Yesterday, August 20th, was National Radio Day!
In Reality, while an unofficial holiday, it has been celebrated since the early 1990s on August 20th ...
Perhaps because this was the day in 1920 that Radio Station 8MK, now WWJ in Detroit, was the first to broadcast commercially.
Historically, on December 12, 1901, Guglielmo Marconi transmitted the first radio signal across the Atlantic Ocean.
In 1906, Reginald Fessenden created and aired the first radio broadcast of voice and music purely for entertainment purposes. He transmitted his program from Brant Rock, MA for the general public.
On November 2, 1920, KDKA broadcast the voter returns for the 1920 presidential election from Pittsburgh, PA.
By 1931, two out of five homes owned a radio. By 1938, four out of five had a radio.
Early on, radio was a major force for music and it changed the landscape of the industry almost immediately. And that led to November 26th, 1999, when Forgotten Hits began chronicling the Big Hits and their stories that radio played!
Today, it is estimated that more than two-thirds of the country’s population still listen to the radio every day in homes, in offices and in their cars with the exception of many Electric Vehicle owners!
Wait!
Why not in EVs?
Well, most don’t even have them!
Several EV manufacturers exclude radios from their EVs because they say the vehicles’ electromagnetics interferes with radio reception, making the sound annoyingly staticky.
Now with all that being said, or broadcast, in this special Radio Text email, attached is my National Radio Day Chuck Buell Minute Medley!
CB ( which stands for Conelrad-Radio Boy!" )
WHAT?!?!
A car with no radio?!?!?
I couldn't even imagine having to drive like that! (I wonder if satellite radio or bluetooth radio still works in these new fangled electric car toys???)
Of course, I grew up with AM Radio ... because that's where all the hits were! Back then, we just lived with the static! (kk)
And here in Chicago, we were fortunate enough to have TWO of the very biggest AM Giants ... WLS and WCFL.
Their on-going battle for the top spot on dial gave us some of the best radio memories imaginable with each station trying to outdo each other to capture more listeners.
And in just ten days, the Third Annual WLS / WCFL Rewound Labor Day Weekend begins on Rewound Radio! (I cannot believe another entire year has gone by already!!!)
Chuck Buell tells us more about this, too!
Rewound Radio’s Third Annual Salute to the Two Big Chicago Powerhouse Rockin’ Radio Stations during the Mid-1960s to the Mid-1970s with All New “Old” Radio Show Hours which were recorded just how they happened then for Three Big Non-Stop Days is coming again Labor Day Weekend!
For a Taste of this Great Internet Radio Station and the music they play, just click on the link below ... or copy and paste this link into your favorite Browser ~~~ https://rewoundradio.com/instantonicecast.html
Then all Labor Day Weekend, be prepared to hear exactly how so
many of us presented it when Rock Music was New and in its Prime! All recorded
off the air! No recreations!
Whew!
Chuck Buell
It all kicks off at 6 am Eastern Time on Saturday, August 31st, and runs straight thru midnight (and probably a LITTLE bit longer!) Monday Night, September 2nd ...
Be sure to tune in to hear and remember what top-notch Top 40 Radio sounded like! (kk)
The latest edition of Billboard Magazine’s “Forever Number One” series spotlights Maurice Williams, who passed away last week at the age of 88. His #1 Hit “Stay,” recorded as Maurice Williams and the Zodiacs, has proven to be a timeless classic, discovered by every generation since its original release back in 1960.
Billboard says:
The late Maurice Williams' best-remembered pop song runs just 1:38. It is the shortest of the 1,174 singles that have reached No. 1 on the Hot 100.
Williams wrote the song in 1953 when he was just 15. The song was inspired by his crush on one Mary Shropshire. “[Mary] was the one I was trying to get to stay a little longer,” Williams told the North Carolina publication Our State in 2012. “Of course, she couldn’t.” (The more restrictive mores of the 1940s and 1950s inspired such other great pop songs as the Oscar-winning “Baby, It’s Cold Outside” and The Everly Brothers’ “Wake Up Little Susie.”)
“It took me about 30 minutes to write ‘Stay,’ then I threw it away,” Williams told classicsbands.com. “We were looking for songs to record as Maurice Williams & The Zodiacs. I was over at my girlfriend’s house playing the tape of songs I had written, when her little sister said, ‘Please do the song with the high voice in it.’ I knew she meant ‘Stay.’ She was about 12 years old and I said to myself, ‘She’s the age of record buying,’ and the rest is history. I thank God for her.”
We also lost legendary talk show host Phil Donahue this past week. Phil was married to “That Girl” Marlo Thomas for 44 years!!!
This from Clark Besch …
I enjoyed his show occasionally. I taped and kept this BETA MAX tape when he had big time DJs on his show in 1988. My hero Larry Lujack is a big grouchy as usual. There's also Howard Stern, Jonathan Brandmeier, Larry Lujack and Dick Biondi talking about Top 40 and shock radio today -- 36 years ago. Donahue plays a Prince song and think about how music has changed since THEN! I posted this to my private youtube and you might enjoy this chat about radio so many years ago before the internet radio was much available.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P9cVyXYkEzc
And, speaking of Dick Biondi, our FH Buddy Pam Pulice was interviewed this past week by Scott Childers (a BIG part of the upcoming WLS / WCFL Rewound Labor Day Weekend radio special on Rewound Radio) about her Dick Biondi Documentary, “The Voice That Rocked America.”
Happy Radio Day, Kent.
Thanks for all you do for radio, rock ’n’ roll, and musicians. Love ya.
