WLS Chicago

[TheFonz]

XM satellite radio salutes the glory days of WLS music radio this Friday 7/13. Details:

11AM - 2PM ET
The '60s
XM Channel 6 Sonic Sound Salutes: WLS
Windy City radio giant, the BIG 89, WLS is the highlight of another 60s "Sonic Sound Salute".

 

[cyberdad]

Here's hoping "Motormouth" does as spectacularly on the third re-creation as was done on the first one. The second one....while good....was still not quite what the first one was, IMHO. Then again, the first one was awsome, and a "tough act to follow".

 

[KevinFodor]

I hope he does do a good job...

'cause what I heard of a "salute" to WING-AM from Dayton, Ohio was nowhere close to what the station
actually sounded like in the 1960's.

Having the jingles...doesn't mean you know the station.

 

[cpf1973]

Citadel/ABC should work on dropping the WZZN calls on 94.7 and bring back the LS-FM tag...nothing would go better with their Classic Hits/ Oldies format than that!

 

[Jan Jeffries]

Does anybody remember when I worked there? :-\

 

[4dude]

I agree with the above about 94.7

 

[KlunkLetter]

Sounds as if 94.7 is going backwards. They just fired John Records Landecker, in favor of Greg Brown. While I like Brown, he would have been a great fit between the AM and PM drive slots. JRL will still be heard on 94.7, though, with his syndicated "Into the 70's" show.

 

[radioatlantis]

Lets see, the legendary line-up a great radio jocks, grows.
Hard to understand why the big shots would just hire them all as a line up or drives for the classic flagships. So much mediocrity while superior talent sits on the bench

Landecker, Jack Armstrong, Cleveland Wheeler, Bob Dearborn, Fred Winston, Chuck Buell...
major league sports doesn't even do this. The players call their retirement and end n their on high notes. Shameful.

 

[Whiplash]

Jan, I certainly rember when you worked there. ;D

 

[FredRichards]

Speaking of Chicago radio, where is Ron Britain these days? Retired?

 

[skippertthomas]

Last time I had an email on him, was when he was doing 1690 out of Berwyn/Chicago from a feed out of Louisville (CC Cluster)... Think he, the wife and the cats are in Derby City...(Louisivlle)....

 

[FredRichards]

Ron and I don't know each other, unless he remembers a fan letter from a teenager just after he started at Big 10.

He was the top person that I most admired in radio at that time, and probably responsible for getting me interested in the business. I wish him well, and hope things go well for him in the future. He is one of the pros in my book.

Thanks for the update.

 

[firepoint525]

Does anyone know the AM station in Chicago which supposedly hired a bunch of the WLS vets? Apparently, they were trying to recreate the glory days of WLS. I don't remember the station's call letters or exact dial position, except that they were at the upper end of the AM dial. I am in Nashville, so I am obviously not close enough to listen to a Chicago station, but I seem to recall that this station I'm thinking of is broadcasting online. If anyone knows the station I'm referring to, please post a link to that station. Thanks!

 

[skippertthomas]

That was 1690.. It is now WVON running an ubran-talk format.. They got around a 1.0 share average for the 18 to 24 months they were on.. Little Tommy (in Chi) and Uncle Larry (isdn from the desert southwest) were on the AM drive.. John Gehron GM'd for CC.. They were on an expanded band channel and only enough power to cover the basic metro in the day and they were 'skywaved' out in the north burbs at night.. Perfect signal for the group LMA'ing them from CC to reach the African-Amercian community..

 

[firepoint525]

That was 1690.. It is now WVON running an ubran-talk format.. They got around a 1.0 share average for the 18 to 24 months they were on.. Little Tommy (in Chi) and Uncle Larry (isdn from the desert southwest) were on the AM drive.. John Gehron GM'd for CC.. They were on an expanded band channel and only enough power to cover the basic metro in the day and they were 'skywaved' out in the north burbs at night.. Perfect signal for the group LMA'ing them from CC to reach the African-Amercian community..

