-
Get involved.
We want your input!
Apply for Membership and join the conversations about everything related to broadcasting.
After we receive your registration, a moderator will review it. After your registration is approved, you will be permitted to post.
If you use a disposable or false email address, your registration will be rejected.
After your membership is approved, please take a minute to tell us a little bit about yourself.
https://www.radiodiscussions.com/forums/introduce-yourself.1088/
Thanks in advance and have fun!
RadioDiscussions Administrators
Where Do Oldies Stations' Music Libraries Go When They're Defunct?
- Thread starter cc333
- Start date
They should contact the AFM. If they played on hits, they might be able to get some mailbox money.
EDIT: Under the DMCA SoundExchange will pay a 1% royalty to musicians on all songs streamed. If the song is used in a movie or TV show, there is an even higher royalty. The union can advise how to collect. Payees must also register with SoundExchange.
Last edited:
Promo edit = radio edit = short version. The long version was 4 1/2 minutes long. That's what oldies stations play now. Those classic rock stations that haven't "aged out" dinosaurs like Steppenwolf play the long one.
Completists who want to collect as many versions as they can.
I owned a station that played oldies on FM in Indianapolis in the 1990's I sill have the CD's. My wife calls them clutter because we put them all on hard drive long ago.
Most radio stations have had the music library on hard drive for at least 20 years.
Most radio stations have had the music library on hard drive for at least 20 years.
Good Time Oldies doesn't have the long organ solo.
Back in the day the session and studio players in Nashville made more than "union scale". They got payed very well and if you were good the work was steady. Studio time was expensive. Retakes because the studio guys messed were rare. These guys could "sight read" just about any written music perfect the first time they played.
You could make more playing for a "star" but the 45 plus weeks out on the road was a strain on the family life.
Write a few hits and let the "mail box money" roll in.
Actually they developed a system that was different from written music:
Nashville Number System - Wikipedia
It's still in use today. Union scale is based on your role (leader, sideman) and if it's a master or demo session.
I have a room with tons of CDs, many that are compilation ones from radio stations and also found at thrift stores like the Time Life series. I have friends ask me "Why all that? You can stream those nowadays and gain your space back!" I tell them at least I own the media and not worry about a service yanking it. Plus there are rare gems and stuff you will not find on streaming. My nephew loves going through those and ripping them to the music server. And I have enough space for those things.
Damn, I screwed up my reply. I meant to write that the SHORT version is the one you hear on oldies station. I'm slipping. Maybe I should take a cognitive test.
Fine, but that in no way obligates radio stations to release their no-longer-needed promo singles into the retail world or to be the targets of anger from "completists" when they opt to dump them in the trash instead. The completist can always Dumpster dive outside the radio station and save himself that buck he would have spent on that 45 at Goodwill.
Worth considering is that in the era of 45's and promo CD singles, stations got ten or more times the number of promo disks than they could ever put on the playlist. So most ended up being put in a box to give to the promotion crew to give away at remotes and events.
All those singles said was "not for sale" and "promotion copy". If we did not play them, let visitors to a remote dig one out of a bin to see if they got a "good one".
In my college days, I won my choice of LPs from WCAS(AM) Cambridge, MA, which was, at the time, running an eclectic folk-centered format, kind of like today's Americana, but with Celtic, jazz, R&B and rock elements. Anyway, I had to go to the station to claim my prize, and when I did so, I was shown a box full of albums, most of which I either already had or weren't of any interest. I wound up taking home one by Justin Hayward and John Lodge of the Moody Blues, with the telltale plain white label and "For promotional use only" warning on it.
I did. The original single was a different mix from the long version we all know and hear, with different vocals, as well as its being an edit.
And the "single edit" that was included on a well-known oldies-for-radio series of CDs sucked, big time. Sounded like whoever edited it either a) had never heard the original single version or edit, or b) they edited it haphazardly. It sounded horrible.
I ended up editing up a better approximation for the format company when they needed their Oldies format updated. This was after looking for an original 45 edit. Which never was released to CD. In fact, there is a compilation of "one hit wonders" on CD where the compiler (some famous oldies expert/DJ) used a grainy old 45 version.
The original single mix tape apparently was tossed not too long after the pressing of the 45s..
Back to the promos aren't for sale. I would think that applied more to sales of new promos, as opposed to years after the fact. Who's going to ship them back to the record company, anyway. And like David Eduardo says, radio stations used to hand out promo 45's at public promotion events. My older cousins got a few promo 45's that way.
