The Week WYNR "Played" WLS

Does anyone here remember the week in about September, 1962 when WYNR 1390 would play every song WLS 890 played right after they played it? I guess the idea was to get people familiar with the station where if they heard a song they liked, they could hear it again right away without waiting, and get people tuning to and familiar with WYNR. It was right after McLendon took over the station. When I visited in November, I don't think they were doing the exact same songs, but within a day I was doing the same thing. Flipping back and forth to hear a song I wanted to hear again. Of course, it didn't last too long until WYNR became All News WNUS.

Were you listening in 1962 up in Leelanau County at night, David? I used to listen to it into the 1990s when I was in Northern Michigan when they were playing "Dusties" as WGCI. It used to blast in with very little interference before some other stations on 1390 increased night facilities. The "Dusties" were also long gone, and there wasn't much left to listen to on WGCI anyway. It's still a pest in Scandinavia.

Schroedingers Cat said:

Does anyone here remember the week in about September, 1962 when WYNR 1390 would play every song WLS 890 played right after they played it? I guess the idea was to get people familiar with the station where if they heard a song they liked, they could hear it again right away without waiting, and get people tuning to and familiar with WYNR. It was right after McLendon took over the station. When I visited in November, I don't think they were doing the exact same songs, but within a day I was doing the same thing. Flipping back and forth to hear a song I wanted to hear again. Of course, it didn't last too long until WYNR became All News WNUS.

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I don't remember that at all. What I do remember on Aug 31, 1962 is that WYNR played "The Mopitty Mope" song over & over as a stunt. I also remember a few months later when Dick Kemp who was on opposite Dick Biondi on WLS used to mention how many songs Biondi played in the last hour and that he and WYNR played many more songs than Biondi on WLS.
This really aggravated Biondi and eventually led to his demanding less commercials on his show. This of course led to the big argument that Biondi had with WLS management about the enormous commercial load on his show and Biondi's eventual exit from WLS in May of 63.

Dusty Radio 1390 in the early 1990s.

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=P6Z_dLWT--Q

This was actually Richard Stamz' survey, not WGES, from September, 1962.

http://www.las-solanas.com/surveys/WGES/WGES_1962-09-14_1.jpg

Vivian Carter had worked at WGES, and had a huge influence at Chicago radio stations. Note that she was influential in getting Vee Jay's first "majority" act played on R & B stations, The Four Seasons. Their next "majority" act was...drum roll...The Beatles. In the end, royalty disputes were a big part of what did Vee Jay in. The Beatles never made the national R & B charts, though they were played on some R & B stations.

Dick Biondi played the Beatles "Please Please Me" on WLS in Feb 1963 a full year before they came to the US.. It also appeared on a couple of WLS surveys in early March of 63, but went nowhere.

Here's Dick Kemp on WYNR on September 1, 1962.

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=I023GDbYipo

Another thread here is about Dick Biondi being absent from WLS-FM. Maybe Biondi was recording another album?

https://books.google.com/books?id=X...0CCkQ6AEwBQ#v=onepage&q=dick kemp wls&f=false

Schroedingers Cat said:

Here's Dick Kemp on WYNR on September 1, 1962.

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=I023GDbYipo

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Yes, I have that aircheck. If you ever find the one from the day before, Aug 31, 1962 on WGES, please let me know. I've been looking for that and I know it exists.

Schroedingers Cat said:

Does anyone here remember the week in about September, 1962 when WYNR 1390 would play every song WLS 890 played right after they played it?

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I don't remember that one, but I definitely remember the "Mopety-Mope" stunt. They'd announce a current song....even perhaps throw in a comment about the artist, etc. and then play "Mopety-Mope". I also remember "Wild Child" Kemp and the "records played last hour (versus WLS) counts. Briefly, where I was starting high school Wauconda, they developed quite a following despite having an inferior signal there.

As a "sidebar", one of my personal favorite memories of WYNR was listening to what was then a novelty....a female jock in the person of Yvonne Daniels. I don't recall what various shifts she worked other than (at that time) Sunday afternoons. Sunday was my day to have to wash my mom's car. So while she was in the house listening to Mal Bellairs (who would became my future employer for a short time), I was in the driveway with my transistor radio listening to Yvonne Daniels claiming to have "The best figure in Chicago....1390".

WYNR not only played more music than WLS, but had a much larger play list. The big problem was their signal. Very inferior to WLS. Several people have pointed out that WYNR's night skywave to the north was very good, but I can tell you that in the near north suburbs at night it wasn't too good unless you had a very good radio.

