Music through the Night

[destinationradio]

I noticed on the first part of that JFK WLW aircheck that the tape captured the tail end of Music through the Night, sponsored by American Airlines, before the 5 a.m. news. I've heard of this service before but know very little about it. Was it an NBC program? What years/days/times did it run? Were there network and local avails? Did many stations air it?

 

[Cincinnati Kid]

This show was titled "Music 'Til Dawn" and was sponsored by American Airlines. As I remember, the show on WLW began at 12:30 A.M. (following "Moon River") and ran until 5:00 A.M. The program featured basic semi-classical instrumental music with a live host. The show's theme song was "That's All" also as an instrumental. For many years, this was the only all-night program on Cincinnati radio.

WLW was one of a number of stations that aired a program titled "Music 'Til Dawn" in the 1950's and 1960's. Each had their own music and host. The sponsor on each station was American Airlines.

 

[del_griffith]

I seem to remember a similar program on WJR called Nightflight 76.

 

[LKellerIII]

Was/Is WLW a CBS station? Music 'Til Dawn was the overnight music program on CBS owned KNX 1070 (Los Angeles) and KCBS 740 (San Francisco) in the 50s and 60s before both stations went to an All News format.

 

[del_griffith]

WLW was NBC from the 80's and going back to at least the mid 40's.

 

[JeeperOne]

Keep in mind that during the weekend of the JFK Assassination (After it happened of course) WLW aired funeral music interludes whenever NBC wasn't broadcasting national news coverage of the events leading up to the funeral itself (In fact, the long form aircheck I referred to elsewhere here stops in the wee Sunday Morning hours local time. As such, the murder of Lee Harvey Oswald isn't included)

Cheers & 73

 

[Joseph_Gallant]

I don't think "Music 'Till Dawn" was a network show, but a "franchise" (much like TV's "Romper Room"), done at each individual station.

Thus, it's possible that in some areas, the sponsor determined where the show would air, and maybe thought that in Cincinnati, WLW-700's powerful signal was the best place for it.

Also, CBS didn't have a radio O&O there at the time, so the deal may have been that American Airlines sponsored "Music 'Till Dan" on the CBS Radio O&O's, and also the airline to franchise the show to other powerful stations in cities where CBS didn't have an O&O.

 

[FreddyE1977]

WWSW in Pittsburgh had a show just like this called "1500 Club".
Interestingly they kept the name, even after moving dial positions to
1490 and then 970.

 

[LKellerIII]

I don't think "Music 'Till Dawn" was a network show, but a "franchise" (much like TV's "Romper Room"), done at each individual station.

Exactly. Not even really a "franchise," just a show title that was commonly used by CBS stations. I don't know about any others, but both KNX and KCBS had live local DJs on Music Til Dawn.

An analogy is the Westinghouse TV stations that generally called their local news programming in most markets "Eyewitness News." In that case, a number of ABC stations picked up the title in markets that didn't have Westinghouse owned stations. So for example, KABC-TV in LA had (has) Eyewitness News, but KGO-TV San Francisco did not, because Westinghouse owned KPIX was already using the title. Obviously, Westinghouse never copyrighted the brand.

The same was probably true of Music Til Dawn which likely found it's way to non-CBS stations.

 

[Bongwater]

I don't think "Music 'Till Dawn" was a network show, but a "franchise" (much like TV's "Romper Room"), done at each individual station.

Exactly. Not even really a "franchise," just a show title that was commonly used by CBS stations. I don't know about any others, but both KNX and KCBS had live local DJs on Music Til Dawn.

An analogy is the Westinghouse TV stations that generally called their local news programming in most markets "Eyewitness News." In that case, a number of ABC stations picked up the title in markets that didn't have Westinghouse owned stations. So for example, KABC-TV in LA had (has) Eyewitness News, but KGO-TV San Francisco did not, because Westinghouse owned KPIX was already using the title. Obviously, Westinghouse never copyrighted the brand.

The same was probably true of Music Til Dawn which likely found it's way to non-CBS stations.

