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Did kids in the North get into rock and roll later than the South?

B

BMR

(I can't find a specific radio nostalgia board, mods feel free to move this)

Given that rock and roll was shunned at first by mainstream radio, and played mostly on border blasters from Mexico, did the music catch on later in cities that were further north and hence out of range of the X stations?
 
BMR said:
Given that rock and roll was shunned at first by mainstream radio, and played mostly on border blasters from Mexico, did the music catch on later in cities that were further north and hence out of range of the X stations?
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Not sure that I agree with your premise. It was shunned by the popular stations, but heard on smaller stations, often late at night.

Technically, rock & roll was not what we know now, but more of what is called R&B, performed mainly by black artists. That's what Alan Freed was playing in Cleveland. Wherever you had large black populations, you had late night r&b radio.

As for southern radio, there were early stations in Memphis (home of Elvis Presley) and Nashville. Thanks to the sky wave, AM stations could be heard over long distances at night. I think the border blasters you speak of came later.
 
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There were plenty of early Top 40's in the South, including Gordon McLendon's KLIF in Dallas which preceeded rock 'n roll by several years... and then his stations in Houston, San Antonio, Shreeveport and El Paso. Or the Storz station in New Orleans, WTIX. WAKE in Atlanta. WKDA in Nashville, WLCY in Tampa, WPDQ and WAPE in Jacksonville, WHBQ and then WMPS (one of the early Plough Top 40's) in Memphis WROV in Roanoke and many others were very early Top 40 stations.

I don't recall there being rock 'n roll on what was really the only useful border blaster at the time, XERF, until much later when Wolfman Jack arrived. It was all hymns and prayer tablecloths and the Bleeding Statue of Jesus and the Resurrection Plant in the 60's. Oh, yeah... the baby chicks, too. The other two "blasters", XEG and XELO, were also mostly in the preaching and mail order business, not rock 'n roll purveyors.

I don't agree that rock 'n roll was "mostly" played on the border blasters from Mexico. In the later 50's, there were really only three of those (as mentioned) and they were not programming Top 40 because it did not sell ads or produce revenue; the PI's for the Gospel Songbooks did.

The North had its share of early stations, with Cleveland having a Top 40 going back to about 1956. While some of the early Top 40's were less competitive technical facilities, that did not mean that ones like WRIT in Milwaukee or WOLF in Syracuse had less impact. The period from 1956 to 1959 had dozens and dozens of conversions to Top 40. by 1958, even places like Jamestown, ND, had a Top 40 on one of those marvelous low dial position coverage monsters. In that period, Lansing had WILS and Flint had WTAC and Muskegon had WSNX and even WHGR in Houghton Lake did Top 40 at least in afternoons and evenings... and that is just one state and a couple of markets.
 
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DavidEduardo said:
There were plenty of early Top 40's in the South...
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Keep in mind that at the time, Top 40 didn't necessarily mean rock & roll. It just meant popular. So that could mean Doris Day and Connie Francis.

When we're talking about rock & roll, the real stuff wasn't necessarily in the Top 40.
 
TheBigA said:
Keep in mind that at the time, Top 40 didn't necessarily mean rock & roll. It just meant popular. So that could mean Doris Day and Connie Francis.

When we're talking about rock & roll, the real stuff wasn't necessarily in the Top 40.
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But the elements of rock & roll were part of the format. Even in harder-core rock & roll cities, like Cleveland, the Top 40's would play Dominico Modugno next to Chuck Berry. Or Danny & The Juniors next to Perry Como.
 
Then, there were stations that aired the music only at night. Dick Novak at KPOJ(Portland Oregon Journal)in Portland had an R&B show in Portland, as far back as 1954 and there has never been a significant Black population here. By the way, when the current KPOJ switched to a 50s and early 60s Oldies format, that association was the reason for the call letter change.
 
Thanks guys. I'm basing my premise that rock and roll was played only on X stations on Robert Palmer's book and TV series" Dancing in the street" which might well be over simplifying....
 
I think our area....Chicago and vacinity....was probably typical. WIND, which had a good signal, had what essentially a top-40 type format (without it being called that) since the early 1950s. Built around playing current hits. When rock and roll emerged in the mid-decade, WIND kept essentially the same format as it had earlier, but relegated Chuck Berry, Little Richard, and the harder Elvis stuff, etc. to nighttime. During the day, you'd get Elvis' softer tunes (e.g. "Don't be Cruel), along with Fats Domino, Everly Brothers etc., mixed in with Sinatra, Peggy Lee, Guy Mitchell, etc.

After a year or two of this, WJJD, an daytimer with slightly extended hours and a signal inferior to WIND's launched a more traditional top-40 format which included both the harder AND softer stuff. So you could hear "Volare" and "Charlie Brown" in the same half hour. 'JJD held its own with this for a while until WLS put basically the same format on a fulltime 50KW non-directional blowtorch signal. As for WIND, their format stayed fairly similar, but they gradually ditched the harder stuff at night. By the early and mid-60s, WIND's music strongly reflected the Billboard Magazine "Adult Contemporary" Chart.
 
