Like a lot of folks my age, I grew up with radio; some of my earliest memories are of my mother singing along with Brook and Dinah, Johnny Mathis, or Nat "King" Cole on WWIZ, 1380 in Lorain. 
As I got older, the music changed, but was still wonderful. Also, most stations played everything, it seemed, from the Beatles to Elvis to Roy Clark to the Tempations, great sounds pouring out of that magic box, all day, all night. KYW, WHK, WJW,WIXY, WABQ, and other stations kept it comin'.
I got my first radio in junior high, when the Big 8, CKLW, Detroit / Windsor was king. They played a wide variety of music, including artists from Canada who ordinarily wouldn't get a lot of airplay in the States.
By high school, I'd discovered FM, which was expanding into the realm of popular music, especially rock. WMMS, WGCL, WLYT, and WNCR were pumpin' up the volume in the 70's, while CKLW and other AM stations were still going strong.
Sadly, by the time I packed it up and left town, the handwriting was on the wall...hard playlists insured that you'd hear the same twenty songs at nearly the same times every day, and the oldies and classic rock stations in the market were becoming jokes, not to mention the advent of rap and other non-music.
I have found, though, a lot of AM stations are going to an eclectic oldies format, almost making it like it was...1380 in Lorain is playing tons of good old stuff, at least according to Google, they're still there...wish I could get them down here.
Those little transistor radios with their imitation leather cases and earphone jacks were a lot of fun and great for listening to CKLW (remember Farmer Jack Savings Time and 2020 News?) 1380 WLRO was great too, a real Lorain station. I can still remember trying to tape something off the radio (Henry Mancini's Baby Elephant Walk!" with a reel-to-reel tape recorder!
ReplyDeleteHow about this....?
ReplyDelete"GEORGE MOROLIS...what a great GREAT guy!"