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What is the oldest song your classic country station will play?

V

vchimpanzee

Walk of Fame Participant
WBRF Galax VA is an FM with a monster signal and plenty of fans in small towns and even online, and lots of commercials for businesses in the larger towns that tend to have less than 10,000 people. It does reach some people in several of the larger markets. Most of the songs are from the 70s and 80s, with some 60s and 90s and even occasionally 50s and the new millennium.

And yet the DJ played a request from 1945, "Roly Poly" by Bob Wills, Tommy Duncan (I think that's the name) and the Texas Playboys. And he said, "That's my kind of music."
 
vchimpanzee said:
WBRF Galax VA is an FM with a monster signal and plenty of fans in small towns and even online, and lots of commercials for businesses in the larger towns that tend to have less than 10,000 people. It does reach some people in several of the larger markets. Most of the songs are from the 70s and 80s, with some 60s and 90s and even occasionally 50s and the new millennium.

And yet the DJ played a request from 1945, "Roly Poly" by Bob Wills, Tommy Duncan (I think that's the name) and the Texas Playboys. And he said, "That's my kind of music."
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Sounds like a station I'd enjoy, too. But obviously, this is a small-town, community-focused station with no agency advertising and no pressure from in-market competition to do anything differently. Still, "Roly Poly" -- or any Bob Wills -- outside of a weekend specialty show might be a bridge too far for the 40-year-old Garth Brooks/Alan Jackson/Reba McEntire fan to cross, though. Heck, that one is from 10 years before I was born!

To try to answer your question, Hartford doesn't have a classic country station in the clear, but WWYZ Waterbury does stream iHeart's classic country format on its HD2. Oldest songs I hear on it are iconic recordings like "Okie From Muskogee," "Rose Garden," "Ring of Fire," "The Race Is On," "Stand By Your Man," etc. But most of the playlist is '80s/'90s.
 
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Country is a rather strange format depending what part of the country you are in. In Texas there are heritage songs and artists that are known and, likely for lack of a better term, respected. Something like Roly Poly or maybe Hank Sr., and many others are the type that many newer artists list as influences and might even toss in at a concert. Naturally, we're not talking Taylor Swift doing Roly Poly.

Galax is almost dead center for the birthplace of country, where old time and bluegrass merged. Bluegrass is quite popular and you can bet many know the Carter Family songs and the legendary bluegrass artists even if they listen to current country or other music genres. It is almost a cultural thing. As long as it is done sparingly, once an airshift at most, it will likely be welcomed. The rural areas still tend to be rather old school. Many such stations are all gospel music on Sundays in these small towns and people love their town's station.

Also, most of these stations might get a buy for a franchisee in the area but the money almost entirely comes from the locally owned business and spot rates tend to be a bit lower than in many regions of the country. In the region, the AM daytimer with local content can easily beat out the satellite country format on the regional FM as far as listeners are concerned. At least that is my impression from traveling and spending time in places like Tennessee.

As per the topic, it appears most stations generally don't go much further back than 1980 and some stations are going forward to about 2005 these days. Most play the mega hits from as far back as the 1960s but they are few and some are listed in an earlier post..
 
b-turner said:
Galax is almost dead center for the birthplace of country, where old time and bluegrass merged. Bluegrass is quite popular and you can bet many know the Carter Family songs and the legendary bluegrass artists even if they listen to current country or other music genres.
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They do all-bluegrass between 6 and 7 PM, and some nights more than that.
 
The classic country station I help program for my community, Bemidji, Minnesota is KPMI AM 1300 and we have a library where we can draw from Jimmie Rodgers and the Carter Family all the way to the 1980s or so. For the 1990s hot country sounding artists on forward, we have 98.3 FM, which used to be a "Real Country" affiliate, but we decided to split the country formats. We have a religious block Sunday mornings starting with the Gaither Homecoming Radio, then on to remastered Old Fashioned Revival Hour OTR shows and then I play the country gospel classics with some CCM classics on occasion for 2 hours. We also syndicate Home Country and Pure American Country Radio (both the full show and the minute versions), we download Riders Radio Theater shows from the podcast and rebroadcast those shows and have them anchor the first 2 music sets and feature other cowboy music during that time shift as well, syndicate Rick Jackson's Country Classics from United Stations, and also Into The Blue (a syndicated Bluegrass show). www.kpmiam.com
 
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I would guess that the oldest song in the rotation for any station that plays it is Jimmy Dean's "Big John". 1961.

After that, any station that still plays Patsy Cline. I recently heard Patsy (Sweet Dreams of You) on a "Real Country" affiliated station's stream.
 
My area has three classic playing stations that I am aware of and they all play Patsy Cline, Merle Haggard, George Jones, Johnny Cash, Willie Nelson, Waylon Jennings etc.

