What did Oldies radio look like in the 50s/60s/70s?

Interesting...I also got started on "oldies" radio with Wolfman Jack and other DJs on XERB/XPRS in 1971 (I had just moved to San Diego and tuned in from there). Some of the songs I remember hearing were "Psychotic Reaction" and "Say Man" (by Bo Diddley). Then in 1972 I moved to Sacramento...but I don't recall the station you mention in your post. Sounds like a great one from your description! I mainly listened to KZAP back then and it played tons of older stuff, including the Mothers of Invention. The late 60s-early 70s were a great time for radio.

 

Back in the early to mid 70's we had a local AM station that specialized in mainly 50's and early 60's (pre-Beatles) music. It definitely was promoted as nostalgia. (And it certainly came across that way to me, considering that I wasn't born when most of that music was originally released.) There seemed to be a kind of wave at the time in the wake of American Graffiti, but even before that I'd say 30-somethings were being targeted with music from their youth and teen years.

 

Kinda more partial to his work on the California Superstation. This could be because that's where you could hear "The Van Man" by Bob Chance.

 

I can't say anything about other stations run by JVC Communications, but WXJZ has become my go-to radio station because they have a stable of good local weekday talent ("Leroy the Love Toy," the A.M. drivetime DJ, is also very entertaining). I grew up with AM top 40 radio of the '70s, and still have fond memories of personality-driven radio. I hold out hope that if stations like WXJZ are successful, maybe the corporate bigwigs will notice, and start allowing a little more freedom in their programming.

 

Sigh. I can only imagine what Richard's record collection looked like. All those Bread and Lobo singles. I heard he was either planning or did an Internet Radio show called America's Bottom 50 but I can't find any trace of it. Might have been one of his many obfuscations.

 

Someone should bring DV’s idea to fruition. Ideally it would be a late evening show. One could crack open the beverage of their choice and enjoy such primo offerings as “L. David Sloane,” “Leave My House,” “Cinderella Rockefella” and Lowell Fulsom’s classic version of “Why Don’t We Do It In the Road?” I am mentally ill enough that this appeals to me. Quality advertising could be hard to come by, however.

 

How long has WXJZ been doing this format? I realize that these numbers only reflect the overall 12+ age group, but they are #15 out of 16 stations in the market, as of their last ratings period? I pray that they own at least one better age demo or they're already finished, if they have been doing it for a while?

RADIO ONLINE ® »

 

Listening to him right now, LOL ...

http://player.listenlive.co/33961

 

I think it's been about 9 months give or take since they switched to the "Gainesville's Classic Hits" format, so it's not been a super long time. They have been doing more remotes at local businesses on the weekends as of late to drum up more attention. I hope this experiment works out, too, because WXJZ is a superior alternative to the other corporate automated classic rock / top 40 / R&B alternatives in this listening area. The demographic skews toward the young and transient though, being a college community. All I can do is sing their praises among my circle of acquaintances and keep my fingers crossed.

 

Since it's only been about 9 months or so, they may give it a chance? The problem that I see, again, by looking at those 12+ ratings for Gainesville, is that JVC Media (whom, like you said owns WXJZ), hasn't got another radio station anywhere near the top of the list (actually it's 9th place, a Country/Rock station), so they may not have the funds to keep guys like JoJo employed for long? The best thing going for you and JoJo, is that he is originally from that area, so he may wish to stick around, no matter what the pay is? Either way, I wish you both luck!

 

But maybe stuff from the Original Dixieland Jass Band?^^

 

I remember my parents playing a local easy-listening station in the early '70s - I remember hearing things like "Dream Baby" by Roy Orbison, "Things" by Bobby Darin, "(Theme From) a Summer Place" by Percy Faith as well as the more current fare like the Carpenters, Bread etc. Unfortunately I am too young to have explored the radio on my own at that time.

As I have developed a healthy interest in '50s music (at least in controlled doses), it'd have been nice to have been able to hear that in the '70s. By the time I started listening to oldies radio around 1980, it was much more '60s than '50s, at least in my neck of the woods.

 

The question is when was the term 'oldies' been used first (related on music)?
Otherwise, maybe there were a few radio stations in the 1960s that played 78s full of early jazz stuff but I can't imagine anything else there.^^

 

It swings too much maybe? It's been a while since I heard it.

 

I think all that ragtime and dixie stuff was very popular back in the 1910s/20s.^^

 

I don't have a definitive answer because I don't remember anything before about 1970, but wanted to post some related thoughts here.

There were the Oldies But Goodies vinyl albums from (I think) the early '70s. Trying to find a history of these releases (with dates) but am unable to find one. I do remember my brother winning a copy of Oldies But Goodies volume 11 around this time.

