Get Stung By the Bee! Mel Bee WRVU Nashville TN

Mel Bee was a DJ on WRVU, the Vanderbilt campus radio station, from 1971 to about 1975. One of WRVU's classic lineup of block programming specialty jocks, he was the king of soul. Mel loved being on the air, as this pic shows. Click to enjoy larger!

WFIL Philadelphia Survey Aug 28 1967

Another jammin' survey from Famous 56, at the height of the 60s music explosion. Click to enlarge, or right click and open in new window for the largest versions.

 

Wolfman Jack at WLAC Nashville

Brian Mason of WLAC sent in this shot of the Wolfman sitting in the WLAC-AM car, "The Honker", in the late 70s.

WKZL Winston-Salem Andrew Gold Contest

Back in 1976, Andrew Gold released his album, "What's Wrong With This Picture?", which ended up producing his breakthrough hit, "Lonely Boy." Elektra Records started a radio station contest across the country, asking listeners to spot the 43 things wrong on the album cover. Here's a large scan of the cover, see how many you can find. As always, click to enlarge, or control click to open in a new window.

WKZL Nick Archer Apr 27 1977 Andrew Gold Winners by cranched

 Bonus! Click above to listen to the contest winner announced on WKZL by Scott Derringer (Chuck Holloway) and Nick Archer on April 27 1977. Thanks for listening and drive carefully!

When Satellites Attack! CKLW Radio Promo

When faced with the imminent reentry of the Skylab satellite, the promo department at CKLW hired legendary announcer Paul Frees to voice their promo for the "I Survived Skylab" hard hats the station was giving away. When's the last time you heard a promo this good on your favorite station?

WMAK Nashville Survey October 19 1969

WMAK survey from 1969. Jock Joe Sullivan later started his own concert promotion company, Sound 70. Click to enlarge, survey courtesy of Wes Green.

WFIL Philadelphia Survey May 27 1968

Another classic WFIL survey, click to enlarge.

WRCP Philadelphia Surveys September 25 & October 2, 1967

More from Philadelphia's Country Giant of the 60s, WRCP. Click to enlarge.

WIBG Philadelphia Survey from November 20, 1967

Another classic survey from WIBG Philadelphia. This one features Billy Joel's group The Hassles at #77, The Kit-Kats at #44, and Thorinsheild(?) at #79. Click to enlarge. Also note #9 is Victor Lundberg's "An Open Letter To My Teenage Son", and #86 is, "A Letter To Dad", from Every Fathers Teenage Son. Cheaper than stamps, I guess. Wait, weren't stamps 3 cents?

You'll Never Get Rich In Radio Handbook - 1977

Back in 1977 I was two years into my first real radio job at WKZL Winston-Salem NC. One of the big thrills for me was working with one of my boyhood idols, Steve Norris of WTOB. That year the station staff came over for a surprise birthday party. Linda Norris, at that time married to Steve, gave me the following birthday card:

I didn't know it at the time, but this was the best radio training that I'd get! I'm posting a couple of the 12 pages below, and you can click them to enlarge, but you can download the entire card as a .pdf file by clicking here. 

 

Here's a shot of Linda Norris at the birthday party. She's the one on the left. Linda later worked for a advertising agency in the Triad. I've since lost touch with her, but I won't forget her or her advice.

WKDA Nashville Concert Poster

WKDA and WMAK duked it out in the 60s for listeners. Here's a poster for a WKDA concert at the Nashville Fairgrounds with the Lovin' Spoonful, The Turtles, The Cyrkle, B.J. Thomas, Lou Christie, and local faves the Nashville Shadows, all for $2.25. Click to enlarge.

Radio Station Belt Buckles

Back in the 70s and 80s, belt buckles were a popular giveaway item at radio stations, I guess to hold up those wide belt jeans. Here are a few that survived, click to enlarge.

RTL was 208 Radio Luxembourg, from 1980. WSM Radio 65 is from the same time at the Nashville country station. WLAC was Top 40 in Nashville and featured the famous sun logo. WQXI was from the late 70s in Atlanta.

Did your favorite station give away belt buckles?

WKXI-FM Jackson Mississippi Survey October 16 1971

Wayne Edwards sends along this survey from the all-new WKXI-FM in Jackson, Mississippi, 1971. He's the jock on the bottom of each survey page. Wow! This is some hard-core soul. Click either image to enlarge.  UPDATE *** Listen to Wayne's aircheck from 1972 by clicking here.

Tennessee Radio Hall of Fame

There's a brand new organization celebrating and honoring the broadcasters and stations of Tennessee. The Tennessee Radio Hall of Fame was formed this year by Lee Dorman. Plans for the future include an awards banquet, exhibit space for Tennessee memorabilia, and induction of historic broadcasters to the Hall of Fame. Click here to visit the website.

 I'm the contact person for collecting airchecks, photos, and anything else for the museum.
 Let's kick off the fun with a lot of photos of Tennessee radio people in the studio! Click any image to enlarge.

Keith Bilbrey of WSM-AM, FM, TV, and Opry announcer.

Captain Midnight, Roger Schutt,  on WMAK, 1967.