Hugs,
Pam
As our quest to find your All-Time Favorite Bubblegum Songs continues, I had the chance to catch up with Frank Jeckell, original founding member of The 1910 Fruitgum Company, and talk “bubblegum music,” at which they excelled.
kk: I am happy to report that The 1910 Fruitgum Company already have SIX songs nominated by our readers ... two of which are currently among the poll leaders ...
FJ: That’s nice to hear and it pleases me to no end. Now if we could only counter the blatant lie that we were never a real band but only a studio creation. Thank you, Norm N. Night, for propagating this bs in his History of Rock and Roll some 30 years ago. I hope I never meet him as it won’t go well.
kk: Being in the thick of it at the time ... and an integral part of this newly declared musical genre ... what are some of YOUR favorite bubblegum tunes. (And feel free to name as many of your own as you like!!!)
FJ: I’ve always considered Simon Says to be the very first and one of the very best real Bubblegum songs, but I might be a tad biased. I thought Green Tambourine was also an excellent song although I think it’s a bit of a stretch to label it Bubblegum.
kk: I’m curious, too, as to the credo sent down by Buddah Records ...
Clearly there was a certain sound they were looking for and marketing ...
But were there any ground rules set forth by the label as the what 1910 had to sound like or conform to?
Obviously, the formula worked ... even 50-60 years later, people are still lovin' these songs ...
But I'm just curious as to what it looked like from the inside.
FJ: I don’t think Buddah was that focused on Bubblegum. It was producers Kasenetz and Katz who were totally responsible for the Bubblegum push at Buddah. They saw a need for kid-oriented pop and started the bubblegum craze with Simon Says. They followed that with Yummy Yummy Yummy. They got us signed with Buddah as a psychedelic rock band in October, 1967. Then they sent us a demo of Simon Says with a terrible arrangement and asked could we pretty please improve upon it. We did just that by adding elements from 96 Tears and Wooly Bully and before you knew it, we were a big time bubblegum act. We were not pleased, but at the same time it was nice to become a successful group that created a gold pop song.
EDITOR’S NOTE: For some reason, I’ve always thought of “Yummy, Yummy,, Yummy” as the first bubblegum song … but Frank is right … “Simon Says” predated it on the charts by about four months.
We’ve had the same historical snafu here in terms of Chicago rock …
Many think The Buckinghams kicked things off … and they certainly had the BIGGEST hit out of the box with “Kind Of A Drag” going all the way to #1. Others think it was The Shadows Of Knight’s version of “Gloria,” a #1 Record here in Chi-Town.
But several months before ANY of these records made their mark, it was The New Colony Six who hit first with “I Confess,” a #2 local hit that reached #64 on the national scene, premiering in December of 1965 locally and in February of 1966 nationally.
Other big Chicago band hits of 1966 included “You Wouldn’t Listen” by The Ides Of March (#7 locally and #41 nationally), released in June, the aforementioned “Gloria” by The Shadows Of Knight, #1 locally and #6 nationally, released in March, and SEVERAL songs by The Buckinghams that charted BEFORE “Kind Of A Drag” went all the way to the top of the charts: “I’ll Go Crazy” (#19 CHI / #112 US, released in May of ‘66); “I Call Your Name” (#14 CHI / #102 US); “I’ve Been Wrong” (#13 CHI / #129 US)
Back to the topic at hand, “Simon Says” debuted in January of 1968, ultimately peaking at #1 nationally (and #2 here in Chicago), while “Yummy, Yummy, Yummy” first came out in April of ’68, reaching #4 nationally and #1 here in Chicago. (kk)
kk: Here’s one I just have to ask …
In these OVERLY politically correct times, have The 1910 Fruitgum Company had to eliminate their big hit "Indian Giver" from their set list?
(I know ... it's CRAZY, isn't it??!?)
But just curious if there has been any backlash or discussion on this topic amongst your group of bandmates and promoters.
FJ: We have never experienced any backlash about Indian Giver to date although there was one show about 10 years ago when I was certain we would. We were doing a show at the Shooting Star casino in Minnesota. When we got there we met with the entertainment coordinator who was a full blooded American Indian. I started to tell him that we should probably leave Indian Giver out of our show when he stopped me and said You better not leave out that song as it’s my favorite song by you guys.
kk: Thanks, Frank. I hope all else is good with you and yours. I see The 1910 Fruitgum Company are still doing isolated gigs, primarily in the New Jersey area.
FJ: I’m doing good and so is my family ... thanks for asking. My 4th grandchild is due to arrive in November. Hope all is with you and your family as well.
FYI, in order to be more active in the live music scene, I joined Vito Picone and the Elegants about four years ago. We’re doing quite a few shows and cruises these days. In fact, we’re performing tomorrow night and we did a show on Wednesday.
At 83, Vito is one of the only (if not the only) lead vocalist from the 50’s who is still performing. “Little Star” was one of the top songs of 1958, cowritten and sung by Vito. Check out our schedule on theelegants.net. We even performed at the Surf Ballroom in Clear Lake, IA, last February at a Buddy Holly tribute show. Very humbling and exciting to perform on the same stage where Buddy Holly did his last show.
kk: The very best to you and yours … and thanks again for participating in our Mini Bubblegum Revival here in Forgotten Hits!
Send in YOUR votes for your Top 20 Favorites now!!! (kk)
And, speaking of our local heroes ...
Check out the Bucks history lesson ... Put up today.
Clark Besch
The History of the BUCKINGHAMS | #237
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TLRjevLHoiQ
So cool to see some of our local bands getting their due. (This same guy recently did a profile of The New Colony Six … be nice to see The Cryan’ Shames and The Ides Of March up here eventually, too!) kk
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BQh3Sp7_lxg