Okay, thanks. I remembered listening to them online about a year or so ago, but not lately. That probably explains why I couldn't find them.

 

[greenboy]

Speaking of Chicago radio, where is Ron Britain these days? Retired?

Fred , In answer to your question I think he is retired now(don't quote me on that). He was on WRLL AM 1690 when they first
signed on and I thought he was very entertaining. He was only on for about 6 months doing the 3PM to 8PM shift, and
I think he resigned because management wanted him to talk a lot less and just play the music. He did not want to do
that and I don't blame him, he is very talented and he was trying to do what he was hired for, to kind of recreate the
good old days of WLS and WCFL and they just wanted him to be a card reader. After he left they hired Tom Murphy
who seemed like a decent guy but did not talk that much, just the basics time, weather traffic names of the songs
played etc. I lived close to there transmitter so I recieved the signal well day and night ,but being so high in the dial
they had problems in downtown Chicago and the north and northwest sides of the area. I really miss the station though
they played a lot of oldies I never heard before and they were not afraid to through in some Sinatra and Bennet into the
rotation. The last time I looked there site was still up and still had a listen live link. The address is realoldies1690.com

 

[cyberdad]

1690 was a noble effort. It managed to capture something of the "flavor" of the classic WLS (and for that matter WCFL). But the effort was hampered by most of the legendary jocks "phoning it in" via voice tracks.

Then there was the matter of the signal....

Let me put my own experience this way. I live 47 miles from their 10,000-watt stick in an area with pretty good ground conductivity. Daytime reception on every radio in my home...none of them cheap....was problematic at best. In the car, things were better, but still highly subject to interference from power lines, etc. Nightime reception wasn't quite impossible, but usually the signal was unlistenable.

The stick was located on the South side of Chicago, and as such at 1690, it was inadequte for covering the broader metro area. Its much better suited for what it now is....a broadcaster targeting a specific community within closer proximity to the transmitter site.

 

[greenboy]

That was one of the biggest problems Cyberdad the poor signal if they could have gotten a better signal further down the dial they
might have had a chance, like you pointed out if you were more than a few miles from their tower site at 87th and Kedzie they
were pretty unlistenable.

 

[Tom Wells]

That was one of the biggest problems Cyberdad the poor signal if they could have gotten a better signal further down the dial they
might have had a chance, like you pointed out if you were more than a few miles from their tower site at 87th and Kedzie they
were pretty unlistenable.

I'm 137 blocks (5000 N) due north up Kedzie, and while I could listen to the signal day or night, it was "challenged".
That's about 17 miles.
I was impressed with the effort, but found the time-frame presented (musically) to be a bit too "mild".
There were a lot of late 50's early 60's songs, but they seemed to cut off musically at about 1963.
We can only stand so much of "Rubber ball I come bouncing back to you" etc.
No effort made to highlight Chiacgo artists, as far as I could tell.
Not once did I ever hear "Twine Time" by Alvin Cash, a Chicago hit from the South Side (1962?).

I did pick them up one morning in Raleigh/ Durham, NC about two years ago.
No mistaking Uncle Lar and little snotnose Tommy, even in weak DX.

 

[TheFonz]

I was impressed with the effort, but found the time-frame presented (musically) to be a bit too "mild".
There were a lot of late 50's early 60's songs, but they seemed to cut off musically at about 1963.
We can only stand so much of "Rubber ball I come bouncing back to you" etc.
No effort made to highlight Chiacgo artists, as far as I could tell.
Not once did I ever hear "Twine Time" by Alvin Cash, a Chicago hit from the South Side (1962?).

I believe they programmed music from the early '50s thru 1963 because this was the era of music that radio had abandoned. The British Invasion was well represented on FM Oldies stations. We could only stand so much of the Beatles. And that's why you didn't hear "Twine Time". It was from 1965.