60's Music Gone From WCBS-FM

Steve Green NEPA said:

Wonderful reminiscing there, Land Tuna. Thanks for sharing. It's Holiday time, and as such it's great experiencing nostalgia such as that.,

I joined the Navy several years after you did, but never wound up in Nam. Thoroughly undistinguished E-3 hitch. Never served on a ship! It was all radio and Morse Code and short wave, with -- would you believe -- a stint at the Army base of Fort Bragg, doing the blips and beeps and teaching the stuff? At age 19 ? Lol.

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My submission to this thread is mild compared to your fine contribution, but does speak somewhat of a form of culture-clash vis-a-vis oldies.
In 1967, for reasons I'm sure made sense at the time, I wound up listening almost exclusively to Countrypolitan 97 WJRZ. Good stuff ...... Don Gibson, Red Sovine, Loretta Lynn, Stonewall Jackson. I'm a rock and roll punk but I liked WJRZ's sound -- a Top 40 station with jingles and DJs, and which played cowboy records.

As a result, I thoroughly missed the ascent and the peak of one huge song. People at work were singing it for a while. I never heard the darned thing until it was off the charts of WMCA and WABC.
So to this day, the tune 'Windy' by the Association sounds newer and more fresh to me than any other 'oldie'

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On the other hand, where I lived, "Windy" had an early run, dropped out and came back when it hit nationally. To this day, that's the only time I can remember that happening!

semoochie said:

On the other hand, where I lived, "Windy" had an early run, dropped out and came back when it hit nationally. To this day, that's the only time I can remember that happening!

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I remember The Youngbloods "Come Together" released and played in the summer/fall of 1967 (?) and later became a big hit in 1969

SuperRadioFan said:

I remember The Youngbloods "Come Together" released and played in the summer/fall of 1967 (?) and later became a big hit in 1969

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There's a very nice paragraph on Wikipedia that explains this but unfortunately I no longer have a real computer.

Of course, the Youngbloods' song is "Get Together" rather than "Come Together," but that's most likely just a brainfart.

landtuna said:

My parents music was WWII-era - something the happy go lucky 50's didn't want to relive. Big Band music is still a blast to dance to but the crooners, with few exceptions, put me right to sleep. Bing Crosby had perhaps the most beautiful male voice in all creation but his private life was a piece of work. Male and female vocalists were a dime a dozen during this period and most of them pretty ordinary. I include Sinatra in that list.

My music was the happy go lucky 50's when RnR was born and most music reflected the good times and happy days and was targeted at the teens of the day.

Then came the early 60's and the death of happy days and beginning of the drug culture. Later in the decade came protest music and anti-war songs. Not surprising people don't want to hear most of those songs again. The British Invasion introduced a whole new sound to the USA and shook up the music industry.

The 70's was a time of musical innovation and experimentation and carry over of the drug culture music. Many great tracks in this time period and probably why it remains popular so many years later. Even Disco, wildly panned at the time, left some remarkable legacy stuff.

Mid-80's to current - rap-crap, hair bands, grunge and hip-hop. No wonder people seem to like the old stuff.

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I might as well add my experiences. I discovered World War II music for the most part when radio stations started playing it in the late 70s. I had heard some of the songs, and the big band style and related jazz were all over TV in the late 60s and early 70s and on a lot of the shows I watched, especially variety shows. Some of the vocalists didn't appeal to me at first but the fast-moving instrumentals I liked, and some of the slow ones as well. I didn't make a connection to the war.

I was introduced to 50s rock and roll by commercials in the 70s for records that had the music, and of course I watched "Happy Days" after it had been around a few years, but not at first.

Before I was a teenager I mostly heard soft rock and pop and country, not the protest songs. I never developed a taste for protest songs or the British invasion. I don't even recall hearing a "top 40" station until the 70s and I didn't like a lot of that. The radio stations I liked as a teenager played soft rock and disco, mostly "feel good" tunes. I also liked the instrumental music played as background in so many businesses and medical and dental offices.

My first experience with a standards station (though I recall hearing "High Hopes" on a station whose format I don't recall years earlier) was one night while listening to my high school football game. The announcer said the other radio station airing the game for the opponent was sharing the booth with them. I decided to see if I could find the station. Instead I found WCKY 1530 Cincinnati. Now that was good music!

While I was in college I got my first clock radio to wake up rather than use an alarm clock. I was afraid soft rock would be too loud so I tried country. That was the urban cowboy era. Later there was a standards station, with big bands and even contemporary stuff from Kenny Rogers and Barbra Streisand.

So-called "Lite" stations replaced the beautiful music stations, but new beautiful music stations came along to replace them. I liked it all. Then adult standards stations became really common and a lot of this music was new to me. It didn't represent any era. It just sounded good. These stations were even playing "doo wop" and softer oldies.

vchimpanzee said:

Instead I found WCKY 1530 Cincinnati. Now that was good music!

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Sounds like you're talking about the late 1970s for WCKY. The Post sale to Federated. An interesting radio station. Sort of a personality version of beautiful music. Double digit ratings 12+ but mostly upper demos. Then a quick fall once 1980 arrived with News/Talk soon to follow. As for me, never much of a rocker either. My station was MOR WLW Cincinnati.

CTListener said:

Of course, the Youngbloods' song is "Get Together" rather than "Come Together," but that's most likely just a brainfart.

