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WSBA MYTHS AND LEGENDS

I listened to WSBA in the early 70s, followed their charts like crazy. I used to win record race and bloopers more than I was allowed. heh

Something I've always wondered about..

3 straight Billboard #1 songs, Gypsys Tramps and Thieves, Theme from Shaft, and Family Affair seemed to not be on the station. I know they never made the charts. Anybody have any idea what was going on with that ?
 
Did WSBA still put out charts in the early 70's? I can't imagine those three songs NOT being played on WSBA...but then again, I was out of the area at that time. By 1971 and '72, WSBA had shed alot of it's quirks from the late 60's and was sounding more like a mainstream Top 40. They were playing more Gold....and the "stiffs" were....for the most part....gone.
 
Yes they had charts then. I can still remember what a lot of the number ones were. Some made it that didn't get to the top of the national charts, like Precious and Few and Peace Train. Now it was sometime after that point that I became aware of Casey Kasem so I became more interested in the national countdown but can still remember anomalies like Have You Seen Her going from number 20 to number 4.
 
WSBA was known to pick and choose what they would or would not play....kind of like today's radio. If it was a top national hit....they'd usually play it. They did do alot of dayparting and were usually very conservative. I heard some stories from the early 70's about programming oddities. I was told that Rod Stewart's "Maggie Mae" was played...but only from 7-MID. I also was once told that a WSBA staff member protested the playing of John Lennon's "Imagine", calling it the Communist Manifesto. That protest resulted in "Imagine" also being dayparted to nights. These may be myths and legends....if anyone can back them up..or dispute them....feel free. Even though things at The Mighty 910 were kind of odd at times....The Good Guys were the best and the station made lots of money.
 
I heard that WSBA never played "Honky Tonk Women," presumably due to subject matter. As for those other three songs, anything is possible. Perhaps "Gypsies, Tramps & Thieves" with its unwed mother theme was considered too dicey. The movie "Shaft" contained some Black Power posturing, and York had experienced racial disturbances only a couple years before. And "Family Affair' was maybe too Urban-themed for the Whitey 910. Who knows what they were thinking. All three were great songs and WSBA's conservatism was a loss for their audience.

A station that would pick and choose songs in that way was hardly a credible Top 40 station. How many songs could you throw out if you started to pick them apart? "Go All the Way" by the Raspberries wouldn't make the cut, nor would "A Whiter Shade of Pale" by Procol Harum, as the word "virgin" was in the lyrics.

The only songs I ever recall WFEC in Harrisburg shunning were "Ohio" by CSNY and "The Ballad of John and Yoko" by the Beatles. They did play the last one but with the word "Christ" played in reverse!
 
Now that you mention it, Go All The Way wasn't played either. So it was mores, eh?

Imagine was played, debuted highly. Maggie Mae I remember being played a lot too.

It was a good station, I think the songs handpicked not to be played weren't that common but that's unfortunate. Here I thought it might have been some kind of backlash against payola or something stoic like that.
 
It was more common than you would think. In WSBA'a case, I think it had more to do with advertising clients. York County was always somewhat conservative. A client would hear song lyrics or a certain sound of a song that would offend them and guess what.....they'd have the sales rep on the phone. The sales rep runs to the sales manager, who in turn runs to the GM....who runs to the PD. This continues to happen to this day as music changes. Rap and Hip Hop often have client problems. My guess is that in addition to all of this....the WSBA brass started having problems with the evolution of contemporary music starting around 1967 or 68 when Top 40 music wasn't very innocent anymore. If they had their way...instead of Steppenwolf, Cream, Hendrix, and the new direction of The Beatles, the available music would still be Lesley Gore and Bobby Vinton.
 
Something I actually heard on WSBA back around '68. Jimi Hendrix had a hit with "All Along The Watchtower" WSBA did play it. One day during afternoon drive, the on air jock decided to interupt Jimi's guitar solo to do the weather! I don't recall who the jock was but he said something to the effect of..."We'll Jimi, if you're gonna full around on the guitar....I might as well use the time to do the weather"......I actually remember this happening...believe it or not. It almost sounds like a Dan Donovan bit....but he could have been gone by then.
 
That guitar solo is one of the greatest in rock & roll history. Interrupting it to read the weather? Heresy! It was probably supposed to be "funny." Ha-ha. Boy, was that jock out of touch.

One of the rules in the early Top 40 days on WSBA was that the personality was never to say anything negative about the music, no matter what they thought. My wife told me that she heard one of the WSBA guys play "Time Has Come Today" by the Chambers Brothers and comment on how "stupid and idiotic" he thought the song was. That was the last time she listened to WSBA. It might even have been that guy's last day on the air too.
 
