REEL TOP 40 RADIO REPOSITORY
 Rich Borowy, 1988
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Rich Borowy received his first taste in radio at the tender age of five when his father gave him a 6-transistor radio. ("That thing should keep him out of trouble" said his dad!). It not only kept his kid out of 'trouble', it made him hooked on the sounds coming out of the radio's tinny speaker.
Living in Chicago, he discovered the two giant Top40 music stations, WLS and its rival WCFL. (The first song heard over that radio was "King Of The Road" played on WLS). Rich got bigger radios and tuned into FM and the AOR sounds of WDAI and WXRT (later WLUP and WMET). While in college, he appeared on the student run station WMMR on the campus of the University of Minnesota-Minneapolis as DJ |
The Repository thanks the Rich Borowy Collection for sharing!
TOP STREAM 32.0 Kbps (8 Khz)
Larry Lujack, WCFL Chicago, September 5, 1974
(01:28:04)
[Description by contributor Rich Borowy] . . . Does everyone have their mothers by the radio? OK, just stick your mother's face up close to the radio . . .
In this recording, right in the middle of Larry Lujack's afternoon drive time spot, the "Superjock' was in fine form, playing hits of the day and presenting his infamous Klunk Letter. ("Da-da-da-da-da-da-daaaaaa!") I don't recall if I ever got out of the doldrums I was going though that afternoon by knowing that I'd be stuck in a classroom for the next nine months, but hearing this show gives me a warm, nostalgic feeling. | ||
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TOP STREAM 32.0 Kbps (12 Khz)
B. Mitchel Reed, Wolfman Jack, The Real Don Steele, Radio North America 1970 (21:24) [Description by contributor Rich Borowy] . . . Hey Listen, what comes on after the hillbilly? . . . [PARENTAL ADVISORY: Profanity] On January 2nd, 1971, the FCC ban on commercial advertising for cigarette products on radio and television went into effect. The tobacco companies attributed much of their income from exposure on radio & TV. There was great concern that there would be a loss of sales due to the lack of such advertising. To address this opportunity, a radio programming format calling itself RADIO NORTH AMERICA was born. RNA would consist of four radio superstars: Dick Biondi, Wolfman Jack, B. Mitchel Reed, and The Real Don Steele, doing their own shows via overnight radio, playing 'top-40' music — except for Reed, who would be playing 'progressive rock'. All four jocks would originate their shows out of Los Angeles, but their radio signal would come from transmitters based in Mexico. The incentive was to use RNA to advertise cigarettes on the radio. Since the transmitters were licensed in Mexico, they would be out of the FCC's power to ban such ads. Not only that, their superpower AM signals could reach a wide section of the country. To sell this idea to tobacco companies and advertising agencies, a multi-media presentation was produced by Cherrytree Productions (now defunct) of Los Angeles. Within this presentation, 16mm footage shot of the four DJ's would be included. In reality, the four jocks were in a studio set of a radio station, and their patter was not actual broadcasts, just a mock show. RNA never came to be, and the project was abandoned. These "airchecks" are all from broadcasts that never were. All recordings came from the master Nagra 1/4" reel-to-reel tapes used as the soundtrack to the film for the presentation reel.
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STEREO WebTV Compatible (9 Khz)
Phillips and Wall, KSLQ-FM St. Louis, December 12, 1980
(40:26)
This Exhibit 'SCOPED (22:15). . . Oh Look! There's some sailors down there . . . Guy Phillips and Mike Wall were a successful CHR morning team on KSLQ-FM in St. Louis, a few years before The Morning Zoo in New York. But their early success undoubtedly inspired a few of those "Morning Zoo/Rude Awakening/Morning Sickness" type radio teams that littered the FM landscape in 1980's. Usually set in teams of two, these two guys (yep, it really was an old boys club, since very few females took part) would read humorous news reports from Reuters, banter with jokes and gags, and frequently had "characters" join in. And there were time and weather checks, traffic reports, sports and — they would play music, too! As of 2006, there is a KSLQ-FM licensed in Washington, Missouri. I don't know anything about Wall, but Phillips is still on the air in St. Louis over KYKY-FM, the new call letters for what was once KSLQ. He does a morning show called Phillips and Friends with four other personalities. |
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STEREO WebTV Compatible (14 Khz)
Hank Hayes, WHOT 91.5 FM Brooklyn NY June 1989
(15:31)
[Description by contributor Rich Borowy] . . . This is the Federal Communications Commission. We know who you are, we're gonna getcha . . . This has to be one of the more unusual airchecks I have received in my time. The guy that went under the air name of Hank Hayes really loved radio. Growing up in Brooklyn, he heard all of the great jocks and stations from New York. He and his buddies would have liked to work in radio, but radio was beginning to sound bland, with 'robot DJ's' playing tunes that were selected by bean counters hired by big media conglomerates that didn't know what their own stations were playing! So, to keep that classic sound, they set up their own 'pirate' FM station from their high-rise apartment building near Coney Island. Yes, the FCC heard their broadcasts, and issued a cease and desist order to stop broadcasts. They were eventually raided by the Feds, taking away all of their equipment and transmitter. In this recording, Hank presents his show complete with reverb and custom-made PAMS jingles! |
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More to Come from The Rich Borowy Collection!
Reel Top 40 Radio Repository ©1996-2006 REELRADIO Inc.
This Exhibit 'SCOPED (32:51)
If all you want is the jings and the jock and the news and the spots, this version's for you! Please remember that in addition to music licensing fees for the mostly UNSCOPED version, there are bandwidth and hardware costs for this 'SCOPED version, and anything streamed from REELRADIO.