WGRT 950 had a better daytime signal with just 1000 watts than WYNR/WVON/WGCI 1390 in many parts of Chicago due to its central location, mid dial position, and nondirectional signal. With the deep 1390 null crossing Chicago, particularly in the night pattern, and 250 watt night Class IVs also unable to compete, R&B stations handed over many listeners to WLS at night before FM took over. One of the few advantages of the WLS TL was its strong coverage of the R&B demographics, particularly at night. But with the present format, the TL is a disadvantage, and is one overlooked factor in its recent ratings problems. ABC...Cumulus badly needs more FMs in the market.

radioman148 said:

WYNR not only played more music than WLS, but had a much larger play list. The big problem was their signal. Very inferior to WLS. Several people have pointed out that WYNR's night skywave to the north was very good, but I can tell you that in the near north suburbs at night it wasn't too good unless you had a very good radio.

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Where I grew up and went to high school in Wauconda (northwest....12 miles east of where I am now), WYNR developed a following BRIEFLY, as I alluded to in my earlier post. There was a lot of interest in the station and the higher-energy presentation for several months, but eventually, frustration with the weak signal sent just about everyone back to WLS. Driving around town in the daytime, you couldn't go more than a block or two in any direction without hitting dead spots. At night, the overall signal strength was about the same, but now the dead spots were filled by other 1390s breaking through.

WOKY had a better night signal where I was. And also being situated close to WLS on the dial (at 920), it replaced WYNR after the novelty wore off as the go-to top 40 alternative.

cyberdad said:

Where I grew up and went to high school in Wauconda (northwest....12 miles east of where I am now), WYNR developed a following BRIEFLY, as I alluded to in my earlier post. There was a lot of interest in the station and the higher-energy presentation for several months, but eventually, frustration with the weak signal sent just about everyone back to WLS. Driving around town in the daytime, you couldn't go more than a block or two in any direction without hitting dead spots. At night, the overall signal strength was about the same, but now the dead spots were filled by other 1390s breaking through.

WOKY had a better night signal where I was. And also being situated close to WLS on the dial (at 920), it replaced WYNR after the novelty wore off as the go-to top 40 alternative.

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That's the way I remember it as well, the novelty of WYNR wore off quickly. At first there was some excitement. I remember at my school someone had a record hop hosted by a WYNR DJ, Johnny Evans if I remember. He didn't charge for the appearance and gave away lots of free records. The publicity was nice, but WYNR didn't last too long. WLS continued to rule.

Another thing I remember about WYNR were PAMS jingles "leftovers". Ones that WLS apparently had passed on, but that I had heard in other markets. A few of which remain in regular rotation on my computer and ipod in the form of their versions on WTIX, KFWB, and WQAM to name a few.

Mister cyberdad remembers listening to Yvonne Daniels, who worked at WYNR, WCFL, WSDM, WLS, WVON, WGCI and WNUA and died in 1991. In the Chicago Tribune obituary, Danae Alexander observed, "Before Yvonne, very few women thought about becoming disc jockeys because disc jockeys were all males." One of those "few women" was Sie Holliday (born Shirley Schneider), who became a DJ at San Diego top-40 station KDEO in 1959 and worked at Pasadena top-40 station KRLA from 1962 to 1976. I wonder if anyone knows who was the first female full-time DJ in the United States.

http://articles.chicagotribune.com/...9_1_jazz-program-yvonne-daniels-chicago-radio

I'm going to respond to myself. I still haven't determined who was the nation's first female DJ...but I just came across the Los Angeles Times obituary (February 13, 2002) for Peyton Place actress Evelyn Scott. The story says she was the first female DJ in Los Angeles, working mornings at KMPC and later at KHJ. I'm guessing she was on the air in the early 1950s. And the research goes on!

http://articles.latimes.com/2002/feb/13/local/me-scott13

Watch and see how cleverly I tie this post into Chicago radio. I still haven't conclusively found who was the first female DJ in the nation but Evelyn Scott might be. From what I can tell, she did mornings at KMPC in 1949-50 (and possibly earlier), moving to KHJ in 1950 when Dick Whittinghill took over the KMPC morning show. Whittinghill stayed at KMPC until 1979 when he retired and was replaced by former KHJ "Boss Jock" Robert W. Morgan, who had also done mornings at WIND in 1971-72. "zzzZAPPP! You're Morganized!"

I'm pretty comfortable in saying Yvonne Daniels was probably Chicago's first female DJ. She certainly was not the first female program host, and she had also worked in radio in Jacksonville, Florida before coming to Chicago. She died in 1991 at age 53 and was inducted into the radio hall of fame in 1995. She's also remembered for co-hosting the overnight jazz program on WCFL in the mid-to late 1960s. WCFL had another moment in broadcast history around the same time as Daniels' hiring, when it brought Carole Simpson on board as news anchor and reporter. Simpson went on to a long and distingusished career with ABC news including weekend anchor and presidential debate moderator. Less well-remembered was WCFL's other female news anchor, Wanda Wells....another fine talent.