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I had a six transistor when I was a kid
Under my pillow I kept it hid
When the lights went out no one could see
Over the airwaves the world came to me
Lionel
Cartwright’s lyrical “I Saw It All On My Radio” came rushing back after
reading Marc Fisher’s delightful “Something In the Air”, a reminiscence of
“radio, rock and
the revolution that shaped a generation."
After spending decades in radio, albeit the
majority in the “three chords and the truth” world of country, I’d forgotten
the magic that lured me into a lifetime of broadcasting. Top 40 radio.
WLS “Channel 89”, KHJ “Boss Radio”,
WABC “The Home of the All-Americans”, KOMA in Oklahoma, KYA “The Boss of the
Bay”, WKNR “Keener” in Detroit and KIMN ”Tiger Radio” Denver, from the
fifties through the eighties, anybody under the age of thirty had ears glued
to the Top 40 station in their town. “We’ve got a mountain of music and
we’re working our way to the top.”
Top 40 was born in Omaha. In the
early fifties Todd Storz and his program director sat in a bar brainstorming
how to garner an audience for their low rated KOWH. Over the hours, and
several beers, they noticed the jukebox playing the same music, over and
over. Rock ‘n roll songs. And when the bar closed, the waitress spent tip
money on the same songs she’d been listening to the whole shift. If people
love the same tunes so much they’ll listen again and again, he thought,
let’s do that on the radio. Within two months KOWH was number one.
But there was more to the hypnotic
appeal of Top 40 than just hits. It was crazy contests, like treasure hunts
where thousands of dollars were buried somewhere in town, you had to listen
for clues to find the swag. These were soon outlawed because listeners were
savaging private property looking for the loot. Top 40 was excitement with
short shotgun jingles and loud, motor-mouthed jocks promoting sock hops and
“much more music just ahead”. It was over-hyped news, “When news breaks out
we break in” plus over the top promotions. “Pogo” Pogue, a KIMN dj, earned
his nickname hopping from Denver to Boulder and the same station’s, Steve
Kelley, planted his posterior, for charity, in every Mile High Stadium seat.
And Top 40 was larger than life dj’s.
Listeners locked their transistor dials on voices like “The Real” Don Steele
in L A, Chicago’s “Superjock” Larry Lujack, Casey Kasem in San Francisco,
while up and down the Eastern seaboard one heard radio giants like “Cousin
Brucie” in New York, Arnie “Woo-Woo” Ginsberg in Boston and Philadelphia’s
Jerry Blavet, “The Heater with a Geater”. From coast to coast Top 40 spoke
to “us” not our parents and played “our” music. Rock ‘n Roll.
By the late eighties, Top 40 was
toast. It fell victim to the static free signal of FM plus the hundreds of
new stations catering to specific music interests i.e. album oriented rock,
country, disco and beautiful music.
But for an entire generation, Top 40
was radio’s real “golden age”. Not the Jack Benny and Bob Hope broadcasts
our parents treasured, but voices like the “Wolfman”, Hotdog Harold Moore
and Robert W. Morgan on “The Official Beatles Station” in your town USA.
Aah Top 40, you are missed. |
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