part.

I hope you all enjoy hearing the jingle as much as I did.
 
Yeah but, you provided the product Tom while the rest of us were too lazy to try to find it and therein the difference,.. and the praise.
 
The WIFE Song and their first jingle package was a custom produced by Tom Merriman. This package was was marketed as Star Bright by Music Creation. I have the WRNL narrated demo. Music Creation ( or MusiCreation) was the follow up company to the PFO/Ullman company which went out of business in 1964.

There are a number of people who worked with Merriman at PFO/Ullman including Jody Lyons and Rod and Majie Kinder who verified the Merriman time frame.

Station Concept: Spectrum 1963 was a PFO/Ullman multi package demo produced in late 1962. The WENE package Sonosational refers to was a WHDH custom called "New Demension". The package had a city song that was sung for other stations including KIOA.

The Richard H. Ullman company briefly (the other half of PFO/Ullman) sold for CRC but never produced any product. Peter Frank was producing music in Hollywood for various TV shows and some radio ID packages. The Richard H Ullman company was a sales group who also sold Ullman's stuff. Frank bought Ullman and IMN (the jingle producer in Boise) and consolidated the whole thing in Dallas as PFO/Ullman.

Merriman wrote a in a certain style and there are a number of PFO/Ullman jingle packages that sound like some of the Tom Merriman's CRC product.

WIFE's second package was known as Star Burst at WIFE. This was a Merriman custom as well which was syndicated and market by Studio Ten as "Powerhouse".

Jody Lyons and Merriman both wrote and produced jingles for Studio Ten. This was former Pepper/Tanner salesman Mike Eisler's marketing operation.

This seems like a little information than needed, sorry for the excess verbiage.
 
THANKS TOM for posting that “blast from the past”! The last time I heard it on 1310 was on a T. J. shift also – FORTY YEARS ago [OMG]. Great radio, wasn’t it?!? I will never forget TWO moments in RayDeeO... The “Wrath of the Buzzard” and 13-WIFE.
 
Thanks for the update, Media1170. Ah yes, the jingles business has always been quite incestuous, especially during the 60's and 70's. I was unaware that Merriman did projects for MusiCreations. I beleive he was with CRC until late 66 or early 77 and TM was established in 68... but he collaborated with others and you will find Merriman's work on product sold as CRC, PFO/Ullman, Richard Ullman, Merriman, Criterion, Atwood-Richards. Gwinsound (I always thought Gwin was ripping off TM until I found out that Merriman was the main writer), MerriLong, and later Murf Murfin. So, you can understand why the confusion. Of course, the singers, musicians, and writers free-lanced for everybody in Dallas so the sound tends to blend as well.
 
Merrriman always worked for himself. We was with CRC until about 1961/62. PFO/Ullman until 64, CRC 64ish until 1967, TM from there on out. There are a number of very good Merriman customs from about 1967 for WKYC, WSAI, WQXI and Keyed acapellas, not as CRC and not TM Productions but as Tom Merriman Productions.

He has written for all of those companies Sonosational mentioned at various times although I am unaware of any Atwood-Richards materials. If you know of something he did for them I would be curious to know what it was.

I believe Musicreation only had his stuff that was done while he worked at PFO/Ullman.

Since the TM Century 21 merger, Tom has written for a great many producers notably Tom Griffin, TM Century and JAM. He has also produced for a number of overseas clients including Muff Merrfin and Radio Netherlands.
 
Some errata here... According to new information I have, Merriman worked for CRC until 1962, then rejoined them in 1965 for another two years or so.... so if the package was produced in 64 by Merriman it may very well have been marketed under something other than CRC.

The Atwood-Richards connection is somewhat convoluted. Seres 47 ("The Sound Is") was originally produced by CRC on Merriman's watch. Following CRC's demise, the rights and instrumental tracks to that particular package (and possibly others) were acquired by Atwood and some versions were released under the Atwood Richards banner.

A couple of other corrections.... Merriman did not release anything under Criterion Productions (as I had said in an earlier post). Criterion was the name of a particular package. My mistake. Also, if not mentioned previously, Tom also released material under the Studio 10 label during his 62-65 CRC sabbatical.

Whatever the label, Merriman was probably one of the most talented people in the business and in the heyday of TM (68-85) was behind arguably some of the best material that ever came out of Dallas (or elsewhere).
 
Studio Ten was mentioned earlier.

"The Sound Is" was #43. Doc Severinsen played play trumpet on the package if you can believe the demo. This was the WOR-FM stereo package. Any idea how many stations bought this from Atwood-Richards?

Rating Grabber was #47 which contained covers of some Chuck Blore's KRLA custom/WCFL/WKYC cuts.
CRC agreed not sell #47 in markets that were covered by these stations or adjacent markets.

The owners of WHUT Anderson ended up with CRC #51 Orchapellas for their station in southeastern Wisconsin, honoring the Blore product on the air at WCFL.
 
Again I stand corrected... little typo on the number "The Sound Is" was CRC Series 43... The only Atwood project for this series I'm aware of was done for that is now WKIE/92.7 Arlington Hts., Ill. (I think the calls back were WEXC-FM, but I'll have to double check). As I recall, the name of the series may have been different, but again I'll have to consult my notes. The only other place I've heard the package... other than on the original OR-FM was WWCO-FM in Waterbury, Ct. (now WURH), but I'm not sure whether that one was done by CRC or Atwood.

I'd love to hear CRC's take-off on Blore's "Encore" series which is one of my all-time favorites. Actually, this "package" was a hybrid. Some of the cuts were pioneered for KRLA in LA (well actually Pasadena). WCFL's package included most but not all of the KRLA cuts plus some new custom cuts. The package later did air on WKYC and was also heard on KYA San Francisco. If anyone knows other stations where the Blore version aired, I'd be interested to know.
 
Status
This thread has been closed due to inactivity. You can create a new thread to discuss this topic.


Back
Top Bottom