The Golden Age of AM Radio

     I was born in 1964, but I missed out on the whole ‘60’s thing. Flower Power, the Summer of Love, Woodstock, The Beatles – that belonged to my brothers who were about 8 years older than me. I do remember watching the moon landing in 1969 and then there was something about a solar eclipse in there, but that was about the extent of the historical and cultural impact of the 60’s on me. At the time anyway - when I was older I would really get into the music of that era, but let’s not get too far ahead of the story.

     Pennsauken in 1971 was green, clean and pretty safe. I took the bus to school and I roamed the neighborhood on my bike – an Apollo 3 speed. There was a green, open field behind our house that was perfect for everything from pick up baseball and football games to catching fireflies and playing “Jailbreak” on a summer night. There was a small creek where I spend many hours with a shovel building damns and getting dirty. And then there were the railroad tracks than sat up on a raised hill. The slopes of the hill were perfect for sledding in the winter and I spent many hours walking the tracks in my day. We used to leave pennies on the tracks in the morning and then come back after school to find them flattened by the freight trains. There was also a dense wooded area cut with bike trails that we used to call “The Baja”. You couldn’t ask for a better place to grow up. There was plenty of family nearby and I would make a lot of friends there.

     But let’s talk about the music of the times. You can’t talk about music in South Jersey in the early 1970’s without talking about WFIL and WIBG. I always thought WFIL was more for Philly kids and South Philly transplants. My folks usually had on WPEN during the week. WPEN played the big hits of the Big Band era. Later they would incorporate the easy listening of Neil Diamond, and Barbara Streisand. On the weekends my dad would always listen to Sid Mark, who had two shows dedicated to Frank Sinatra – Fridays with Frank and Sunday with Sinatra. But I was starting to come into my own and I wanted something of my own – that was WIBG. Without a doubt, I was a WIBG listener. They were at 990 am, but they rounded up for their promos – “Wibbage 100” they called themselves.


     I remember getting a radio clock. I guess my folks wanted me to get up in time to go to school. I can still picture the green time clock glowing in the dark, but that thing was always set to 990, WIBG. Okay – WFIL had the Boss Jocks and I probably couldn’t name one of the DJs on WIBG, but they played The Sweet and they had Casey Casem’s American Top 40.


     On the other hand WFIL created one of the greatest novelty records of all time. Anyone in the Philadelphia area in the early 1970s has to remember “Between the Periods” - a mash-up that had WFIL DJ George Michael “interviewing” members of the Philadelphia Flyers. He would pose questions and the responses were snippets of popular songs from the era. I remember everyone at St Pete’s talking about it the day after it was first played on air. It was funny. I seem to remember the station doing a new one each year for the three years the Flyers made it to the Finals, but I could be wrong about that one. The Flyers of 1974 – 1976, known affectionately as the Broad Street Bullies, basically owned professional hockey for about three years in the early 1970s. At one time, I think I remember having an Dave Schultz autographed hockey puck.

     I also remember, one of the coolest presents I ever got – a red Panasonic tape recorder called a Panasonic Take-N-Tape. I kept it right next to the radio and whenever a cool song came on I would jump up and press the record button. I never was able to capture “Between the Periods” but I did record stuff like Little Willy, Gypsies, Tramps and Thieves, Mandy just about anything and everything, and even Sinatra’s My Way. I wasn’t discriminating in my musical tastes and I liked just about everything I heard. It wasn’t until I got into high school when I realized there was music that people didn’t like. I filled up a bunch of cassettes with songs, and I would take the tape player into the bathroom and sing along while I took a shower. I definitely used up all the hot water on more than one occasion while belting out those tunes.

        My tape collection became rather extensive, but the recording quality was just so-so and there was always a lot of background noise (including my own singing). Wouldn’t it be great if there was someway to get a collection of the day’s hit music all together in one place? You know, a company that could put together a compilation like that could make a fortune!

Next:  The K-tel Years