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Worcester in the 60s

A

ArtSpooner

Guest
In the 60s Worcester was kind of a hot bed for top 40 music. If memory serves WORC was the first station to play a Beatle song in the US. Two stations had a big rivalry WORC and WAAB. Bob Breyer was the #1 guy on WORC. I believe he owned a piece of the station. I think he may have passed away. DJs Bill Garcia and Skip Ericson were very popular on WORC. Jeff Starr and the Fabulous Farnsworth were top dogs on WAAB.

Anyone know what happened to any of these guys?
 
Indeed, but it's true in this case. WORC was programmed by Dick "The Derby" Smith, who was a legendary figure in 1960s top 40 radio. (As an aside, I got to know him when he was working at WSRO in Marlborough in the 80s and he's one hell of a radio guy.) He was the first American DJ to spin the Beatles, and in recognition the band gave him an autographed "She Loves You" gold record inscribed, "To Dick Smith, America’s first believer.”

Here's a link to a Worcester Magazine story about the Worcester rock scene in the 1960s that discusses the WORC-Beatles connection near the bottom. At the very bottom there is a sidebar on Dick Smith.

http://www.worcestermag.com/archives/2003/05-01-03/Cover.htm
 
Kodos said:
Indeed, but it's true in this case.

Here's a link to a Worcester Magazine story about the Worcester rock scene in the 1960s that discusses the WORC-Beatles connection near the bottom. At the very bottom there is a sidebar on Dick Smith.

http://www.worcestermag.com/archives/2003/05-01-03/Cover.htm
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I hope you don't mind if I don't take Worcester Magazine as gospel....

And the link Blackroc posted seems to say otherwise....

http://www.forgottenhits.com/who_played_the_very_first_beatles_record_in_america
 
ArtSpooner said:
In the 60s Worcester was kind of a hot bed for top 40 music. If memory serves WORC was the first station to play a Beatle song in the US. Two stations had a big rivalry WORC and WAAB. Bob Breyer was the #1 guy on WORC. I believe he owned a piece of the station. I think he may have passed away. DJs Bill Garcia and Skip Ericson were very popular on WORC. Jeff Starr and the Fabulous Farnsworth were top dogs on WAAB. Anyone know what happened to any of these guys?
Click to expand...

I recall Bill Garcia being on WAAB during the later 60s. In fact I noticed his name was still in the production studio at WAAF/WFTQ(WAAB) around 1979 when those stations were still in the Coccaine Realty Building in Worcester. I believe that I heard him doing some part time on air work at WBZ around 1968, too.
During the mid and late 60s both WAAB and WORC were two really good Top 40 stations. 580-WTAG and 1230-WNEB were MOR during this period. WSRS and WAAB-FM were both doing beautiful music as I recall. In 1967, WAAB-FM became WAAF, still doing beautiful music until the flip to Progressive Rock in early 1970. WAAB bailed out of Top 40 in mid 1971, going to a more MOR approach, but WORC lasted as a Top 40 station through out the 1970s, although not very successfully during the later 1970s...
 
I had forgotten about Dick Smith. One thing I remember vividly was the "song for people in love" which was All in the Game by Tommy Edwards. Bob Breyer played it every day at 2:45 and it was dedicated to couples. That segment became so popular that he had to start reading the dedications about 15-20 minutes before the start of the song. It actually became pretty annoying if you just wanted to hear music.

When a new song was played on a TV show such as The Monkees or Ed Sullivan, before the record's release WORC or WAAB would tape it (with a tape recorder I'm sure, because VCRs didn't exist) and play it right away, but during the song they would say their station's call letters several times so that the other station couldn't tape them. It was funny.
 
WORC became kind of annoying by the late 60s. With the alleged "All request format" you had to sit through lots of pre-recorded requests and dedications to hear anything...it was real cluttered. By around 1969, the best sounding Top 40 station in Worcester County was Fitchburg's WEIM, in my opinion....
 
Time Traveler said:
WORC became kind of annoying by the late 60s. With the alleged "All request format" you had to sit through lots of pre-recorded requests and dedications to hear anything...it was real cluttered. By around 1969, the best sounding Top 40 station in Worcester County was Fitchburg's WEIM, in my opinion....
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I was in the Army during the late 60s, when I got home I discovered FM. I remember listening to 14Q many years later, but never really went back to WORC.
 
ArtSpooner said:
When a new song was played on a TV show such as The Monkees or Ed Sullivan, before the record's release WORC or WAAB would tape it (with a tape recorder I'm sure, because VCRs didn't exist) and play it right away, but during the song they would say their station's call letters several times so that the other station couldn't tape them. It was funny.
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Given the abysmal audio quality of most tv's back then that must have sounded dreadful. I can only imagine what it would have sounded like had a competitor taped it off an AM radio & tried to use it on the air.


Time Traveler said:
By around 1969, the best sounding Top 40 station in Worcester County was Fitchburg's WEIM, in my opinion....
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I never heard WEIM until the mid-ish 70s, but they sounded very good even into the 80s. I'd describe them more as Hot AC than Top 40 though. I have a few old WEIM music surveys circa 1977 and they looked very adult-leaning. Were they ever a real rocker?
 
