1970s WCWA MOR music

[Goldilocks94941]

Maybe it's something that happens to the brain at a certain stage in life, but some of the songs I used to hear years ago on WCWA Toledo are coming back to me, sort of - but they're songs I haven't been able to locate online.

One of them was a medium-tempo pop song about Sausalito, California "sau-sa-li-to...I've been gone too long. Bye-bye- baby. . . something something something's got me down."

Or something like that.

Anyone remember it? Know the artist and song title? Better yet, are any playlists or "WCWA top 40" songlistss or the like available from back then to look up anywhere?

There were similar shows, I think, on the old WKYC Radio (AM1100) from Cleveland and maybe on WTVN-AM from Columbus, WXYZ Detroit (AM1270) and WIMA Lima, too. I'm talking about before the Music of Your LIfe days - when it was the softer side of top 40 pop, B-sides, and adult standards.

It really was a pleasure to listen to, with sharp personalities, music that wasn't too soft or too hard, hourly news updates (on the half hour from ABC, I think), etc. Makes me miss the MOR personality format - especially on weekend afternoons.

-- Goldilocks

 

[jackandcoke]

There was a song called "Sausalito Summer Nights" by a Dutch group called Diesel that was a minor hit in 1981. Was "Seaway" still some sort of AC in the early eighties? I was a jock across town in the early seventies and WCWA & WOHO (1470) were slugging it out over that turf--what we would call Hot AC in today's world--with a very good 1130/WCAR booming in on top of them from up I-75.

As you said, some very good radio.

 

[KFodor]

Many of these stations, though, had reputations for being "full service". They reached adult listeners then with a combination of music, local DJ's who did not scream, news, sports, weather. The music, to be certain, was a popular portion of the programming, but not the "be all/end all".

Unfortunately, most stations of this ilk would not have ever published a "Top 40" list. That would have made them seem too much like a "rock station". Few adults then would have frequented a record store to get the list. That was a "teeny bopper" thing.

Though I can't speak for every station, few of the ones in bigger cities were playing "B-sides". Here in Dayton, WHIO-AM radio was heavily researched (for what research existed at the time), and only played the current hits that resonated with the audience (they usually never added something that fit unless it was almost #1, if not already what is called today a "recurrent"), with more of the music being the softer side of the 1950's and 1960's, think Andy Williams, Dinah Washington, the very softest hits of the Beatles (think "And I Love Her"), Anne Murray, Vic Damone, Sammy Davis, Junior, Dean Martin, etc.

 

[del_griffith]

Some of the artists blended with the safer side of contemporary music was the format of WTVN in the late 60's. In the early 70's they were playing cuts from Enoch Lights big band album. They still used instrumentals, some hip like Booker T and some less hip like the Elgarts, to get to news at the top and bottom until the mid 70's. Fraim continued with a single cut per morning of a big band standard in a feature called "The Way They Were" until he left the station in the late mid 70's.

WRFD was the adult standard station in the 60's, went country in the late 60's, then oldies in the about 71 or 72 and then back to standards as the Unrock in about 76 or 77.