Speaking of Oldies but Goodies (which were on Original Sound Records), I just found out online that Art Laboe is still alive! His Wikipedia page says he coined the term "oldies but goodies" but once again, no date is given.

Also in the early '70s were "rock and roll revival shows". Bill Haley made a comeback at these. The famous incident with the crowd booing Rick Nelson when he played new material at one -- and led him to write "Garden Party" -- occurred at one of these also.

 

I remember KZAP, too. Great station, but what I'm thinking of wasn't KZAP. The station was, as I previously mentioned, 'almost' an oldies station, but no one ever said 'oldies.' At that time oldies meant '50s and I never heard anything '50s on it. The oldest tunes played were British Invasion and Surf. One thing about the station that always irked me (in a good way!) is it played true stereo mixes of things I could never find in stereo. Someone really loved The Hollies there and I heard lots of mid-sixties Hollies as I recall.

 

Still listen to KJUL FM Vegas for stuff like Sinatra, Bennet, Tom Jones, Shirley Bassey mixed in with soft rock era stuff like Al Stewart and John Denver along with newer adult contemporary artists like Diana Krall and Michael Buble.
This station has been around for decades.

 

In the '70s WNYC in New York had the Doo-Wop Shop on, I believe, Sunday nights.

 

I would say "oldies radio" started evolving in the early 1960's, but for most of the 60's and early 70's (when radio stations were not parts of conglomerate corporations and DJs had some freedom to program their own shows), "oldies" broadcasts were primarily limited to maybe one (or two at most) individual programs, typically for only one or two hours (like Saturday night at 10PM), and the station and DJs did their regular thing the rest of the week. The stations that broadcast pop standards (Sinatra, etc) in the 1950's and 1960's mostly played more recent recordings by pop singers

 

Rock songs which had gone out of "currency" WHILE *still* in the heyday of Rock radio (mid-'60s to, say, 1978...either on AM or FM) were just referred to as (fill-in-the-year) "GOLD", or: the dj would cite when the song had specifically been released when introducing it (example: NYC Top 40 powerhouse 77 WABC had "Do You Want to Know a Secret?" in their rotation as late as 1968! --- the host would just say "from April 1964: The Beatles"). WOR-FM would play, for instance, fake stereo Elvis from 1962 one minute; followed by: The Chambers' Brothers TIME HAS COME TODAY the next. WPIX 102, in 1974: one minute "'69 Gold" from R.B. Greaves ("Take a Letter, Maria")...next song: Clapton doing "I Shot the Sheriff".
Anyone unfamiliar with learning about things from that period may feel it must've been, like, some sort of "when-dinosaurs-ruled-the-Earth" era(without Internet, 24/7 news, etc.) --- BUT: there was actually MORE of a *diverse* mix of music and not such a hang-up over demographics.
And, for what is was "pre-Beatles": there would've been more standards heard from Broadway showtunes being covered (what FM, pre-1966, specifically would've been full of; in the hours it was not SIMULCASTING AM...which the FCC soon thereafter changed the rules toward). AM, in those "wilderness years" of '59-'63, would've had no qualms at all about inserting: Ferrante and Teicher or the Pete King Chorale between; Dion or Fats Domino(!).

 

Even as a kid back then, I always wondered what oldies but goodies Little Caesar was singing about.

 

I remember WLS and/or WCFL throwing in a 60s song here and there as an "oldie" during the 1970s. I remember a commercial for WXRT from around the late 70s-early 80s showing a cook in the kitchen, mentioning ingredients for a recipe. "An oldie for good measure." The chef took a dusty 45 and blew the dust off of it. Then there was Bob Stroud, whose "Rock And Roll Roots" switched stations over the years. Did he start on WMET? I know he was eventually on WLUP, WXRT and "CD 94.7" (WXCD) and now 97.1 WDRV ("The Drive"). I remember a show on the weekends called "Sixties On A Sunday," but I don't remember who hosted it.

In the early 1980s (pre-"Magic 104") I remember stumbling onto WCFL, now long past the "beautiful music" format which had replaced their top 40 format. They were now an AM oldies station. I remember hearing "Up Up And Away" by the Fifth Dimension on there. It was great to hear. I'd forgotten that song.

 

I enjoyed your post, but when I looked at the call letters I saw WMET. I had to do a double take, because the transmitter for the current WMET on AM 1160, which now transmits the catholic network EWTN is about two miles from my home in Gaithersburg, MD (and is a fairly low powered station at night). But then I remember that it used to be in Chicago. So I looked it up in Wikipedia and there it was "Former Call Signs, 95.5 FM in Chicago 1976 to 1986".