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WIMZ - Knoxville's Hottest Hits!

R

radioguy2000

Knoxville's Hottest hits?? It was at one time! Wow, what a blast from 1984 or so. My 12 year old son returned from a month stay in Knoxville a week or two ago. When he was at my mom & dad's he went in the attic and dug thru some of my old things. He found a bunch of cassettes and lo and behold they have stood the test of time and still play.

It was all stuff I taped off the radio in the mid 80's. I have not had a chance to listen to them all but here is something I thought I would share. I remember WIMZ as "Rock 104" for years. Then they dropped the "Rock 104" in favor of "104 WIMZ". I was listening to one of the tapes and I heard a Phil Williams imaging piece that was "104 and the summer of 84...". Then I heard a jock (probably Scott Paulson) and they were getting ready to kick off a "6 pack". Well, the sweeper said "It's another 6 pack of Knoxville's Hottest Hits on 104 WIMZ"... And it had me thinking, I have remembered that for YEARS but it just now hit me that it said "Hottest Hits". The first song in the set was "Desert Moon" by Dennis DeYoung followed by Styx "Too Much Time". Also was Toto "Hold The Line", "I Can't Drive 55", "Major Tom" by Peter Schilling, "Let's Go Crazy" by Prince (been a long time since i heard that one, it has a killer guitar) and a few more that escape me at the moment. Was a lot to listen to and with these tapes being over 20 years old I do not know if they were all recorded on the same day or even the same year. I also heard Benji Norton (I think it was Benj) congratulate ME for winning Judas Priest concert tickets for the "Defenders Of The Faith" tour. It was followed by a Priest concert spot. Tickets only $10.50! Special guest Great White! Ha! I used to always tape concert spots too.

Next on the tape was a Phil Williams voiced promo about seeing Rush in Hawaii. Must've been around the time of "Grace Under Pressure" but all the music was from "Moving Pictures" and "Signals". Also taped a Schlitz Beer commercial featuring Night Ranger sung to the tune of "You Can Still Rock In America"... "Schlitz! Rocks In America!". Funny stuff.

Then there was another promo voiced by Phil for a "Michael Jackson Weekend". Ha! Imagine a MJ weekend on IMZ. It was an "MJ free weekend" with no cuts from Michael all weekend long. Then on Monday morning when you heard the first Michael song caller 4 at 656-ROCK or ROLL wins 104 bucks.

Next on the segment was Mike Capps (whatever happened to him? I worked with him for a short time when WOKI was country). He played the "new" one from Kiss, "Heaven's On Fire".

I even stumbled across one favorite saying of mine "Knox County schools are CLOSED tomorrow"... Every time it would snow I would play that one for my parents to try and get out of school.

Anyway, just thought I would share. Have plenty of other tapes to go thru and if I find anything interesting I will pass it along.

As for me, I currently live in Florida and "retired" from radio in Jan at the age of 34 after programming a successful Classic Rock station. Radio was just not paying the bills anymore or feeding a family so I decided to hang up the headphones and find a good paying job. It was fun while it lasted but was time to put the family first.

Back to lurk mode,

Radio Guy
 
I remember that period when WIMZ didn't know what they wanted to do..If I remember correctly they also called themselves the rock of the 80's..I'm not sure but was that when it was Beach and Williams in the morning or after?
Great memories ...
 
> I remember that period when WIMZ didn't know what they
> wanted to do..If I remember correctly they also called
> themselves the rock of the 80's..I'm not sure but was that
> when it was Beach and Williams in the morning or after?
> Great memories ...
>
I'm pretty sure that after Mike Beach and Phil Williams in the morning. Iirc, Mike Beach left around spring 1983 and they were still called Rock 104 at the time he left. WIMZ was my favorite station up until that time. I, along with a lot of Rock fans, became frustrated because instead of hearing ROCK music, we had to sit through sets by Madonna, Michael Jackson, Phil Collins, Prince, Kool & the Gang, etc., that Scott Paulsen was programming at the time. Thank goodness I had a tape player in my truck so I could listen to what I wanted to hear, not what Scott Paulsen considered rock. Imho, this was the low point for both WIMZ and Knoxville radio during this time frame and was a huge mistake made by WIMZ. <P ID="edit"><FONT class="small">Edited by jwk1979 on 07/29/05 01:26 PM.</FONT></P>
 
I agree, not the best times for WIMZ but Scott paulsen was a great afternoon jock. Listening to him was enjoyable and fun..not like the card readers we have now..he ranks up there with other former Knox jocks like the late J.J. Scott (Bill Towery) and Randy Miller.
 
