When I left Washington, D.C., for Southern California on Memorial Day, 1983, Top 40 was coalescing into a mighty, fighting force, powered by Thriller, Flashdance, Prince, and the Police. “Every Breath You Take” was brand new when I left. It was in power rotation by the time I arrived 10 days later, or so it felt. It was an exciting time to be starting a career in radio, and radio journalism.
On Dec. 22, I left Los Angeles after four years at Radio & Records. On Christmas night, I arrived at my dad’s house in Princeton, N.J., on my way to be creative director of Alternative WDRE/WLIR Long Island, N.Y., then radio editor of Billboard shortly thereafter. The move to L.A. had been by bus and plane. The return East was my first (and thus far only) coast-to-coast driving trip.
In fall ’87, radio’s excitement was almost everywhere other than Mainstream Top 40. Urban radio was sounding great and so were the dance/pop stations inspired by L.A.’s Power 106. Country was on an upswing as well. A lot of the more interesting stations of the trip were niche formats. The big industry news had been the rise of Classic Rock, the launch of several major-market Oldies FMs, and the gradual departure of second and third CHRs, although I still encountered a few Top 40 battles.
I loved R&R, but four years felt like a lot of time on one job at that age. Heck, some of the radio people I covered had been through 3-4 jobs in that time. I’d been brought east by Warren Cosford, part of WDRE’s new ownership, and a friend and supporter from Canadian radio. Four days was a lot of time with my buyers’ remorse. I was driving into colder weather and the hits were melancholy: Whitesnake, “Here I Go Again” and “Is This Love”; Bangles, “Hazy Shade of Winter”; Tiffany, “Could’ve Been”; the return of Elton John’s “Candle in the Wind.”
The holiday music on the trip was mostly contemporary. A Very Special Christmas had just been released, meaning that the most unavoidable holiday songs were “Santa Baby” by Madonna, “Do You Hear What I Hear” by Whitney Houston, and “Merry Christmas Baby.” I heard almost none of the ‘50s and ‘60s MOR that has become the centerpiece of AC’s Christmas music today. But even the Urban stations had Christmas jingles that sounded twenty years old.
It was also the holiday of “Dear Mr. Jesus” by Sharon Batts & Powersource, the obscure Christian record that became phenomenal as an anti-child-abuse anthem. “Dear Mr. Jesus” was hard to find. When I drove through Phoenix, Top 40 KZZP was selling copies of the album in its lobby to raise money for the Maricopa County Child Crisis Center.
There was uptempo music on the radio, but I was largely indifferent to it—“Should’ve Known Better” by Richard Marx, “Never Gonna Give You Up” by Rick Astley (I thought it was insipid; it goes right past me now that I’ve come to like him); “Say You Will by Foreigner. That last song was like “Every Breath You Take” in reverse. When I left L.A., it was a newly minted song by a still-superstar act. By New York, it felt turgid—not enough for Foreigner to reclaim the rock mantle from Def Leppard and Bon Jovi.
Also, as Top 40 fragmented, Foreigner was what you heard in the rock markets. In the dance markets that dominated the first two days of my trip, the standout music was freestyle during its most galvanizing moments. (There was also Salt ‘n’ Pepa’s “Push It,” the edgiest Hip-Hop crossover so far.) Then there was Whitney Houston’s “So Emotional.” I don’t know why every DJ I heard felt compelled to converse with the spoken part of that song’s intro. They just did.
I heard a DJ on every station I decided to tape (and, really, every station I recall), including nights and overnights. Not being hosted, even for a new station, would have been the anomaly. Chances are that I heard a lot of part-timers in this pre-holiday week. Only a few of the jocks I heard were familiar names at the time, or became so over the years. although I was particularly surprised by who I heard at the end of the the trip.
What stands out on the relistening is the number of live PSAs. I often tell client stations to talk more about life in their market. I don’t know if I really learned what Blythe or Johnson City was like, but I did know who had a charity event. On the other hand, in five hours of tape, I only heard one celebrity news story, the stock in trade of today’s voice-tracking.
I taped about three-dozen stations over the course of my drive, focusing on those markets where there were meal stops or overnight stays. There were fewer stations to tape as I got closer to Christmas and stations went to holiday music or special programming. As a special holiday gift to Ross on Radio readers, I went back and listened to those stations.
Here’s the first half of my drive, spanning Los Angeles to Dallas, but with the first station I didn’t regularly hear in Los Angeles.
KPSI (Power 101) Palm Springs, Calif. – It was then a very pop/rock station under PD/middayer Bob Clark which, in the year of hair bands ascending, meant Def Leppard into Bon Jovi at 10 a.m. Clark was taking over from morning host Chuck Richards, who had just broadcast his annual holiday special with his family from home.
KJMB Blythe, Calif. – The only small-town station I taped for some reason. There was a jock who sounded very newly minted. There was a music mix that I guess you’d call a broad Hot AC now, but back then it was just a smaller market station that played both very old/deep gold (Earth, Wind & Fire’s “Getaway”) and new CHR titles (Yes’s “Rhythm of Love,” another band fighting for continued prominence that I heard mostly in small markets).
KZZP Phoenix – The legendary CHR was already “The No. 1 Hit Music Station” under PD Guy Zapoleon and OM Jay Stone, who was on air that day. KZZP was playing 11-in-a-row, a significant music promise back then. Here’s the station in afternoons.