I'm not sure if it's still on, but there used to be an overnight program aired on religious radio called "Nightwatch". It played your traditional church hymns with a big-voiced announcer, who would read Bible verses and offer a reflection. And then go back to the music.

 

[Mike_Rafone]

If there had been a major air crash in the previous 24 hours, American Airlines suspended their advertising.

 

[Corky Marlowe]

I'm not sure if it's still on, but there used to be an overnight program aired on religious radio called "Nightwatch". It played your traditional church hymns with a big-voiced announcer, who would read Bible verses and offer a reflection. And then go back to the music.

"Nightwatch" with Bill Pierce. WBCL in Fort Wayne used to carry it.

 

[Cincinnati Kid]

If there had been a major air crash in the previous 24 hours, American Airlines suspended their advertising.

I think is/was true of all airlines. In 1966, I was working at an FM station in Ohio that had accounts for three of the smaller airlines. There was an incident at a West Virginia airport where the one of the motors on the plane had exploded while the plane was on the ground causing parts of the plane to go into the passenger area. This was in the afternoon and there were no fatalities at that point (although as I recall one person did later die from injuries), but the station's owner immediately advised to not play any of the airline commercials for 24 hours and noted this was in the contract.

 

[GeneSavage]

"Nightwatch" with Bill Pierce. WBCL in Fort Wayne used to carry it.

Actually, NightSOUNDS, not Nightwatch.

Although the host passed away in 2010, his show continues:

http://nightsoundsradio.org/
http://www.nightsoundsministry.com/

I first listened to this show growing up in the 70s & 80s, then ran the show in the 90s on a local Christian talk AM. It was the last show we would air before sign-off at midnight, and was a fantastic footnote to the day's broadcast.

When the station later went 24/7 and something came on after the closing notes of his show, it sounded all wrong to me.

 

[EZway2go]

I seem to remember a similar program on WJR called Nightflight 76.

I remember that. They used the sound of an airplane taking off for its opening and closing theme.

Gee, scanning the dial now certainly isn't like it used to be in the middle of the night. With only a few exceptions, not only is there nothing but talk, it seems to be the same syndicated talk show across the country... which takes the fun out of scanning the dial.

 

[The King Bee]

I remember back in the 70's and 80's, KMOX St. Louis had a great overnight adult standards weekend show called "Music and Musing" with host Tony Orem.

After Cardinal baseball and Blues hockey games, Tony came on with smoother-than-smooth music (Nat Cole, Mantovani, Mel Torme, Tony Bennett, et al) and the coolest raps and intros/outros....it almost seemed he had all the artists in the studios and just tapped them on the shoulder to start their songs!

A true example of real radio...

 

[Cincinnati Kid]

Wish I would have listened to that. To me, one of the best all-night shows was John McCormick on KMOX in the 1960's. "The man who walks and talks at midnight". He is the best radio announcer I've ever heard.

 

[EZway2go]

I remember back in the 70's and 80's, KMOX St. Louis had a great overnight adult standards weekend show called "Music and Musing" with host Tony Orem.

After Cardinal baseball and Blues hockey games, Tony came on with smoother-than-smooth music (Nat Cole, Mantovani, Mel Torme, Tony Bennett, et al) and the coolest raps and intros/outros....it almost seemed he had all the artists in the studios and just tapped them on the shoulder to start their songs!

A true example of real radio...

I don't remember KMOX as far back as the '70s and '80s, but I do remember a really nice Saturday–Sunday overnight music show into the '90s. It was hosted by Ralph Graczak. You're right about the music being smoother-than-smooth. For some reason, Jackie Gleason-type instrumentals come to mind. He had a nice delivery which was the perfect complement to the music and read little anecdotes of news stories that aren't really news. The show was taken off around 1998 but I think Ralph Graczak is still with KMOX.

 

[ChrisInMI]

While WJR had Night Flight 76, CKLW was the Music Till Dawn affiliate station in Detroit/Windsor, or so I've read. Obviously, this was well before the station became "The Big 8," would have been around 1963-64.

"Music Through/Thru the Night" is of course today the name of two syndicated shows. One is Classical and carried over the Classical 24 satellite network, and the other is religious and syndicated by Moody.