WEIM was actually an outstanding sounding small market rocker! They were a Top 40 station through out most of the 1960s, but I would say that their best years were from 1969 through about 1973. During those years, they had a broad playlist, good DJs, and even programed progressive rock during the later hours of the evening. After 1973, most AM Top 40 stations evolved into disco...A/C and eventually oblivion....WEIM was no exception although they lasted longer than many...I did hear them a few times in 1977 and 1978 and would agree that they were much more of a hot A/C station during that period...
 
Time Traveler said:
WORC became kind of annoying by the late 60s. With the alleged "All request format" you had to sit through lots of pre-recorded requests and dedications to hear anything...it was real cluttered.
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Absolutely correct and the main reason I didn't listen to WORC. I preferred WAAB and remember a remote broadcast in Oxford that featured (Bruce?) Farnsworth from their converted trailer-studios that I believe were called the "Satellite Studios". Pretty neat back then. If my memories serve me, that same trailer-studio was purchased by WBZ and was later lost in a fire. WAAB once had a "Junior Broadcasters Club" in the late 50's. This was actually the station that sparked my interest in Radio Broadcasting.
 
ArtSpooner said:
I had forgotten about Dick Smith. One thing I remember vividly was the "song for people in love" which was All in the Game by Tommy Edwards. Bob Breyer played it every day at 2:45 and it was dedicated to couples. That segment became so popular that he had to start reading the dedications about 15-20 minutes before the start of the song. It actually became pretty annoying if you just wanted to hear music.
Click to expand...

I remember the "Song for people in love" it used to drive me nuts, I hated the song when I was a kid and wanted to just hear British Invasion stuff. Stuff like that was what made radio local though and I actually miss it. I'm pretty sure it was the top 30 though on WORC not the top 40. i used to listen to it all the way through every Saturday morning.
WORC became an oldies rock station briefly during the early 90's and played a lot of the local 60's bands such as Beep Beep and the Roadrunners, The Joneses etc. it was a great oldie station during that period.
 
Eli Polonsky said:
And it was in AM stereo!
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Yeah, but 90+% of the music wasn't! Occasionally, they'd play something off an album or something from the early 70s and it would be stereo, but most of their library was mono.
Oddly, after the oldies format failed they briefly did a classic rock/talk hybrid format but the stereo was turned off.
 
I remember the "Song for people in love" it used to drive me nuts, I hated the song when I was a kid and wanted to just hear British Invasion stuff.
Click to expand...

For the sake of accuracy, the song for people in love was Please Love Me Forever by Tommy Edwards and it was always played at 3pm, although it's possible the dedications were read beforehand, but not very often.

WORC became kind of annoying by the late 60s. With the alleged "All request format" you had to sit through lots of pre-recorded requests and dedications to hear anything...it was real cluttered.
Click to expand...

The on-air requests by listeners were NEVER recorded. WORC used a six second looped tape cartridge for their "Live Line" calls. Most of the time the call was preceded by a 6 second jingle as the jock went into the tape delay. And one man's "clutter" is another man's treasure. To me, the live calls lent a lot of excitement and immediacy to the programming.

WORC may well have been the first station in New England to play a Beatles song, or least the first to chart them. I'll Get You, the flip of She Loves You, was on their all-request survey in October of 1963. But, if you follow the link in the earlier posts to the forgotten hits website, it's a virtually certainty that WLS in Chicago aired the first Beatles song as they were in the home city of Vee-Jay Records, the label that had early US rights to Beatles songs.
 
I worked weekends from 1985-1988 when WORC was formated with Country. Mark Ericson, now of WOKQ fame, was PD. He did an amazing job formating Country with a Top 40 feel. Way ahead of it's time.
Growing up, everyone listened to the WORC "Good Guys". (Back in the day)
Thanks to Don, Perry and especially the great Dave O'Gara...
WORC was sold and changed to canned Oldies...and that was it's last breath...now doing an ethnic format I guess....Long live the mighty WORC, and by the way, spelled backwards it's CROW.
 
CAPECRUSADER said:
I worked weekends from 1985-1988 when WORC was formated with Country. Mark Ericson, now of WOKQ fame, was PD. He did an amazing job formating Country with a Top 40 feel.
Click to expand...

That was back when they had super audio processing (read: heavy, "hypnogogic" compression), too! ;)
 
Given the abysmal audio quality of most tv's back then that must have sounded dreadful. I can only imagine what it would have sounded like had a competitor taped it off an AM radio & tried to use it on the air.
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I think what happened more often than not was that WORC got an advanced acetate recording of the "exclusive."
That song would then be recorded onto a tape cart with an occasional drop of the call letters to not only prevent
copying but also to simply promote the fact they they had the song and their competition didn't
The quality wouldn't be quite as good as coming straight from a regular 45, but certainly good enough for AM
broadcasting. As an example, the above scenario was exactly what happened when WORC got an advanced copy of the
Beatles' single, Let It Be.
Since WORC was a pivotal music station in the 60's, music reps would get them copies of new songs
as early as they could as Worcester had proven to be a good test market.
 
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