Holiday programs abound on KUSC and other stations
KUSC (91.5 FM) has some special programming coming up.Monday, the station will present a 1966 performance of Handel’s “Messiah” at 9 p.m. with Colin Davis conducting the London Symphony Orchestra. Then on Tuesday, beginning at 7 a.m., is the annual live presentation of “A Festival of Nine Lessons and Carols,” the Christmas Eve service of readings and carols from Cambridge University, featuring the 30-voice King’s College Choir.
At 7 p.m. on Christmas Eve, Jim Svejda’s “The Evening Program” offers up some traditional holiday entertainment including Dylan Thomas reading his “A Child’s Christmas in Wales” and a complete performance of Tchaikovsky’s “The Nutcracker” with Simon Rattle conducting the Berlin Philharmonic.
Online Christmas
Looking for a Christmas flashback? Look no further than the Internet. Ken Borgers’ online tribute to former Long Beach jazz station KNOB (now KLAX, 97.9 FM) — www.JazzKNOB.org — will once again present the sounds of the season beginning at noon Christmas Eve and running through midnight Christmas Day.
The 36-hour special will be highlighted by a reading of the classic tale “ ’Twas the Night Before Christmas,” read by the late Los Angeles jazz radio personality Chuck Niles.
This recording will be presented six times throughout the webcast: noon and 6 p.m. Christmas Eve, and midnight, 6 a.m., noon and 6 p.m. Christmas Day. The rest of the time will be filled by traditional Christmas carols and holiday music harkening back to an earlier, more relaxed time in Southern California.
Then on New Year’s Eve, big bands will be heard as the web station presents “A Big Band New Year’s Eve,” from 4 p.m. to 1 a.m. Host Borgers will ring in the new year with recordings of live performances from the past. The programming is commercial-free.
Mailbag
Q As a former producer (operator) at CKLW, another Boss format station, I could not help but notice the omission of any mention of Bill Drake or Gene Chenault in your recent column about KHJ. When I was working at CKLW, they were the only programmers we heard about. Just wondering.
I had occasion to go to L.A. a year ago and was shocked that my demographic — age 67 and ’60s music — does not appear to exist in your fair city. Just curious.
— Colin Kennedy, Woodstock, Ontario
A I believe your letter may win the award for the longest-distance reader of the column; I assume you read it online.
CKLW, based in Windsor, Ontario, and serving Windsor and Detroit, was indeed a Boss station, legendary at that. Anyway, no disrespect was intended for either Drake or Chenault, who were also instrumental in the success of KHJ and others using the “Drake” format. The focus of the column was solely on Ron Jacobs’ book and my reading of his memos included in the book, so I intentionally left out Drake and Chenault. In the past, I have discussed their contributions many times.
As to the lack of ’60s music in the Los Angeles area, that is the direction radio is going, for better or for worse. Think about this: The 1960s started almost 44 years ago. If music from 44 years prior were played in 1965, you’d be hearing songs from 1921.
Radio, being the youth-driven medium it is, doesn’t want to skew that old, so the oldies stations have moved up in years to the 1980s. May sound weird to you and me, but it’s the radio business truth. And it is one reason for us to have iPods and satellite radio.
Of course the exception to this rule is my son, Sean, who learned to play guitar through songs from the 1960s and ’70s, especially Led Zeppelin. So not everyone likes the 1980s.
Richard Wagoner is a San Pedro freelance writer covering radio in Southern California. Send him email at rwagoner@cox.net.
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