70s FM Radio.

The Jive 95 audio was down for some time but it's back now and I am listening to something titled "KSAN Archives Part One" and 28 minutes into it it's been all a Frank Zappa interview with Tom Donahue with Zappa playing some records. Great listen.

 

^^ This guesting of Zappa at a US FM station to play the full "Läther" set was actually taped and bootlegged and probably can be heard today for free, "out there"...

 

Fantastic! What's special about the add for the Mahavishnu/Mothers double bill show is that it sells entirely on the Mahavishnu (a jazz group) music! No Zappa music is used here...

 

The Zappa interview I am listening to on the Jive 95 site, he actually plays a song that he and Ray Collins wrote for the Penguins of Earth Angel fame and now he's on to Mingus and Goodbye Pork Pie Hat. Very interesting and he talks about surf music and Bruce and Terry and Jan and Dean and praises the music in retrospect. Now I know why he wrote what he did about Little Deuce Coupe.

 

The album-oriented stations in the '70s were wonderfully eclectic, playing album cuts (including some pretty lengthy ones) by artists as diverse as the Beatles, Led Zeppelin, Joan Baez, Elvis Costello, Chuck Mangione, Bob Dylan, Frank Zappa, Harry Chapin, Jimi Hendrix, Dan Fogelberg, Gil Scott-Heron, Emmylou Harris, Chick Corea, Mary McCaslin, B.B. King, and more, with many of them playing entire albums at night. These were the glory days of AOR before the format degenerated into "classic rock" with as tight a playlist and as much heavy rotation as any Top 40 station. AOR in the '70s played everything classic rock stations play plus a lot more. Can you imagine hearing Joan Baez or Chick Corea on a "classic rock" station? Proof that not all change is for the better.

 

Yeah, It's a great archived website. Well done, and you could spend hours, days, digging it.

 

Triad radio Chicago aircheck...
WXFM - Triad Radio Aircheck 03/31/72

 

One of my strongest memories is that of listening to WPLJ, in the late-'70's:
they had a 'bumper' where they would play little bits of songs that had a common 'riff'
(example: "All Right Now" into "Keep On Rockin' Me", "I told you once more..", from ELO's "Don't Bring Me Down" to "Because, I told you before.." from The Beatles "You Can't Do That"),
then you'd hear The Four Tops, "It's the same, old song", right into their 'jingle-version' of "WPLJ".
I haven't heard it in forever, but, it still sticks in my head!

 

Wonder if there are similar 70's stations via the internet?

 

Beginning in 1976, we had Toronto's CFNY as well (if you had a really good tuner/antenna). As the 80's progressed, the suits had eliminated most of the free-form magic.

 

In Montreal, CKOI-FM also started as it is known, in 1976, first as a progressive rock station, then a few years later turning into something a lot more commercial.

It used a ridiculously powerful transmitter of 307 000 Watts (effective radiated power) - one of the most powerful in North America! - which I read in Wikipedia is actually non-regulatory but had been passed due to some clerical error...

I wonder how far it radiated down in the USA... With power like that, one might as well try to make contact with the Galaxy Being from The Outer Limits!

 

Regarding CFNY I have a clip of the first day they increased their power and could be heard outside of Brampton in 1977. David Pritchard and Reiner Schwarz from the old CHUM FM were on board.
CFNY on the first day

 

You got to know the DJ's as people, and they talked to you like you had a brain.

 

First thing I thought of when I saw the thread title. I was a little young to make the 70's, but certainly by 1980/81 I was listening to both regularly. OP to give you an idea, WMMR was 93.9 and WYSP was 94.7 so right next to each other- it was common to go back and forth between the stations for something you liked. The kids in my neighbourhood used to argue which was better, but we all did the same thing and listened to them both- our loyalties only going as far as the tune either were playing.

Someone in another post mentioned airchecks- I would kill to hear the old WMMR call out: "WMMR (den-den-den) Phil - aaaa - Delphia" ....where the "den" = massive electric guitar power chords. Seriously if someone has, post it, google hasn't helped in my search.

 

First off, I just want to mention how charming it is to hear a phone number given without an area code. Those were the days. Now, at least in my area code, we have to dial 1, followed by the area code, even to call our next door neighbors.