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OOOPS yes you are correct sir I was in a hurry

I guess this is as good a place as any to mention this. Although most of the music on "Scream Queens" seems to be from the 80s, Chanel, the college student who is sort of the main character, has never even heard of the TV series "M*A*S*H" or certain other things her current boyfriend has mentioned. John Stamos plays the boyfriend, so you know he must be pretty old. She's really trying hard to understand what he knows. She even listened to the "oldies" station and learned about Blink-182, Smash Mouth and Chumbawamba. Then she and her friends dressed up like people did in World War II, listened to Roosevelt on the radio and played "Boogie Woogie Bugle Boy". His response? "How old do you think I am?"

vchimpanzee said:

Then she and her friends dressed up like people did in World War II, listened to Roosevelt on the radio and played "Boogie Woogie Bugle Boy". His response? "How old do you think I am?"

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The Andrews Sisters had the first big hit with this WWII classic but it was covered by Bette Midler in 1972 and reached the top ten so you didn't have to be THAT old to have heard it.

P.S. The Lennon Sisters also did a cover, uniforms and all, on the Welk Show in 2003.

landtuna said:

The Andrews Sisters had the first big hit with this WWII classic but it was covered by Bette Midler in 1972 and reached the top ten so you didn't have to be THAT old to have heard it.

P.S. The Lennon Sisters also did a cover, uniforms and all, on the Welk Show in 2003.

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I didn't know John had any sisters!

landtuna said:

The Andrews Sisters had the first big hit with this WWII classic but it was covered by Bette Midler in 1972 and reached the top ten so you didn't have to be THAT old to have heard it.

P.S. The Lennon Sisters also did a cover, uniforms and all, on the Welk Show in 2003.

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I thought of that too, but the Chanels and the others went all out, thinking the military sitcom Stamos' character liked was about WWII.

In a previous post I mentioned WKCE was playing oldies no one else plays. The owner of that station just either leased of bought a station in Plattsburg New York AM1070 and 103.7 FM and changed the calls to WPLB Same programing as WKCE They also have the same music feed on WFAT in Massachusetts.

jbl said:

In a previous post I mentioned WKCE was playing oldies no one else plays. The owner of that station just either leased of bought a station in Plattsburg New York AM1070 and 103.7 FM and changed the calls to WPLB Same programing as WKCE They also have the same music feed on WFAT in Massachusetts.

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Not only the same programming but almost exactly the same presentation, playlists and web presence as well. The only things different I can hear right now is that WPLB carries ABC News segment on the hour and WKCE has a local DJ on morning drive.

UPDATE: Just heard Roger Morgan, the local DJ, on WPLB as well. They are playing the same exact songs at the same exact time despite being far apart geographically.

Also....how can WPLB claim Montreal as a COL?

landtuna said:

Not only the same programming but almost exactly the same presentation, playlists and web presence as well. The only things different I can hear right now is that WPLB carries ABC News segment on the hour and WKCE has a local DJ on morning drive.

UPDATE: Just heard Roger Morgan, the local DJ, on WPLB as well. They are playing the same exact songs at the same exact time despite being far apart geographically.

Also....how can WPLB claim Montreal as a COL?

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If you look on Radio Locator site it looks like their 1070 signal reaches Canada and it is a daytime only signal. Roger is on WKCE 8 am to 10 am and just started on WPLB today from Noon to 1pm. WFAT AM 700 runs the same feed also Roger is not on that station which is also a daytime only station They run 24 hours on the FM signals. Great to hear a station like this not run by big companies and a DJ that actually answers the phone and plays your request.

DavidEduardo said:

It does not claim Montreal as a city of license. The FCC allows any other cities to be listed after the community of license. So one could say "KOOL-FM, Phoenix, Las Vegas and Los Angeles" if they wanted to. The important thing is to list the COL first.

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What then is the purpose of a station using multiple cities in their COL?

Here's a quick example: I believe WXPK 107.1 COL is "Briarcliffe Manor", they ID as 107.1 WXPK Briarcliffe Manor-White Plains, i.e. most people know where White Plains is but not necessarily where Briarcliffe Manor is

SuperRadioFan said:

Here's a quick example: I believe WXPK 107.1 COL is "Briarcliffe Manor", they ID as 107.1 WXPK Briarcliffe Manor-White Plains, i.e. most people know where White Plains is but not necessarily where Briarcliffe Manor is

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Public radio station WFCR (88.5) Amherst MA announces WFCR Amherst-Springfield-Hartford, mentioning the two largest cities its signal reaches. Everyone in Springfield, and probably nearly everybody in Hartford, knows where Amherst is, but it never hurts to give the centers of the metropolitan areas the station serves a top-of-hour mention. The Hartford reference is especially important, as the NPR affiliate that serves Hartford, WNPR (90.5), is a news/talk station, while WFCR programs classical music and jazz along with NPR's morning and afternoon drive shows. Hartford doesn't have a comparable station; the closest would be WSHU (91.1) Fairfield, but its signal is sketchy at best in Hartford.

SuperRadioFan said:

Here's a quick example: I believe WXPK 107.1 COL is "Briarcliffe Manor", they ID as 107.1 WXPK Briarcliffe Manor-White Plains, i.e. most people know where White Plains is but not necessarily where Briarcliffe Manor is

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I used to live in White Plains and never heard of Briarcliffe Manor.