brightonboris said:
Eli Polonsky said:
The classic rock format began in 1985 as WZLX, though it was actually classic hits at first for a couple of years. There was no full-power FM oldies station in Boston at that time, so WZLX at first went for some of that audience as well by playing some late 60's and 70's pop and soul hits along with the classic rock. I recall that, at very first, WZLX briefly promoted as music for the "Big Chill generation", referring to the then-popular movie which featured a soundtrack full of oldies, soul and classic rock hits.
Wrong. The original poster is correct. The format switch to Classic rock began under the WKKT/The Cat call letters. The call letter and moniker change to WZLX/Boston's Classic Rock didn't happen for another month.
Maybe they started playing classic hits/classic rock for a month while they still had the WKKT call letters, I don't remember that period, but I do know that they started the classic format in 1985 with the slogan "Classic Hits 100.7", and they didn't begin calling themselves "Boston's Classic Rock" until a couple of years later in the late 1980's. After "Classic Hits 100.7" they were briefly "Boston's Classic Rocker", and from then on "Boston's Classic Rock".
About twenty years ago, I was invited to guest co-host for an hour on their morning show with Bill Smith, and the slogan we were saying at the time was still "Classic Hits 100.7". There was no "Boston's Classic Rock" slogan yet. I still have the tape of it. It was just a few days before Bill was unfortunately "let go" (I guess they weren't satisfied with his ratings against Charles on WBCN, which was not yet co-owned with them).
They were having a "college radio guest DJ day". They called one DJ from various area college radio stations (both broadcast and closed-circuit college stations) to guest co-host one hour each with the regular DJ throughout the day, and I guess someone had heard me playing 60's/70's rock on my show on WMBR and called me there. I didn't really know what the purpose of it was, but I said "sure". I had fun on the air with Bill for that hour. He's a great guy, and I've occasionally run into him at concerts and events since then.
It turned out that the purpose was that they were trying to build up their ranks of college student interns from among the DJ's they had asked to guest host that day. They were apparently unaware that WMBR is a combination college and outside community volunteer station and that I wasn't an MIT student, and therefore ineligible for college credit for interning.
Their personnel people were saying that I "did a great job on the air and they were really interested in having me become a WZLX intern", but when I told them that I wasn't an MIT student and was a community volunteer on their college station, they were aghast and I was quickly dismissed. They seemed to think that I was an outsider who had somehow infiltrated and tried to scam them, but they were just unaware that some college stations also have some community people on the air, and that if they wanted to make sure they were getting a student, they should've checked on my status before asking me.
Before I left, I mentioned to the PD (Cliff Blake at that time) that I would be interested in paid work, any shifts or fill-ins, and gave him a resumé and the aircheck I had just done on my hour with Bill as a demo. That was the last I ever heard from them, no response to an attempt to follow-up.
