It was probably the first FM rock station to play music from actual albums with no time limit on the song, instead of the usual tired old top 10 songs (they were called bubblegum rock) that didn’t last for more than 2 minutes.

The AM stations played groups like Herman’s Hermits, The Turtles, The Monkees. They did play “Light My Fire” by The Doors, but it was the two and a half minute version of the record, which excluded almost the entire instrumental part of the song with the organ and guitar solos. There was also too much talking between songs, which was bad enough, and then they played the top ten that was not even worth waiting for.

WNEW FM broke the mold by playing longer tracks from recording artists that had much more talent. They got their songs from their own record libraries, or people that called the station and made requests that were frequently granted by whoever was the DJ. If someone wanted to hear “Tommorrow Never Knows” by The Beatles from the Revolver album, that’s what was played. They were very accomodating to their listening audience, and they communicated very well with them. It wasn’t a big deal to play a cut from an album that was ten or fifteen minutes long. Sometimes they would even play an album in its entirety, such as “Tommy” by The Who, or “To Our Childrens, Childrens, Children”, by The Moody Blues. They sometimes would interview the artist as they played their album, or even let the artist take over the show by talking about themselves as they played their favorite tracks from their albums. It was an awesome time in radio.

I think I discovered them for myself one day by going up and down the dial out of frustration. Once I found WNEW FM, I never went back to AM radio again.

I remember when The Woodstock concert was going on, they actually were helping people get rides to the concert over the phone.

They had many great personalities hosting the shows. One of my favorites was, Scott Muni. He had a real raspy voice, like he had a frog in his throat, but he was the best DJ, and he always had great people on his show. You name them, they were there. Joni Mitchell, David Crosby,Ringo Starr, The Moody Blues, Arlo Guthrie. Probably everyone you could think of was at that station, including myself because I won a contest to hang out with The Moody Blues with a bunch of other people (that was in the nineties, I think).

Another personality I really liked was Allison Steele The Night Bird. They called her that because she always came on at midnight. She would recite a little poem as her shift came on. I don’t remember what it was, but I will try to surf the web to find it. She had a very sultry, sexy kind of voice.

Well, I’m glad I got to grow up with FM !

[mp3j track=”Alison13.mp3″]

Allison Steele, The Night Bird

Scott Muni is the guy sitting on the chair on the right. This was their music library. Check out those bell bottom pants !

delete reply nemo4sun wrote on Mar 30, ’08, edited on Mar 30, ’08 ours was wmms out of cleveland they won rolling stone magazines top stations for years until it was found they were fixing the votethey did break allot of bands and tours had to come through cleveland i learned of many new bands from themthey are gone now – the replacement is 98.5 micheal stanley is their afternoon dj though still good, it is mostly “classic” rock

edit delete reply lauritasita wrote on Mar 30, ’08 Now they have satalite radio, but I’m not about to pay for good radio stations.

delete reply nemo4sun wrote on Mar 30, ’08 a co-worker of mine has it he can access it from his puter at work it does have ton’s of choices (stations) you can pick from a list of stations but not lists of songs but if i am paying for it i would want to choose the songs lol

edit delete reply lauritasita wrote on Mar 30, ’08 Yeah, I know what you mean. In the beginning, they used Howard Stern to market it, but I was not impressed. You’re better off just downloading all your favorite songs.

delete reply nemo4sun wrote on Mar 30, ’08 my problem is most of my favorites are album only:(

edit delete reply lauritasita wrote on Mar 30, ’08 It’s still worth downloading-it’ll just take a little longer.

delete reply nemo4sun wrote on Mar 30, ’08 can you record from an album to the puter?

edit delete reply lauritasita wrote on Mar 30, ’08 You would have to download each song individually from where ever you would normally download from to your computer. Although I HAVE seen albums that are downloadable, but not all the time.

delete reply nemo4sun wrote on Mar 30, ’08 hmmmm i will have to look into thati would save from allot of re- buying cds of vinyl and so much of it is not even cd

edit delete reply lauritasita wrote on Mar 30, ’08 I really miss the vinly LPs. Basically from the standpoint that they sounded better than c/ds. I think they had a much warmer sound. C/Ds seem to sound very harsh to my ears. I still use my turntable from the 60s. The needle is still good, so why not ?

delete reply nemo4sun wrote on Mar 30, ’08 i agree on the sound kinda like a drum machine to good ol’ fashion drumsthere are a few albums were i own both and vinyl for all it’s “pfft’s” still wins out:)

delete reply seth360 wrote on Mar 30, ’08, edited on Mar 30, ’08 nemo4sun said can you record from an album to the puter? Yes you canAudio Technica and others make USB turntables that enable you to transfer your old LP’s directly to your pc…I think the Audio Technica cost around $100Although some say the transfer quality on these low end models isn’t up to par as the more expensive ones

delete reply seth360 wrote on Mar 30, ’08 lauritasita said I really miss the vinly LPs. Basically from the standpoint that they sounded better than c/ds. I think they had a much warmer sound. C/Ds seem to sound very harsh to my ears. I still use my turntable from the 60s. The needle is still good, so why not ? I remember the joy of playing a vinyl LP for the first time….that first listen when there were no pops, cracks, or scratches….blissLP”s do have more warmth..but the afore mentioned downside of LP’s for clean sounding cd’s was compromise I was willing to make…cd’s have gotten better as far as warmth goes…record engineers (the good ones) have learned to adjust their mixes to compensate for a cd’s lack of warmth

delete reply nemo4sun wrote on Apr 1, ’08 hi seth thanks for the info:)

delete reply seth360 wrote on Apr 1, ’08 welcome nemo

delete reply seth360 wrote on Apr 3, ’08 lauritasita said For many years, it used the slogan, “where rock lives”. and in the later years they used one of my favorite slogans…”Tomorrows music today”truly a fitting slogan

delete reply stillybee wrote on Apr 12, ’08 They just dont make radio nor disc kockeys like that no more… sighs. Is that radio station still going?? In Michigan where I grew up we listened to WLS out of Chicago… Wolfman jack and so many other DJ’s I loved!! Music was my LIFE..You have so many artists I Love here.. GROOVILICiOUS!!

delete reply stillybee wrote on Apr 12, ’08 oops… Disc Jockeys… lol.

edit delete reply lauritasita wrote on Apr 12, ’08 I’m glad you enjoyed it, stillybee !

delete reply stillybee wrote on Apr 12, ’08 Come on baby.. light my fire…. set the night on fire…. hehehe.. I remember when my momma caught me listening to this song, she threathened me with hard labor lol.Guess who STILL listened to it??? lol…

edit delete reply lauritasita wrote on Apr 12, ’08 Yeah, wasn’t it a great song ?

delete reply stillybee wrote on Apr 12, ’08 Sure was & still is. The man was a genius. A drugged up one but a genius. Not bad on the eyes either 🙂