WMJI HD2

[dannykewl]

Yawn. They recently changed formats, and are playing pretty much the late 60's, 70's and early 80's that WMJI analog/HD1 is playing minus the commercials. "Nothing but classic hits" is their new tagline. I just heard an announcer Rob Warner (voicetracked?), announce "The Letter" by the Box Tops. They are now playing Supertramp's "The Logical Song", and just played Hall and Oates "Loving Feeling", and something by Barry White. Rob is now giving tips for Thanksgiving, so injecting a little "info" and "personality" into the format, and into Elton John's "Your Song". Yawn again. I liked the "Real Oldies" format better, even though it was the same 300 50's and 60's oldies analog Majic played maybe a decade or so ago. Now Kool & Gang's "Celebration".

WDOK HD2 now has "The Groove" which seems heavy on the 70's, a lot of ballads and R&B, but nothing that you can't hear everywhere else like their analog/HD1, or even the two flavors of Majic. Not a lot of difference from their "Sunny Side" format of a month or so ago.

I really think these stations better come up with something more creative, even if it's something via satellite, or HD radio will not catch on. 96.5 HD2 plays the same format seemingly as their main signal minus commercials.

At least WGAR and WNCX HD2's are "thinking outside the box" somewhat (Classic Country and Spanish/Latino, respectively), and I hope they keep it that way. WQAL 104.1 at least throws in some local artists.

WCPN 90.3 now has an HD1 signal, which should reach well, as the main signal is 50K as far as I know, much more than most (all?) other Cleveland stations. WNWV 107.3 HD2 seems to have a somewhat eclectic mix.

 

[johnbasalla]

Here might, just might be part of the problem with the struggle for increased variety within any format the features "oldies" or a good number of "gold" tracks. "The masses", made up of varying degrees of casual music listeners, show largely through research, that they only "back" a certain number of songs, often huge hits that were over-played even in their day.

"The focused music fan". They enjoy listening to music more often, and with deeper focus then "the masses". Unfortunately, they are in the minority. They are the ones who get dog-tired of the same-old-same-old 300 to 500 songs. Even though they will "back" a larger number of songs individually, they may not agree with eachother over which ones, making it harder to figure out which ones to play. By the same token, they don't have an immediate gag response to the unknown/lesser known pieces... in fact they relish these opportunities, and are more likely to sit through one they don't particularly like in anticipation of hearing a hot one later.

LISTENERSHIP: The "focused music fan" ... and this could be a big ... can be counted on to listen more often, and for longer periods of time if given a reason to. The question is, are there enough of them to sell to? Will they embrace an HD channel giving them the increased variety asked for?
(personal example: I listen to the entire 3-hour "American Top 40- The '70s" countdown show almost every week. I know that I'll hear a number of tunes rarely played anymore, particularly between #40 and #20.)

 

[YEKIMI]

I am one of the hardcore music people who want to hear the tunes that were not huge hits, sometimes ones that didn't even make it to the Top 40, one of my favorite songs only made it up to #94 on the Billboard charts back in the mid 70s. That's one of the reasons I got XM radio, their Decade channels had a very deep playlist. Along comes Sirius who bought them out and now their playlists are the same 300-400 songs that AM/FM radio already plays. So I dumped them. I was thinking about getting an HD radio but it seems like the stations are changing the formats monthly or just doing the same thing as their main channels [i.e. limited playlists] so why bother spending money on a new radio?

 

[johnbasalla]

YEKIMI, I'm right with you! Fortunately for me, I'm a record collector. So I have a lot of the stuff I want anyway. We can have fun with this. What are some of your favorite songs that weren't big hits? What is that #94 song that tops your personal chart?

Here are some of mine:
"Awaiting On You All" - By Silverhawk (Westbound Records) never made the Hot 100, but was played on CKLW in the early 1970s. A remake of a George Harrison song from his "All Things Must Pass" album. The vocals aren't has good, but in retrospect this remake is not overproduced like the Harrison/Phil Spector production.

