WWKX KX104 Gallatin TN Jeff Baker Aircheck 1980

Here's an aircheck rescued from an old cassette. It's Jeff Baker on KX104, WWKX in Gallatin TN in 1980. There are some promos, an aircheck, a couple of commercials, and even a promo from fellow jock Jon "Rock 'n Roll" Anthony. KX 104 was one of the best in straight ahead radio, click here to hear the aircheck.

Lee Masters, left, and Jeff Baker, right, in 2011.

Benny Brown Community Radio Luxembourg 1981

Benny Brown was one of the great crew that manned Radio Luxembourg in the early 1980s. With 3 million watts on the AM band, Radio Luxembourg was heard from Russia to Turkey to Scandinavia and Africa.

Here's Benny from April of 1981 on Community Radio, the local Luxembourg service.


This is new from a cassette aircheck that Bob Stewart sent me that year.

You can listen to or download the scoped aircheck by clicking here. 
 8 minutes 22 seconds scoped, 7.7 meg.

Benny went to Frankfurt Germany for a few years, and now is back on RTL Community Radio.

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!

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.

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!

KCBQ San Diego Survey and China Smith aircheck August 07 1970

Thanks to Timmy again for this KCBQ San Diego survey from 1970 featuring China Smith. Click to enlarge each pic. Timmy also provided an excellent China Smith aircheck that you can hear by clicking this link.

SM95 The Music FM Nashville 1976-1983

SM95, WSM-FM Nashville, was a unique station for the late 70s and early 80s, blending a mixture of pop, west coast rock, oldies, light jazz, and even contemporary Christian music into a format that captured young adult listeners for years. John Young was the first program director, followed by Mary Catherine Sneed, Donna Brake, and Bruce Sherman. Here's a group shot from the 80s.

Back row is newsman Mike Donegan, jocks Gary Beaty and Karen Gerson, Gary Wright, Iris Wray, and jocks Bruce Sherman, Donna Brake, Steve Henderson, unknown, and Andy Pearson. Front row CBS promo guy and jock Kris Bradley. Click here to hear a 5 minute aircheck of Steve Henderson on SM95.

Several years ago there was an SM95 reunion party in Franklin, Tennessee. Jock Skip Woolwine edited this video of the event:

Pat Sajak on WSM-AM Radio December 1, 1975

Prior to Wheel of Fortune, Pat Sajak was the afternoon DJ on WSM-AM in Nashville from 1974-1977. He also was the booth announcer for WSM TV 4, and worked weekends as a weatherman. Here's Pat featured on the front of the WSM music brochure, and here is Pat on the air from December 1, 1975. You'll hear Pat's humor and timing as he jocks and reads commercials. Thanks to Mike Bohan of WSM for the aircheck.

Click to enlarge pic and click here to listen to Pat Sajak.

WLAC Nashville Survey July 31 1978

WLAC AM 1510 was the last chapter in Top 40 AM radio for Nashville. I worked at the station then, doing Saturday night midnight to 430am Sunday morning, keeping people awake over most of the country. According to a Rolling Stone article, WLAC AM was the most popular station in Cuba at night. We even got fan mail from Sweden. Here's the survey, click any pic to enlarge. Click here to hear the audio version.

Spider Harrison and Shadoe Bailey were the two nighttime jocks on WLAC. Shadoe went on to Atlanta and Spider is now an actor, radio host, and record label owner. You can hear an aircheck of The Spider here.

The music selection was as Top 40 as it got. It then went Top 30, with the #1 song being played every hour. Tough on the jocks but good for the ratings. The station also had an awesome news department, with legends like David Tower, Eddie Parker, and Paul Randall Dickerson.

David Letterman WAGO Muncie IN April 4 1969

WFMU's Beware of the Blog has an awesome story on David Letterman, the early years, that goes into detail about his various radio jobs. You can read and enjoy the entire story here.

Also posted by Kliph Nesteroff was an actual aircheck of Letterman on WAGO Muncie from April 1969.
Listen to DJ Dave here.

Swingin Soul Medallion Commercial from John R WLAC

John Richbourg was one of the legendary AM jocks that brought black music to every part of the eastern U.S. over the mighty 1510 WLAC. Along with Gene Nobles, Herman Grizzard, and Hoss Allen, they broke black artists onto the sales charts. Here's a live commercial done by John R himself. Listen to it here.

John left WLAC in 1973, about four years before I worked there. He battled cancer, and in 1985 a benefit was held for him at the Grand Ole Opry house.

There were over 30 acts, and each gave John credit for their careers. I had a program, but it's gone now. The acts I remember appearing were the Isley Brothers, James Brown, the Neville Brothers, Rufus and Carla Thomas, B.B. King, the Coasters, and Charlie Daniels. There were so many acts they had an intermission at 9pm, and the music continued til 1:30am, ending with a giant jam session that featured B.B. King and Charlie Daniels dueling guitars.

John was on the left of the stage from the audience view in a wheelchair. He was too weak to talk, but waved to everyone. He died the next year.

You can get more of the feel of those WLAC days by reading the story here.

Rick Archer WRMX Nashville Aircheck

My brother Rick was on the air at WAIR Winston-Salem at 14 years old. He's a classic personality jock, as you'll hear when you listen here.

Aircheck David Ford on KWTK Waco Texas 1959

Our first aircheck, this is directly from David Ford himself. You can hear it here.

It's KWTX in Waco, Texas, from December 1959. Here's a picture of David as the Sports Director of KWTX TV in 1963.

 More on David's radio career to come.