Even though I lived in Chicago, I was too young to know about this station. But by this time, I was already listening to late night radio on the AM dial. There was a guy named Eddie Schwartz who worked from 11 to 5 on WIND. This was before the entire world was ON 24/7. Yes, I'm only 55, but I do indeed remember a world where everyone, besides me it seemed, went to sleep. I used to love hearing Eddie talk to cops and bakers and other people who had to be awake during the night. It was exciting to me because things were just quit enough to kind of make sense of the world. And this program also seemed to have a sense of charity about it. I hope I don't come off as corny, but it was love of our fellow man.

I think this same sense of charity comes across whenever I hear these air checks. They always seem to be talking about helping feed the homeless or helping people in a half-way house. I can't remember the last time I heard about a half-way house. I think it was probably the last time I listened to an air check. I think we must have solved the homeless problem and no one must reside in a half-way house anymore because nobody talks about them on the air anymore. OK, back to reality.

My point is that I think everything was more honest and authentic on these types of broadcasts. The music, the DJs, the calls out for some kind of action, or at least some kind of awareness, of the need for social justice. The fact that these kinds of broadcasts no longer exist is a testament to the chasm that exists between the media and real life. It's actually gotten so bad that real life is now reflecting back the non reality that is portrayed in the media.

Maybe that's why the current popular music is done by people like Katy Perry rather than Canned Heat. Because most everything is now unhinged from actual reality.

 

We lived in Pittsburgh in the late 60s and called it underground radio. I can't recall the station call letters, but I was only 15 then. I do remember hearing full album versions of In-A-Gadda-Da-Vida, The End and many other songs that blew your mind back then.
We moved to New Hampshire in the summer of 70 where I found WBCN out of Boston. I could always pick it up but never full strength. Anyone remember those little snippets played on BCN? I'm goin up on a mountain, gonna pick me a bail a cane, gonna bring me back some molasses, gonna sweeten ol Liza Jane

Absolutely yes to this. Many an evening on the floor in someone's basement or the living room of whoever's parents were out for the night.

Later (75) I lived in Ft Walton Beach, FL and the station would play newly released albums in their entirety. Some DJs would kind of countdown so you could get the record synced. Don't recall the call letters their either but it was a decent station.
The underground feel died in the mid 70s for me. Or I just didn't live anywhere with a good station.

 

Yeah, FM radios didn't become standard equipment in most cars until well into the early 1980s.

 

I strive to make my show like this, especially because I miss that kind of radio.

 

KMET in 1987 was nothing like it had been in the 70s (or even in the early 80s). Still, I remember listening to that as it happened. It was very sad.

 

Another vote for KSAN the Jive 95 from me. (Actually they were 94.9, but who's counting). My "go to" FM station in the '70s. I recall listening to them one day and I think (but I could be wrong) that the DJ was Terry McGovern. He played the first track on an album... then the second... then the third. I thought "how cool - he's playing a whole album side." Then it got to the locked groove.... click... click... click. I think that went on for at least 15 minutes if not more. Finally he came back on the air and explained he had gone to the bathroom, locked himself out of the studio and had to call someone to come to the studio to unlock the door. You can play their movie trailer here.
KSAN Jive 95: The Movie

 

Hi, I just watched The Fog (1980) and loved the female DJ in the lighthouse, I was wondering if there were any female DJs from the US FM Radio days I could check out...? I'm from the UK so know little about US FM Radio.

 

Sure, Bonnie Simmons was a DJ at KSAN (fm, San Francisco) - go to Jive95.com and listen to the archived shows/air checks/interviews they have. KSAN was the forerunner to KFOG.

 

KSAN also had Dusty Street and Rachael Donohue


The one and only, Dusty Street was one of the first women DJ’s in America.
She held down the 10:00 pm to 2:00 am shift.

Bonnie Simmons was KSAN Jive 95’s music librarian,
music director and program director. She was also a KSAN DJ.

Tom and Rachael Donahue were the reason that KSAN Jive 95 existed.
Their radio show on Saturday nights were appointment listening for everybody in the Bay Area.

 

I wish there more autobios/bios on the subject
available (a great read, by the way):

Classic Rock, Classic Jock: The Jim Santella Story,
Father of Progressive Radio in Buffalo -
Jim Santella.

 

Just because they are burned into my memory WMMR was 93.3 and WYSP 94.1, but yes I wore those two buttons out on the car radio. I always preferred WMMR for some reason; I was a prog rock guy back then so maybe that was it. I have not listened to it yet but your call sign might be in here: