Radio Waves Podcast #263

 Country stars Luke Bryan and John Langston are coming to a radio near you

Luke Bryan and John Langston will be hosting the 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. midday shift on Go Country (105.1 FM). Bryan and Langston will be heard weekdays starting Monday and running through Sept. 25.

Expect a lot of stories … both are known for storytelling in their music and my hunch is they will be entertaining as DJs spinning their favorite country tunes.

Go Country station manager Michael Levine says, “We couldn’t be more excited … They have such a loyal following in Southern California, and I know listeners will be thrilled to hear them on the station each day!”

More Sports

There’s a brand-new station in town. Well, almost in town. And almost brand new.

Flamethrower station XEPRS (1090 AM) — the onetime home of Wolfman Jack — was sports-formatted The Mighty 1090 when it abruptly went off the air over a year ago in April of 2019.

Bill Hagen of Out the Window Advertising put together a business plan to get the format back on the air. Now known as The Mightier 1090, there are no studios … everything is done from home studios and “the cloud,” but listeners won’t be able to tell due to the magic of modern technology. Besides, due to Covid-19, most stations are doing essentially the same thing.
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On the air weekdays as of August 17 is The Morning After with Ariel Epstein and Jared Smith (6 a.m. – 9 a.m.); Rich Eisen (9 a.m. – noon); Coast to Coast with Scott Ferrall (1 p.m. – 3 p.m.); Scott Kaplan and Crew (3p.m. – 7 p.m.); On the Bench with Scott Ferrall (7 p.m. – 9 p.m.); Into the Night with Tony Bruno and Harry Mays (9 p.m. – midnight); SportsRage Late Night with Gabe Morency (midnight – 2 a.m.); Bagels and Bad Beats with Scott Wetzel (2 a.m. – 4 a.m.) and The Early Line with Kevin Walsh and Dane Martinez (4 a.m. – 6 a.m.).

Weekends include Mike Blewett, George Kurtz, Joe Lisi, Kevin Walsh, Dane Martinez, Elissa Walker Campbell, Jake Asman, John Michaels and many more.

I am impressed that they have programming 24-hours per day without repeats, but come on … Scott Ferrall twice a day? That’s just torture.

Top-40 Responses

No, I’m not going to count them down. But I am impressed that you so quickly sent your additions to my list of “the best” top-40 stations of all time … keeping in mind there is absolutely no way to create such a list.

And I am also aware that there are numerous other stations that can be recognized as well, both current and in the past, from different formats. That will happen in later editions of this very column.

A sampling so far:

Russ from Glendale: “Richard, here in no particular order, is my list of favorite Top 40 radio stations: KFWB, KHJ. KRLA, KKDJ, KGBS, KTNQ, KMGG, KROQ (when it was an AM station), KIQQ, KEZY KFMB” By the way, KGBS is in a league of its own for various reasons, I want too highlight the one-time daytime station in the near future.

Rick Shafarman of Santa Clarita: “To me, as a kid growing up in the NYC suburbs, the gold standard was always WABC in NYC. Dan Ingram, Cousin Brucie, Chuck Leonard, these guys were the greatest. I’d walk around with a little transistor radio listening. I distinctly remember as a 9-year-old, one wintry Sunday night, watching the Beatles on Ed Sullivan, going to bed listening to WABC, and waking up the next morning listening to WABeatleC. They really embraced the Beatles. It was from listening to WABC that I yearned to be a DJ.”

Mike Weyhrich: “I wanted to add a favorite to your list. It is a station that is often overlooked in the powerhouses you noted. It is the “Mighty 1290 KOIL” in Omaha, Nebraska. If you look at its history it was the launching point of so many top 40 names like the real Don Steele, Robert W. Morgan, Gary Owens, Fred Winston at WLS and more.

“By the time I made it out to Orange Country in the late 70’s, the great LA top 40 stations were fading. I got attached to KFI because of Lohman and Barkley. It was only a couple more years and mostly all the AM top 40 world was gone.”

Steve Portias: “KFXM, which was an AM mainstay from the late 1950s through the ’70s bringing bands like Dick Dale, Beach Boys, Elvis and others’ concerts were broadcasted live on their station. Then the most important one was KMEN, out of San Bernardino from the 1960’s though 2015 … bringing the Rolling Stones for their very first American performance which was at the Swing Auditorium, San Bernardino, as well as other bands like Sonny & Cher, Grateful Dead, Jefferson Airplane, Janice Joplin, Jimi Hendrix, Dylan, Donavon, Canned Heat, and dozens more. All these concerts were broadcast live.“They also featured Hall of Fame DJ’s like Chuck Clements, Bill Watson, William F Williams who  were all inducted into the Crusin’ Hall of Fame around 2004; These stations had promotional contest and give-aways of new Corvettes and other muscle cars…cash prizes, concert tickets, parties, and more.”More letters … next week. In the meantime, stay tuned to this very newspaper.

Radio Waves Podcast #262

Radio August 23, 2020

    I didn’t see it until earlier this month, but in August of 2017, Radio Ink (radioink.com) ran a story on the “greatest top-40 radio stations of all time.” You can read it yourself at tinyurl.com/rw0823.

    It’s an interesting read, though in my opinion it is an impossible list to create. Even the two “programming experts” — Lee Abrams and Randy Michaels — didn’t agree. I myself have some ideas, but I am in no way qualified to find the “greatest” simply because I have not heard them all.

    Nor can I use my formative years as the basis for the list, as early top-40 stations (before my time) that set the standard were working from a different starting place yet still influenced the industry as much or more than the later stations generally credited with being the most influential. KHJ, for example.

    What makes the list viable, though, is the idea of what would put a station onto the list itself. Abrams details what he looks for: 15 elements including such aspects as on-air production, music, personalities, swagger/vibe, audience respect, the ability to influence record sales, and more. His choice for the top station? KHJ. Michaels top-pick? KIIS (alluding to both the AM and FM versions). The station chosen by readers of the piece? CKLW/Windsor-Detroit.

    Again, my perspective is somewhat limited. I was born in 1963 so early stations were often gone by the time I started listening to the radio. And I am limited to Southern California, as I have lived here all my life, plus recordings I hear via sites like ReelRadio.Com and YouTube. But if I were to come up with a list, I would use basically the same criteria as Abrams, with a focus on the on-air presentation, the stations vibe, and the excitement generated by all elements of programming, from the personalities, to the contests, to the breaking of new music.

    In no particular order, then, are stations that I would place on such a list, and the reasons why.

    • KRLA/Los Angeles. They knocked KFWB out of the top-spot and brought the Beatles to Los Angeles. They also launched the careers of many television stars, as well as Casey Kasem who went on to count down American Top-40.

    • KHJ/Los Angeles. No list can be complete without KHJ, arguably the most imitated station ever. In its prime, it was flawless. Exciting promotions, great DJs, excellent news coverage, special events and concerts for listeners, and engineers who could get the best sound and distance one could get from a little 5000 watt transmitter.

    • KFRC/San Francisco. When KHJ was at its prime, it was flawless. So was KFRC, and KFRC was at its prime more often than was KHJ, which suffered from a revolving door of programmers in the 1970s and a resulting inconsistent sound. KFRC, on the other hand, maintained its sound throughout its history and actually held ion to the format — and top-ratings — about five years longer than did KHJ. On the other hand, KHJ got screwed by owner RKO when the decisions as made to go country … had Chuck Martin continued as programmer in the 1980s, it might be a different story.

    • WCFL/Chicago. Purists will say that competitor WLS was the winner, and indeed it did often beat WCFL in the ratings. But to my ears, WCFL — owned by the Chicago Federation of Labor — was more exciting. But that’s why this is in no particular order.

    • WLS/Chicago. Realistically, you cannot include WCFL without also including WLS. Many of the personalities worked at both stations, and WLS had a flamethrower signal that in the 1980s make it to Southern California — cleanly — at night. The competition between the two stations was intense and made both of them better.

    •KCBQ/San Diego. One of my earliest listens. The same elements as with the local Drake/Boss station KGB, but even more polished and even more creative.
 
    •KFMB-FM/San Diego. Better known as B-100, this is the station that knocked KCBQ out off the top-spot, and was the first top-rated FM top-40 station, not only in San Diego, b ut nationwide.

    • KIIS-FM/Los Angeles. Not the early days … when former KKDJ became the FM simulcast of KIIS (AM), it was OK. But the killer KIIS-FM came during the early 1980s when the experts said top-40 was dead. That “dead” format (using the WLS jingles, by the way) went on to dominate the city just as KHJ had done 17 years prior. And to give credit where credit is due, the format is still running today (though the current version would be an honorable mention due to lack of anything setting it apart from the crowd).

    KEZY/Anaheim. The big-sounding station from the small town in Orange County. It was highly respected for its presentation, and many DJS from KEZY could write their own tickets after working there. One of the most exciting small stations anywhere.

    KTNQ/Los Angeles. Just when KHJ was going through one of its bad eras, Ten-Q came out hard and (other than the payola-based lame songs they added to the playlist) for a short time just dominated the city. Exciting, vibrant … kind of like KCBQ when it dethroned KGB.

    KGB/San Diego. But not for the era everyone thinks. The early days were great, admittedly, but when KGB became really exciting was in the later stages as 13-K … going top-40 just when so many other stations were leaving the format in the mid-late 1970s. Ot was a time when it went from being a has-been to a truly competitive station with great personalities, eclipsing AOR-formatted KGB-FM for a time.
 
    Honorable mentions: KKDJ/Los Angeles, for being a great top-40 FM only to be prevented from making inroads due to AM’s continued dominance at the time (and being squeezed by K-100); KIQQ/Los Angeles post K-100, when it was breaking new music even faster than KROQ; XETRA/Tijuana as The Mighty 690 making AM music relevant just a little longer; KFI/Los Angeles during the John Rook Hitparade era; KRIZ/Phoenix which went off the air while still number one in town when the owners just wanted to sell.

    What are your favorites? Let me know and I’ll get them on to the “list.”

    Short Takes

    Music will return to weekends on the former MusicRadio WABC/New York. “Cousin Brucie” Bruce Morrow has left SiriusXM’s 60s on 6 and will return to the station where he spun records in the 1960s, every Saturday from 6-9 p.m. Eastern, beginning September 5th.
 
    The Hollywood Bowl may be closed down due to the Covid scare, but KCRW (89.9 FM) is presenting recorded performances from the Bowl every Sunday from 6:30 - 8 p.m. through October 11.

    A variety of artists will be featured; go to kcrw.com for full details.

Radio Waves EXTRA: Ken Levine

 A "career spanning" interview with Ken Levine (aka on the radio as Beaver Cleaver)

Ken's blog:  http://kenlevine.blogspot.com/

Ken's podcast: https://hollywoodandlevine.libsyn.com/

Radio Waves Podcast #261

This radio website has the hit song chart information you used to get at record stores

If you grew up in the 1960s and ‘70s, one of the things you would pick up at your local Music City, Sears, Penny’s, Wards, Licorice Pizza, Wherehouse or Music Plus when you went to buy your favorite 45 RPM records was the local radio station music surveys.

In the early days, the lists were more akin to station newsletters. The KRLA Beat, for example, had station, artist and music news presented in a newspaper style. The later surveys such as the KHJ Boss 30 lists included a list of the top hits of the week — “hitbounds” (that were often not) — a little blurb on one of the DJs and perhaps some info on the latest contest.

Essentially they were cheap promotions for a station, and they were a great way to keep up on the latest hits during an era when so much music was available, an “oldie” was anything more than a few months old … today music even a few years old is considered “new.”

Reader Marilyn Kirkpatrick of Covina remembers. “I’ve never seen you mention this in one of your columns, but, for those people who might have listened to local L.A.  stations in the past, there is a web site — oldiesloon.com — that has weekly lists of charted songs for the following stations: KRLA (1959-1966), KFWB (1958-1967), KHJ (1965-1975) and KFI (1979-1980). These are the weekly lists that used to be available in record stores. Although I realize that these are mere lists, they are a really nice reminder of the music that a lot of us grew up with. They have also been invaluable as resources for class reunions, such as the top songs for the week when we graduated from high school.”

Absolutely. And it’s an interesting way to find songs you haven’t heard for years, as many of the top songs of a station were not necessarily popular nationwide, or for whatever reason just are not played today.

In addition to oldies loon, I found another site that has the actual scans of the surveys from KHJ in addition to a ton of station information focussing on the early years Boss Radio, 1965 through 1973. You can see what they have to offer at https://93khj.blogspot.com.

Mess around

Entercom is making a mess of mornings … with a new morning show on Amp Radio (KAMP, 97.1 FM). As you read about in Kelli Skye Fadroski’s piece on the Morning Mess crew, the new show with Joey Boy, Aneesh Ratan, Jeana Shepard, and Karla Hernandez started August 3rd and runs weekday mornings from 5-10 a.m.

In a press release, Entercom Regional President Jeff Federman said that “Joey Boy and The Morning Mess are a true reflection of Southern California. They are diverse, dynamic, socially responsible and completely transparent.”

They are not, however, in Southern California. The Morning Mash is a morning show out of sister station KALV-FM/Phoenix, with a bit of local content added in order so it seems like it’s a local show.

It’s not.

As reported extensively over the past few months by InsideMusicMedia.Com‘s Jerry Del Colliano, Entercom is in the process of reducing its talent payroll by position cuts, salary cuts, and plan to syndicate talent around the country rather than having local programs. “The plan would give the company a chance to syndicate what they consider their top-rated (and paid) talent so they can fire largely morning hosts in other markets,” he wrote on July 22nd, and it appears Del Colliano is right on the money.

In my opinion, a major, full-power station in Los Angeles using a syndicated morning program is an embarrassment; there is absolutely no excuse for the cuts Entercom CEO David Field is making, which seems designed to run the company — and all of its stations —  into the ground.

At least, host Joey Boy was grew up in Los Angeles, while Ratan and Shepard were raised in the Valley. Hernandez is a native of Napa. And honestly, I have nothing against the show itself nor any of the hosts; they are seemingly great people. I’ll do a full review of the show in a few weeks, once I give them a fair shake and let them get used to doing a show for here even if it isn’t done here.

My only complaint has to do with the idea itself: Radio is local and should have local shows. Phoenix is not local, sorry.

Radio Waves Podcast #260

Radio: August 9, 2020

    Entercom is making a Mess of mornings … with a new morning show on Amp Radio (KAMP, 97.1 FM).

    It started August 3rd and runs weekday mornings from 5 - 10 a.m., with Joey Boy, Aneesh Ratan, Jeana Shepard, and Karla Hernandez presenting The Morning Mess.
 
    In a press release, Entercom Regional President Jeff Federman said that “Joey Boy and The Morning Mess are a true reflection of Southern California. They are diverse, dynamic, socially responsible and completely transparent.”

    They also are not in Southern California. Keeping with Entercom’s corporate mandate to do everything on the cheap, the Morning Mash is actually nothing more than a morning show out of sister station KALV-FM/Phoenix, with a bit of local content added in order for them to be able to pretend it’s a local show.

    It’s not.

    As reported extensively over the past few months by InsideMusicMedia.Com's Jerry Del Colliano, Entercom is in the process of reducing its talent payroll by position cuts, salary cuts, and plan to syndicate talent around the country rather than having local programs. “The plan would give the company a chance to syndicate what they consider their top rated (and paid) talent so they can fire largely morning hosts in other markets,” he wrote on July 22nd.
 
    It appears Del Colliano is right on the money.

    For a major, full-power station in Los Angeles to use a syndicated morning program is an embarrassment, and an indictment of the leadership of Entercom itself, including CEO David Field. There is absolutely no excuse for the cuts he is making, other than the fact that he is running the company — and all of its stations —  into the ground.

    There is, at least, a tie to Los Angeles for the team: Ringleader Joey Boy — aka Nachoo — was raised in los Angeles, while Ratan and Shepard were raised in the Valley. Hernandez is a native of Napa. And honestly, I have nothing against the show itself nor any of the hosts … they are seemingly great people. I will also do a full review of the show in a few weeks, once I give them a fair shake. My only complaint has to do with the idea itself - radio is local, and should have local shows. Phoenix is not local. Sorry.

    Feeding LA

    While Entercom is destroying the radio industry, it is trying to be a good neighbor. The company has teamed up with the Los Angeles Unified School District to raise money and help feed needy children and families.

    All Entercom Los Angeles radio stations — Amp, Jack-FM (93.1), The Wave (94.7 FM), KRTH (101.1 FM), KNX (1070 AM) and KROQ (106.7 FM) — are participating. From August 3rd to the 28th, stations will encourage listeners to donate by texting “NEED” to 76278. The money generated will bring meals to those in need throughout the region through the school district’s Grab and Go program.

    More than 50 million meals have been provided via 62 Grab and Go Food Centers since the program began in March, according to LAUSD’s Superintendent Austin Beutner. About one-third are adults hard hit by the COVID shutdowns.

    Donations can also be made by visiting need.givesmart.com, and you can get more information on the program by heading to radio.com/feedourfamilies.

    Help Request

    The special interview that KNXFM93.Com ran a short time ago with Carly Simon brought in some nice emails, many oof which mentioned interviews they remember from years past as heard win the original KNX-FM (now Jack-FM). The problem, explains net station volunteer and production director Douglas Brown, is that no one has the tapes. The Simon interview just happened to be in Christopher Ames’ garage. Others are MIA.

    So I thought I’d ask you … if you have, or if you know people who have, original interviews with any of the artists, signers and songwriters as originally run on KNX-FM, let me know and I’ll connect you with the right people. In fact, if you have any from any station, including KHJ’s (930 AM) Special of the Month, let me know that as well.

    Elvis Tribute

    Elvis: A Three Hour Special tribute show is set to air via the net on August 16 — the day Elvis died at the age of 42 — at noon, and again at 6pm.
 
    The show was produced at Drake-Chenault beginning on the day Elvis died in 1977, and was shipped to clients just two days later … airing that weekend. “Our competitors were shocked and astounded at how quickly we were able to get such a high caliber program on the air in such a short time, said Hank Landsberg who worked at the company back in the 1970s.  He explains how it all came together. Much of it was luck in timing!

    “The second week of August, 1977, we had just begun production of  a new edition of The History Of Rock And Roll,” which originally aired on KHJ in 1969.  “The show would be a 52 hour 'blockbuster' that documented the birth and development of rock and roll music. Hours three and four were already planned to chronicle the life and music of Elvis Presley.”

    Basically, the team decided to pull the material already planned for HRR, and use it for a tribute to Elvis’ life and career. Explains Landsberg: “The ‘Elvis hours’ scripts were already written, music was researched and pulled, instrumental tracks for voiceover backing were ready, interviews and other actualities had been edited and were ready for final production by studio engineer Mark Ford.

    “We had everything ready to go when Elvis died on Tuesday, August 16!  HRR writer Gary Thoreau made some last-minute script revisions;  Bill Drake came in Tuesday afternoon and began recording the voice tracks for the show.  We all pulled an 'all-nighter'...staying thru the night while Mark did the studio production. I believe he finished about 10 a.m. the following day.
 
    “The master tapes went into duplication, and we had station copies ready to ship Wednesday afternoon.  They went via UPS-2 Day, and arrived at the stations on Friday, for air that weekend.”

    Elvis: A Three Hour Special will be presented without commercial interruption, and will run about 2 1/2 hours. Listen at:  https://la2.indexcom.com/player/6