- Madonna, “Spotlight”
- Prince, “Kiss”
- Atlantic Starr, “One Lover at a Time”
- Roger, “I Wanna Be Your Man”
- Paul McCartney, “Wonderful Christmastime”
- Rick Astley, “Never Gonna Give You Up”
- Whitney Houston, “So Emotional”
- Exposé, “Let Me Be the One”
- Eric Carmen, “Hungry Eyes”—that day’s “make it or break it” song; Stone solicited calls
- Tiffany, “Could’ve Been”
- Belinda Carlisle, “Heaven is a Place on Earth”
- Madonna, “Causing a Commotion”
At KKFR (Power 92) Phoenix, market veteran Steve Goddard was on, and the station was countering KZZP with twelve in a row. What it really took for KKFR to make inroads was switching to Rhythmic Top 40 shortly thereafter, but the sounds of a radio war are already evident here. One liner declares them “the Valley’s fastest-growing hit music station … and when you’re the fastest growing hit music station in the Valley, you’re the fastest growing in Arizona!”
KRQQ Tucson, Ariz. – Heard at its peak under PD Clarke Ingram. Both KZZP and sister “KRQ” were doing Christmas Wish promotions. In this one, morning man Mike Elliot was heard giving away $200 in toys to a listener on behalf of a friend with six children whose husband had just been killed in a car crash. Then-part-timer (later APD/MD) Roger Scott was giving instructions on how to call Santa who was appearing on local TV that evening.
KKPW (Power 1450) Tucson – The tapes are a reminder of what a great time this was for Urban radio and Power made enough of an impact under PD Rick Thomas to viably do music on AM even in 1987. Power was an Urban reporter, but also playing Debbie Gibson and other pop titles, (many of which were still being worked to R&B radio). I heard Melissa Sharpe, now middayer at KESZ (K-EZ) Phoenix.
KPRR (Power 102) El Paso, Texas – Theirs was a phenomenal market takeover in the mid-to-late ‘80s under PD Bob Perry. Like Power 1450, they were an Urban reporter, but really more along the lines of Power 106, going from “Catch Me I’m Falling” by Pretty Poison into “Two of Hearts” by Stacey Q, and also playing the remix of “Heaven is a Place on Earth.” (Middayer David Jaye also played, and stopped to talk about “Dear Mr. Jesus.”)
KAMZ (93Z) El Paso – One of the great, unique stations of the ‘80s—not exactly Top 40, Urban, or Hot AC—they had been upstaged by KPRR. Now, they sounded very AC—Chicago, “You’re the Inspiration” into “Where Do Broken Hearts Go” by Whitney Houston. 93Z was one of the first big successes for consultant Jerry Clifton and you could still hear his trademark “continuous music” sweepers.
KEZB (B94) El Paso was the mainstream Top 40 playing the “Hot KIIS” jingles. B94 still played lots of freestyle, but with Cutting Crew mixed in. They also played the original “Please Come Home for Christmas” by Charles Brown, who managed to share custody of the song with the Eagles for a while.
KBNA (Que Buena) El Paso – Five years before KXTN San Antonio, they were your “official Tejano station,” although that meant a bilingual presentation and a mix that also included English-language, Hispanic-appeal oldies like “Sleepwalk” and “Tequila.” They also played “Dear Mr. Jesus.” One of the most interesting stations of the trip.
KWES (Hot 102) and KODM (FM98) Odessa/Midland, Texas – Hot 102 was a good-sounding Mainstream Top 40. KODM was a full-service Hot AC inspired by KVIL Dallas. They were also one of the Texas Hot AC clients of consultant Lee Randall that threw in Country titles (in this case a non-crossover Restless Heart song, followed by a Kenny Rogers holiday song). There was also a promo for KODM’s weather updates which, in pre-app days, boasted a “$250,000 weather forecasting system.”
KFQX (Fox FM) Abilene, Texas – The kind of small-market CHR station I loved coming across. Fox never did well enough to report to the trade charts, meaning that there was lots of new music, and not necessarily the songs being worked, including a lot of Alternative titles, along with oldies that were never-quite-hits. Also, afternoon host Kevin Cannon was operating at an energy level that was more screaming ‘70s Top 40 than ‘80s CHR.
KOJO Dallas – A groundbreaking Christian AC station at a time when most of their peers either played much softer music or were bloc programmed. A year later, it changed its call letters to the better-known KLTY, although there would also be a hiatus and a frequency swap before that station reached its current dominance. In 1987, it was rare and exciting to hear a CHR/AC presentation over the early stars of the format—Degarmo & Key, Benny Hester, and BeBe & CeCe Winans.
KVIL Dallas – An all-time great radio station that spawned dozens of imitators during the ‘80s with its personality-heavy, promotionally active brand of AC. KVIL was approaching the finale of its “12 Days of Christmas” contest—a variation on the Last Contest/Ultimate Prize Catalog mega-giveaways—where a grand prize winner would get $500 and all twelve gifts. This was in addition to the daily People’s Choice jackpot. Also unusual by today’s standards for being a mainstream-to-soft AC that played currents. KVIL’s Terry King plays the Christmas song that he says always generates “who was that” phone calls—it’s Mannheim Steamroller.
You can now read (and hear) part II of the trip, and that surprise ending.