WJFC in Jefferson City, TN
WMTN in Morristown, TN
WPFT in Sevierville, TN

God bless you always!!!

Holly
 
WVAL AM800 Sauk Rapids/St Cloud, MN is a classic country station. The other day heading into work I heard "Take An Old Cold Tater (And Wait)" by Little Jimmy Dickens. That was from 1949
 
James Otto Sweet Heart said:
WJFC in Jefferson City, TN
WMTN in Morristown, TN
WPFT in Sevierville, TN
Holly
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Hi, Holly, are you able to pick up WNTT of Tazewell, TN, from where you live? That is the area where my dad is from, and I would consider them to be his "hometown" station. I believe that they are mostly satellite-fed now, but I would be curious as to what they are playing these days.

My parents now live about a mile from me here in the midstate, and my dad keeps the garage radio set on WSM. I believe they keep their car radio on WSM as well. (The AM station, of course!)
 
firepoint525 said:
Hi, Holly, are you able to pick up WNTT of Tazewell, TN, from where you live? That is the area where my dad is from, and I would consider them to be his "hometown" station. I believe that they are mostly satellite-fed now, but I would be curious as to what they are playing these days.

My parents now live about a mile from me here in the midstate, and my dad keeps the garage radio set on WSM. I believe they keep their car radio on WSM as well. (The AM station, of course!)
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WNTT 1250AM plays satellite fed new country. Station is still very viable with Sunday preaching and Swap Shop type programming. Neat little operation.
 
I have 2 classic country stations 1360 KMJM is entirely syndicated. I have no idea what the oldest songs they play would be, but they have shifted much more heavily toward newer music, including music after 2000. 540 KWMT isn't really local but they have strong coverage here and they will play about anything classic I think. So I would say 40's?
 
I didn't have much time to listen but WMNC Morganton NC seems to play Westwood one Classic Hit Country. At least that was its old format before the Westwood One-Citadel merger. Apparently they chose to keep both classic-leaning formats. Whoever the DJ was she didn't identify herself but said go to her Facebook page to find out more about Jo Dee Messina. That's like the DJ on WEZV who said who she was "but you know that." No, apparently we don't.

The classic country stations I heard last week tended to play a lot of newer music, with a lot of 80s and 90s. But WMNC, still apparently on the satellite on Saturday, did play an obviously very old song which was identified as being sung by Bob Wills.
 
How about a classic country station that includes such things as Dust In The Wind - Kansas, One Of These Nights - Eagles? Talk about a train-wreck and songs that have no business being played on any country station! (I actually have heard both on a supposed classic country station)
 
GeoffR said:
How about a classic country station that includes such things as Dust In The Wind - Kansas, One Of These Nights - Eagles? Talk about a train-wreck and songs that have no business being played on any country station! (I actually have heard both on a supposed classic country station)
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I've heard quite a few Eagles songs that country stations never touched when they were current popping up on classic country stations today. Since several have become country hits as remakes (Take It Easy for Travis Tritt, Desperado for Clint Black, even Heartache Tonight for Conway Twitty), I can see how the originals might fit, although Heartache Tonight had few if any country elements to it, in performance or production, in either the Eagles or Twitty version. One of These Nights has never received the country remake treatment, but if Heartache Tonight is classic country, then why not?

I cannot rationalize Dust in the Wind on any sort of country playlist, though.
 
dcowboy7 said:
None - im in NY we dont have a classic country station.
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Considering that NYC went through some of country music's biggest years without a country station, that's no surprise. I'd imagine NYC might be the worst market for classic country in the entire nation, probably isn't even worth it to put the format on an HD2 or HD3.
 
I want to know what has happened to Bob Wills and Hank Sr. on WBRF.

Lately when they say the date of a song it's almost always from the 90s. Too much Tim McGraw and Brooks & Dunn for my taste.

And it's not like they've been playing classic country that long. Whenever The Band Perry was popular, WBRF played them (that's all I remember hearing) along with the good stuff, unless it was the classic country midday show.
 
vchimpanzee said:
I want to know what has happened to Bob Wills and Hank Sr. on WBRF.
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I imagine they woke up one day and realized they couldn't attract any advertising playing 70 year old music. It's one thing if it was a public station, and asked people to donate money, but they're trying to run a local station with local talent. That's not easy to do. You look at the web site, and all it talks about is current music by Luke Combs and Chris Stapleton. I'd wonder if a format change is in the works.
 
CTListener said:
Considering that NYC went through some of country music's biggest years without a country station, that's no surprise. I'd imagine NYC might be the worst market for classic country in the entire nation, probably isn't even worth it to put the format on an HD2 or HD3.
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San Francisco is worse as they haven't had a full-market country station in years and many large country tours skip the Bay Area completely (and if they do play the Bay Area, they play in San Jose, where KRTY seems to do well)
 
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