Beautiful Music as a radio format came out of the post WWII popularity of popular instrumental music, primarily orchestral. Which in turn derived from the creative and interesting orchestral arrangements of popular tunes by network and ET orchestras on radio in the 1920s and 30s. Lanza's book rather conflates Orchestral Popular Music on LPs, Beautiful Music on radio, and background music services which I think rather sells short each of those genres. They were all based on popular instrumental music and there are and always have been some overlaps but they were all handled and sold differently. "Mood Music" was a commercial tag used to sell records in the 50s just as "Elevator Music" was a pejorative reaction to the relative prominence of instrumental popular music on the radio and on the popularity charts and in commercial establishments and public spaces primarily in the last half of the 20th Century. Muzak was not the first wire background music service but was the most highly-capitalized in its formative years and the most cannily run until the 1960s. Many of the same musicians and arrangers who were responsible for Muzak and other background service music were recording popular singles and LPs as well as conducting and playing music on radio during the same period and earlier. Fascinating history to all those genres. The author of "Elevator Music" acknowledged me in the original edition but I was told left me out of the later one, perhaps because of my public differences with his viewpoint. But outside of Marlin Taylor's memoir Elevator Music the about the only popularly available stuff on those genres and is very entertainingly and even philosophically written. Perhaps one day after I am gone my own monograph will become available which corrects many of the historical errors in those books. Though it mostly consists of just the facts presented unvarnished. Nevertheless there is a drama in the histories of these genres.
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Which is more "Lite"? WFEZ/WLYF?
- Thread starter Wimmmex
- Start date
As a side note, MT programmed "Savoy Express, the Forties on Four",
plus one or two other channels on the original XM Satellite Radio.
I'm wondering if the current KBVA in Bella Vista, AR is also similar to the current KAHM.
I went to college in Fayetteville shortly after KBVA launched. It was never a beautiful music station. When I first arrived, the area had a beautiful music station in KESE 93.3, but it swapped formats with sister adult standards KJEM 1190 my second semester there. KESE 1190 ran the Jones easy format while KESE 93.3 ran what seemed to be a local beautiful music format. KTXR 101.3 out of Springfield was listenable on a good car radio or home stereo in that area, and it was a soft AC that still reached into its old library and played a few instrumental tunes an hour.
Since the Hendrens sold KBVA a few years ago, it has been a soft oldies station. To the best of my knowledge, it doesn't play instrumentals. That doesn't appear to have changed since Rox Radio took over about a month ago.
As I mentioned on another board, the GM under Hog Radio was a college friend of mine, and she had a deal to buy the stations at one point. I think COVID put the brakes on it, though. I still talk to her occasionally on LinkedIn, and I'll have to see if I can buy her lunch and get together the next time I go back to NWA. If I'm being honest, I really hated living there, but I always have a great time when I go back. It’s a pretty fun place to visit.
Late to this discussion, but would invite any fans of the BM format to check out our streaming station The Peach - we designed it specifically to honor the old Schulke/Bonneville formats - complete with silence carts between elements!
tunein.com
The Peach | Free Internet Radio | TuneIn
The Peach - US - Listen to free internet radio, news, sports, music, audiobooks, and podcasts. Stream live CNN, FOX News Radio, and MSNBC. Plus 100,000 AM/FM radio stations featuring music, news, and local sports talk.
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Quick note to "Dick's History." You wrote some very interesting thoughts in your posts. But please, use paragraphs. It's easier on the reader.
I agree with some of what you said. Sometimes herd mentality forces stations to jump earlier than they need to. But these stations had access to demographic info we couldn't see. Stations still showing excellent 12+ratings may have been seeing their 25-54 numbers declining sharply.
Adding Carole King and Barry Manilow songs may have helped some stations stay in the format a few years longer than if they stuck with only one or two Sinatra or Perry Como vocals per hour. Let's remember that when it first started, Beautiful Music stations didn't have ANY vocals.
Let's also remember some cities had three or four Beautiful Music stations at one time. In NYC, WPAT-AM-FM, WRFM, WTFM and WVNJ-FM were all Beautiful Music outlets through the 1970s and 80s. And both WNBC-FM and WPIX also spent some brief time in the format as well. As stations dropped out of the format, one or two remained for a few years longer. WPAT-FM was the last NYC beautiful music station still standing. So it's not like EVERYONE abandoned the format at the same time. The remaining stations hung in there as long as they could, at least in most cities.
Maybe someone should start a new thread... Why did listeners decide instrumental music is no longer appealing? Each generation wants its own music. I understand that. We went from classical to beautiful to smooth jazz. But at this point, there is no instrumental music whatsoever. Even classic hits stations won't play songs that were big Top 40 hits if they are instrumental.
I agree with some of what you said. Sometimes herd mentality forces stations to jump earlier than they need to. But these stations had access to demographic info we couldn't see. Stations still showing excellent 12+ratings may have been seeing their 25-54 numbers declining sharply.
Adding Carole King and Barry Manilow songs may have helped some stations stay in the format a few years longer than if they stuck with only one or two Sinatra or Perry Como vocals per hour. Let's remember that when it first started, Beautiful Music stations didn't have ANY vocals.
Let's also remember some cities had three or four Beautiful Music stations at one time. In NYC, WPAT-AM-FM, WRFM, WTFM and WVNJ-FM were all Beautiful Music outlets through the 1970s and 80s. And both WNBC-FM and WPIX also spent some brief time in the format as well. As stations dropped out of the format, one or two remained for a few years longer. WPAT-FM was the last NYC beautiful music station still standing. So it's not like EVERYONE abandoned the format at the same time. The remaining stations hung in there as long as they could, at least in most cities.
Maybe someone should start a new thread... Why did listeners decide instrumental music is no longer appealing? Each generation wants its own music. I understand that. We went from classical to beautiful to smooth jazz. But at this point, there is no instrumental music whatsoever. Even classic hits stations won't play songs that were big Top 40 hits if they are instrumental.
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"Frankenstein" by Edgar Winter. Although that's on Good Time Oldies.
Oldies radio also has the theme from "Hawaii Five-O" by The Ventures.
Love is Blue tested well enough when we were Oldies to play it. I talked it up once saying "This very moment, an elevator is opening its doors... right NOW."
We dumped oldies for classic rock a little over 10 years ago because the demos were ancient. Kind of what happened to B/EZ.
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