That's funny because my sister once told me that she heard an on air jock on WSBA make a comment about The Kinks "Lola", saying that he didn't like that song.
 
Just thought of something else I once heard on WSBA in 1971......"That was Santana with Oye Como Va.....which is Puerto Rican for chicken fat." First of all they speak SPANISH in Puerto Rico. Second....why were WSBA jocks still taking jokes from Rowen and Martin's Laugh In. Were chicken jokes really THAT funny back then? I don't recall who the jock was......Harry West perhaps?
 
I don't know about Harry West appropriating a gag from "Laugh-In," but I have an aircheck of WSBA PD Bob Harper from 1968 or 69, and he must have make a joke about Tiny Tim a half-dozen times in that one day. I recall WSBA playing TT's "Tiptoe Through the Tulips" and I always wondered why. It was never a big hit - was it? - and I don't think WFEC played it. It must have been played just so the on-air PD could make Tiny Tim jokes (which weren't funny.)

By the way, Carlos Santana isn't Puerto Rican, and even if he was, that joke was tasteless.
 
John-Summers said:
I don't know about Harry West appropriating a gag from "Laugh-In," but I have an aircheck of WSBA PD Bob Harper from 1968 or 69, and he must have make a joke about Tiny Tim a half-dozen times in that one day. I recall WSBA playing TT's "Tiptoe Through the Tulips" and I always wondered why. It was never a big hit - was it? - and I don't think WFEC played it. It must have been played just so the on-air PD could make Tiny Tim jokes (which weren't funny.)

By the way, Carlos Santana isn't Puerto Rican, and even if he was, that joke was tasteless.
Click to expand...
Imagine what would happen if someone told a joke like that today? They'd torch the radio station.
 
I have that same Bob Harper aircheck. I also have one of Dan Donovan from 1967, where he was giving clues to the identity of the WSBA "Secret Citizen". In this particular clue, he said thet the Secret Citizen was of the "stronger" sex. Try saying that today!
 
Sorry for joining this conversation so late.

One other thing to mention about the music at WSBA, was that we had edited versions of singles to cut out objectionable content. IE: Baker Street had the sax/guitar riff removed when it was a current.
Trying to edit some on that stuff was a real art.

Then there were the extended album versions of some songs that were kept on old carts for "special" instances.

Other old features were 20/20 sports at 20 after and 20 before the hour and Pet Patrol which had been at select times during the broadcast day until a Sunday evening when the GM of WSBA-FM wanted his lost dog announced.
(As John mentioned before) There were policies for everything. I stuck with the policy that it would be announced during our next PP. He said he wanted it on right away and I repeated the policy. He said "Do you know who I am?" I said I didn't and he told me his name. I didn't know who he was and told him he could call again in the morning. He was very upset and said he would talk to Mr. Eberly in the morning.

I hung up the phone and told Bob Markham that the guy was really upset because we wouldn't announce his lost pet and explained what happened. He asked me the guys name and I told him CH.
After that weekend, Pet Petrol aired whenever we had a lost or found pet.
 
Found some chart info on The Chambers Bros. song "Time Has Come Today". The song entered the WSBA Top 40 on 9/14/68 at number 36....stayed at 36 the following week (9/21/68)....then was gone! I guess the comment John's wife heard on the air reflected THEIR opinion and the song was dropped after two weeks. This same song went top 10 on WFIL.....go figure. I guess TINY TIM was more appealing to the WSBA brass back then.
 
A "Bob (or Robert) Markham" reference...OMG. he was a fantastic sounding newsperson for the mighty 910 for years until he was killed in a plane crash. I remember when he was learning to fly. I was so stoked about it. he died with his brother in law when his small plane crashed trying to land. I can't remeber his real name but his father owned a funeral home up state. Bob was also a pretty good card player.
 
John , Len, (I'm sure I won't get the spelling on the last name correct) Willenski, was very excited about learning to fly. He would tell me every weekend about his flight training for his license.
Later, he would say to me at some point during the night "When are we going flying?" I was working 3 jobs at the time and didn't have spare time to go up with him. But, he would ask me just about every weekend.
I was coming back from Park City on route 30 just getting off the Wrightsville exit when I heard the news on the air. Tony Romeo and I went to the viewing and stood in the long line of people waiting to pay their respects.
I never saw him get rattled or excited over anything on the air. He made reporting look easy and was an ace at cutting down sound bites on those Tapecaster carts with the cue tone defeat switches. I learned alot from him.
 
Bob Markham was a class act! I was doing sports and working the newsroom when word came that it was Markham's plane that went down. He was a master at editing.
 
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