When my cousin helped closed up a station the old owners said "Everything is up to you what you want to do with it or chuck iti n the dumpster." So he "inherited" lots of equipment, rackmount stuff, CDs, records, etc. He sorted through the stuff and asked me if I was interested. Ofc I was! We set up a "radio studio" in a spare room with most things in working order. Some other things we donated to a couple of radio museums for their collection!
The University FM radio station I help at had to move from one location to a new one on campus. The station has been on the air since 1958, although only a few LPs from that era exist. Still, there is a sense of history there, and for the large collection of vinyl and CDs the station's music library was given more space than before. This has been real good for the Oldies shows, and special shows, that they do. While the main format is new Alternative music, there are students interested in some aspects of music that they don't know much about. There is a weekly, hour long, program for February, Black History Month, focusing on different aspects of relevant music. One of the hosts was interested in Sly and The Family Stone. The music library had both LP and CDs for use. For the Oldies shows, the library allows the hosts to do some unique segments.
Additionally, there are some music lovers that want the original item, in good shape, and will pay to get them. Having all of the music on a hard drive is cold and unexciting, and that includes getting the cover art on-line. For some, part of the music listening experience is to get to hold the physical item, and look over the album and CD art, read the credits, look at the pictures, along with putting the record onto the turntable and engaging the arm handle, or putting in the CD... and in the case of me, also enjoy looking at the labels. I even, rarely, enjoy watching the record, particularly the 45's spin. One time, I got a kind-of psychedelic effect from watching my original Atlantic 45 single of Led Zepplin's "Whole Lotta Love" spin while the record player played that long noise segment in the middle. Far out, man. Same thing with Steppenwolf's "Magic Carpet Ride", although the full version was on an LP. And then there's the custom 45 sleeves. I strive to have all of my 45s and LPs in their proper sleeves, and if I can't come up with one, then a generic sleeve will do.
This sounds like what I ran into at WUTM when I was in college there.
I also ran into demos of LPs, cassettes and CDs of CCM albums at the Christian bookstores in my area. There were a couple of them that would have sales of demos they had at the middle and end of the year. Also a great place for me was the used record stores in Nashville like The Great Escape, Phonoluxe, and McKay's. With the music industry there would be a lot of demos that would end up there.
In the old days, I was always curious about what happened to station record libraries when they changed formats.
Here in Tennessee, the old 680 WMPS had a huge library of pop, classical, disco and country records. When Plough sold the station in the mid 1980s, they went to the University of Memphis.
WHBQ gave their library to one of the djs when they went talk in 1983. The old Rock 103 threw their album rock library in the dumpster in 1985 when they went CHR and had to repurchase a rock library 2 year later when they went back to AOR.
Much of the KSUD Southern Gospel library went to one of our WEVL djs that does a quartet show. WREC offered their record library of MOR records to WEVL last time they moved, but we didn’t have room for them so they probably ended up in a dumpster. Regret now not taking them home.
WAMB’s massive library of Big Band recordings went to Vanderbilt. Always wondered what happened to WSM and WLAC’s library, especially WSM. Eddie Stubbs use to play some very rare records on WSM, but I think they came from his own collection.
I know WWL in New Orleans had a huge collection of country records in the attic of the old Rampart St house for the overnight trucker show. Would love to know where that ended up when the program moved to Nashville.
Here in Tennessee, the old 680 WMPS had a huge library of pop, classical, disco and country records. When Plough sold the station in the mid 1980s, they went to the University of Memphis.
WHBQ gave their library to one of the djs when they went talk in 1983. The old Rock 103 threw their album rock library in the dumpster in 1985 when they went CHR and had to repurchase a rock library 2 year later when they went back to AOR.
Much of the KSUD Southern Gospel library went to one of our WEVL djs that does a quartet show. WREC offered their record library of MOR records to WEVL last time they moved, but we didn’t have room for them so they probably ended up in a dumpster. Regret now not taking them home.
WAMB’s massive library of Big Band recordings went to Vanderbilt. Always wondered what happened to WSM and WLAC’s library, especially WSM. Eddie Stubbs use to play some very rare records on WSM, but I think they came from his own collection.
I know WWL in New Orleans had a huge collection of country records in the attic of the old Rampart St house for the overnight trucker show. Would love to know where that ended up when the program moved to Nashville.