> I agree, not the best times for WIMZ but Scott paulsen was a
> great afternoon jock. Listening to him was enjoyable and
> fun..not like the card readers we have now..he ranks up
> there with other former Knox jocks like the late J.J. Scott
> (Bill Towery) and Randy Miller.
>
Yeah Scott Paulsen was great and went on to have a long morning career in Pittsburgh after he left Knoxville. But as far as programming goes, he wasn't the P.D. That was Kerry Lambert (aka "Keith Lambert") who was the program director at 'IMZ in the 80's. He also did middays. If I'm not mistaken, he is still the P.D. at the classic rock station in Birmingham, where he has been since leaving WIMZ in the early 90's or so. Also, as far as Benji Norton goes, he was the replacement for Scott Paulsen when Scott left for Pittsburgh.
I also have some airchecks when they used the "6 pack of Knoxville's hottest hits" imaging. I also have some of the novelty songs that the jocks did like "One Night in Bedrock" to the tune of "One night in Bangkok" done by Scott Paulsen. I also have the "Z Rap" done by Commander Dave (a rap about WIMZ doing well in the ratings that names all the jocks). That was truly a great period in Knoxville radio IMHO, and WIMZ was tops. I actually liked the mix of rock and CHR that they played at that time and thought it was the best 'IMZ ever sounded. At that time in the early and mid 80's, the new wave-synthesizer sound was big and a lot of AOR stations began to do the "rock of the 80's" type format and experiment with a AOR/CHR hybrid mix. So WIMZ wasn't the only one that played the new wave pop stuff. But I always thought it was cool. You would hear Prince played into the Eagles into Flock of Seagulls into the Beatles, etc. Awesome variety.
Oh I also remember another cool sweeper from that time period that said something like "voted number 1 again... the booty kickin', atom crushin', toad bustin', WIMZ... stay out of the way!" The "toad bustin'" thing was a slam at WIVK they used a lot at that time. They always referred to them as the "toad" station.
 
> That was truly a great period in Knoxville radio IMHO, and
> WIMZ was tops. I actually liked the mix of rock and CHR
> that they played at that time and thought it was the best
> 'IMZ ever sounded. At that time in the early and mid 80's,
> the new wave-synthesizer sound was big and a lot of AOR
> stations began to do the "rock of the 80's" type format and
> experiment with a AOR/CHR hybrid mix. So WIMZ wasn't the
> only one that played the new wave pop stuff. But I always
> thought it was cool. You would hear Prince played into the
> Eagles into Flock of Seagulls into the Beatles, etc.
> Awesome variety.
I have to disagree with you on those points. Other stations may have been playing with an AOR/CHR mix but not to the extint that WIMZ was. I had friends and relatives that would visit from other markets and could not believe that the so-called rock station in Knoxville was playing Madonna, Michael Jackson and Kool & the Gang. They all made basically the same comment that the Rock station where they lived (Atlanta, Jacksonville, Birmingham, Cincinnati, etc.) doesn't play POP music like our "ROCK" station did, but they played real rock music. <P ID="edit"><FONT class="small">Edited by jwk1979 on 07/29/05 06:02 PM.</FONT></P>
 
I believe WOKI called it rock 40 when they were doing it...

Ahhh the good ole days..never to be seen again.
 
> I believe WOKI called it rock 40 when they were doing it...
>
> Ahhh the good ole days..never to be seen again.
>

I worked at WOKI in the mid 80's and I agree...those were the good ole days and will probably never be seen again. The days of Jarnigan with Jerry Howell in the mornings, Bandit on middays, Jim Wilson afternoons, Wayne Edwards nights....and then Shotgun Stevens on nights....everyone aimed at trying to knock WIMZ off their throne. You're right....those were the days.
 
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