Chappel Fisher of WSIX-FM, here at radio station WJXA, Oldies 96.3

"Dashing" Dave Hampton at Vanderbilt University radio station WRVU, 1971.

Hawk Harrelson of Y107, WYHY, in 1990.

Newsman Buddy Sadler with "Miss Fire Prevention", from WKDA-AM, 1969.

Charlie Daniels and Tom Bootle, WKDF-FM.

Dale Turner and Debbie "DJ" Jones, WKDA from 1978.

Hey, it's me! Nick Archer at WKQB (WLAC-FM), doing album rock in 1979.


Like Post Records, more to come....

WFIL Philadelphia Survey May 13 1968

Another WFIL survey from May 1968. Click to enlarge.

SM95 WSM-FM Nashville Rainbow Sticker 1982

Here's the second iconic sticker logo from SM95, WSM-FM Nashville in 1982. This appeared on all sorts of merchandise that the station sold and gave away, replacing all stuff with the old logo that you see Program Director Donna Brake selling below:

ADVERTISEMENT: A couple of years ago I set up a cafepress shop to sell SM95 swag. If you're into it, take a look:  http://www.cafepress.com/SM95

WIBG Philadelphia Survey July 31 1967

 

Mark Ford Aircheck from WINN Louisville KY 1961

Here's another aircheck from the radio career of David Ford. It's 1961 and David is Mark Ford on WINN radio Louisville Kentucky. The station is old time easy listening. Click here to hear the aircheck, and enjoy some vintage jingles, and fine voicework from David.

If you missed David's earlier posts, click here to catch up.

WGRD Grand Rapids MI Survey May 27 1970 and Aircheck

Another find from Timmy! An awesome WGRD survey and aircheck from Wayne Thomas, later known as China Smith. Click to enlarge, click here to hear the aircheck!

WAPE Jacksonville FL Post Records Album

Post Records was based in Philadelphia, and during the 1960s packaged and sold localized record albums for Top 40 stations around the country. Here's the WAPE Jacksonville Florida album. Judging from the selections, this was an early 70s release. Click each image to enlarge.

Post would always put the current jock lineup on the back of the record, making it a snapshot in time of the staff. WAPE's crew on this one is Jack McCoy, Larry Dixon, Mike Wingfield, Teddy Bear, Jay Thomas, and David London. Did Jay Thomas work EVERYWHERE?

For more on Post Records and to see many more albums, go to Lisa Wheeler's site here.
She is the authority on radio station vinyl.

WPAW Pawtucket RI Tie Clip

Here's an interesting piece of radio station swag. It's a tie clip from WPAW Pawtucket Rhode Island from the early 60s. These were probably given out to the sales staff, as the YCDBSOYA stands for "You Can't Do Business Sitting On Your Ass". Click to enlarge, or click here to learn more about WPAW.

KGW Portland OR Survey August 21 1970

Another find from Timmy, click to enlarge.

Where's The Beef song from Coyote McCloud WWKX Gallatin TN

Coyote McCloud has been a Nashville institution since the 1960s. A recent billboard for Oldies 96.3 in Nashville had a picture of Coyote and the caption "He played them when they were new!" In 1984 he got the idea to do a record using the Wendy's slogan "Where's the Beef?" from their popular TV commercial starring Clara Peller. Coyote recorded the song with the help of his radio sidekick Jim Gossett, who wrote the lyrics and did the Clara Peller voice.

Wendy's national got a hold of the record and gave it their blessing, which let them replace Jim's voice with the real Clara Peller audio from the commercials. The record became very popular, enough so that Coyote left his morning radio gig to become the next Rick Dees.

He later returned to the Nashville airwaves until a couple of years ago when health issues forced a retirement. Jim Gossett still does standup, corporate comedy shows, and is the official parody artist of the Lars Larson radio show.

Are you ready to travel back to 1984? Listen to "Where's The Beef?" by clicking here.

UPDATE: Coyote McCloud passed away April 6, 2011 from liver failure. He worked at classic stations like WMAK Nashville, WQXI Atlanta, WSM-AM, KX104, Y107, Oldies 96.3 and Star 97.1.

WFIL Philadelphia Survey April 29 1968

Here's another WFIL Philadelphia survey from early 1968, just before the psychedelic makeover. Click to enlarge, and notice local favorites the Kit-Kats performing all around the area for Gimbels Department Store, and the Sands Of Time for Wanamakers Department Store.

WXYZ Detroit Survey Site

Jim Heddle has posted a number of great surveys at his blog here. A couple of examples are below, click to enlarge.

KWOW Pomona CA Survey

Thanks again to Timmy for this survey from KWOW in Pomona, California. Click to enlarge, and learn more about KWOW here.

WIBG Philadelphia Survey November 06 1967

This survey may contain the peak number of genres ever played on one station. The late 60s saw the coexistence of rock, pop, soul, surf, british, classic pop, jazz, and local rock on surveys from  around the country. WIBG's Top 99 had room for Frank Sinatra, James Brown, Dusty Springfield, Joe Tex, Cher, Keith, Beach Boys, and Ramsey Lewis and Hugh Masakela, and on the air as well. It was truly a melting pot of music that doesn't exist today. Click to enlarge.