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What seems amazing to someone like me who missed out on the first decade of rock n roll was that the ownership of an old-line, rather buttoned-up seeming operation like WMT radio and TV in Cedar Rapids took a chance on a then new station in Fort Dodge IA, KEOK. They purchased it in 1957, changed the calls to K-WMT, hired Dr. Don Rose among others and went top-40. It was a fine signal on 540, which probably got WMT's interest in the first place, but it was a daytimer.

Even though KWMT was almost a local in Des Moines, it couldn't compete with fulltimers KIOA and KSO. It seems hard to believe today that such a stalwart in country music radio like KWMT once had Dr. Don Rose on board. https://www.desmoinesbroadcasting.com/stations-misc/kwmt/kwmt-survey-1958/kwmt-apr5-58-survey.html
 
cyberdad said:
I think our area....Chicago and vacinity....was probably typical. WIND, which had a good signal, had what essentially a top-40 type format (without it being called that) since the early 1950s. Built around playing current hits. When rock and roll emerged in the mid-decade, WIND kept essentially the same format as it had earlier, but relegated Chuck Berry, Little Richard, and the harder Elvis stuff, etc. to nighttime. During the day, you'd get Elvis' softer tunes (e.g. "Don't be Cruel), along with Fats Domino, Everly Brothers etc., mixed in with Sinatra, Peggy Lee, Guy Mitchell, etc.

After a year or two of this, WJJD, an daytimer with slightly extended hours and a signal inferior to WIND's launched a more traditional top-40 format which included both the harder AND softer stuff. So you could hear "Volare" and "Charlie Brown" in the same half hour. 'JJD held its own with this for a while until WLS put basically the same format on a fulltime 50KW non-directional blowtorch signal. As for WIND, their format stayed fairly similar, but they gradually ditched the harder stuff at night. By the early and mid-60s, WIND's music strongly reflected the Billboard Magazine "Adult Contemporary" Chart.
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Without looking it up, I just assumed that WCFL predated WLS in Top 40. Wasn't 'LS bogged down by Breakfast Club and other ABC shows?
 
cyberdad said:
I think our area....Chicago and vacinity....was probably typical. WIND, which had a good signal, had what essentially a top-40 type format (without it being called that) since the early 1950s. Built around playing current hits. When rock and roll emerged in the mid-decade, WIND kept essentially the same format as it had earlier, but relegated Chuck Berry, Little Richard, and the harder Elvis stuff, etc. to nighttime. During the day, you'd get Elvis' softer tunes (e.g. "Don't be Cruel), along with Fats Domino, Everly Brothers etc., mixed in with Sinatra, Peggy Lee, Guy Mitchell, etc.

After a year or two of this, WJJD, an daytimer with slightly extended hours and a signal inferior to WIND's launched a more traditional top-40 format which included both the harder AND softer stuff. So you could hear "Volare" and "Charlie Brown" in the same half hour. 'JJD held its own with this for a while until WLS put basically the same format on a fulltime 50KW non-directional blowtorch signal. As for WIND, their format stayed fairly similar, but they gradually ditched the harder stuff at night. By the early and mid-60s, WIND's music strongly reflected the Billboard Magazine "Adult Contemporary" Chart.
Click to expand...

Without looking it up, I just assumed that WCFL predated WLS in Top 40. Wasn't 'LS bogged down by Breakfast Club and other ABC shows?
 
Initially, WMT only owned half of KWMT. The guy who got the original license still owned the other half. When WMT bought him out, they dropped top 40 for a farm and MOR format (although much more current based MOR than stodgy WMT). In 1970, they switched to country. By then it was no longer owned by WMT.

I expect KWMT had a bit of a sales problem... older advertisers tended to think it was only kids listening, when it obviously wasn't. Sioux City didn't get a full time top 40 station until the mid-70s!
 
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semoochie said:
Without looking it up, I just assumed that WCFL predated WLS in Top 40. Wasn't 'LS bogged down by Breakfast Club and other ABC shows?
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Yes, till the end of 1967 WLS had to carry Don Macneil's Breakfast Club in the late morning, and at some point in the 60s, they had to clear News Scope for maybe a full hour in the early evening. WLS went top 40 in the spring of 1960; WCFL was a mix of MOR and jazz until (I think) the fall of 1965, when they flipped to top 40 except for their (I assume crazy moneymaking) overnight jazz show. When Larry Lujack arrived for overnights in '67, that slot switched from jazz to oldies for about 6 months, during which time Lar had to famously field calls from listeners asking, "What's all this Brenda Lee bull****, baby?" So it wasn't till maybe late '67 that CFL was full time top 40.
 
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Corky Marlowe said:
Yes, till the end of 1967 WLS had to carry Don Macneil's Breakfast Club in the late morning, and at some point in the 60s, they had to clear News Scope for maybe a full hour in the early evening. WLS went top 40 in the spring of 1960; WCFL was a mix of MOR and jazz until (I think) the fall of 1965, when they flipped to top 40 except for their (I assume crazy moneymaking) overnight jazz show. When Larry Lujack arrived for overnights in '67, that slot switched from jazz to oldies for about 6 months, during which time Lar had to famously field calls from listeners asking, "What's all this Brenda Lee bull****, baby?" So it wasn't till maybe late '67 that CFL was full time top 40.
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Thank you. And there have been others, WMAQ for one, I believe.
 
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