"Mississipi Mama" was a wild rockin' hit by Owen B. in 1970. I probably shouldn't call it a hit as this Janus label record peaked at #97. Even the B-side was good...a curious re-working of the Martha and the Vandellas Motown track "Nowhere To Run".

My all-time favorite "bomb" is by a group that curiously hit the charts 2 times, but did it with only one song. Coven's 2 versions of "One Tin Soldier" was a hit on Warner Brothers and MGM records. In the mid 1970s they had a fantastic Pop-Rock love song called "I Need A Hundred of You" on Buddah Records whose only steady hit maker at the time was Gladys Knight and The Pips, although the Andrea True Connection would hit big too.

Some follow-up singles that weren't as big, are bigger to me. Freda Payne had Top Ten success with "Band of Gold" in 1970. But "Deeper and Deeper" which peaked at #24 is tops with me.

 

[GoodBuddy]

Here are a couple:

Big Time Operator - Keith Hampshire I heard this song about every hour back in the mid 70's. Once it dropped off, I never heard it again (well, actually I caught the last 30 seconds of it on WELW when they were playing oldies a few years ago). I don't see it on Billboard's top 40, so maybe it was just a big hit locally.

If You Wanna Get To Heaven - The Ozark Mountain Daredevils A top 40 hit which I love but it is rarely played on the radio for some reason. I hear it on WNCX ocassionally.

 

[JNight]

My favorite song back then was played alot on CKLW but I don't remember hearing it on a Cleveland station was "This Is Your Song" by Don Goodwin... I never found that 45 rpm my whole life, then recently went to a local garage sale, and the lady had (10) 45's for sale for $1.00, so I bought them, and when I brought them home I actually found the Don Goodwin song in the bunch!!!

 

[thenetwork]

Both Don Goodwin & Keith Hampshire were Canadian artists who got a lot of play on CKLW due to the Canadian Content rules set forth by the CRTC -- Canada's version of the FCC.

Another hit I liked from Keith Hampshire was "Daytime, Nighttime".

I used to listen to WELW a lot when it was Oldies, then once they killed the format in favor of talk radio, I used to listen a lot to CFCO/630 AM in Chatham, Ontario. They were more of a Small-town Adult Contemporary that played a lot of Canadian songs, but it was more bearable than the same old 300-song playlist slop that the local stations were overkilling. CFCO has since switched to country.

Going back to the original gist of the thread, it is a shame that Evil Clear Channel and other Cleveland stations have put the kibosh on most pre-1970s music both on regular over-the-air, especially when Cleveland was the birthplace of Rock & Roll and is the Rock & Roll Capital of the world, but they won't play the music that started it all anymore.

 

[johnbasalla]

YES! KEITH HAMPSHIRE. He also had the first hit version of "The First Cut Is The Deepest" which was big later for Rod Stewart and fairly recently (2005 or so) by Sheryl Crow. The thing about Hampshire records was the boisterous over-production. It gave them a lot of power.

 

[YEKIMI]

What is that #94 song that tops your personal chart?

My mistake, it hit # 93 in 1974 [I believe sometime in the summertime] and it was an instrumental called The "Georgia Porcupine" by George Fischoff. It took me 10 years before I was able to find a copy of it and over time I have been able to find 6 copies, one from France & one from England, including a demo version of the song that came from the record company. He also co-wrote Spanky & Our Gang's hit "Lazy Days" and Keith's "98.6"". [And speaking of Keith he has a website www.keith986.com.....talk about someone who hasn't aged well!] I may start a thread in "Off the Air" for this topic. I'll just have to dig out my old copies of Billboard magazine that I have saved since the 70s [when they actually concerned themselves about music and radio unlike what it has degenerated into today....sorry, rant over] and check the Hot 100 list in the back to see if I can remember the ones I've forgotten.