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OT: WABC Radio Celebrates 100 years

colbert17

colbert17

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If you lived in the NY area growing up in the 60s once WMCA went down WABC was the king of music.
I remember those summer weekends at Seaside, Pt. Pleasant or Lavalette and every transistor radio on the beach would have the station on and it was like listening in surround sound. Even though it turned into a political talk station my memories of those beach days and the trips home up Route 9 or the Parkway on Sunday evening (while sneaking a peek at what was playing at the Amboys Drive In) listening to the station will be part of some fond memories. Cousin Brucie, Dan Ingram, Harry Harrison, Ron Lundy, Herb Oscar Anderson and Chuck Leonard are names I'll never forget.
Please don't hijack this into a political thing and have it just be about when everyone listened to WABC.

nypost.com

Beatlemania, mobster shootings and more incredible moments from WABC radio’s 100-year history

As the iconic station celebrates its centennial, The Post looks back at its defining moments and the radio personalities that worked there.
nypost.com nypost.com
 
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Most of those guys went over to WCBS at one point. Edit- WCBS still does music, was thinking of something else.
 
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The oldest AM station in NYC would be WFAN which goes back to 1919 under the call letters 2XB. Changed to WEAF in 1920 from there WRCA, WNBC, and now WFAN.
A lot of stations came on the air in 1922 as regulations changed. The most important was the coming changes to higher wavelength.
 
I remember trying to write the entire wabc year end top 100 ..in my spiral notebook as a wee child. I think they played these out of order so it was a fill in as you go. Obviously you couldnt listen all day but it was about 2 weeks they gave the number

Bee Gees, Andy Gibb and Donna Summer were dominating
 
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I remember people at school collecting WABC buttons and pinning them on their denim jackets.
 
My grammar school won a “best principal” contest run by WABC in the late ‘60’s. The prize was that Cousin Brucie paid the schol a visit. Really big deal in those days.
 
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They've been trying to "re-install" an oldies music component
Bruce is back on with a show and Piscopo does a Sinatra show on Sunday nights.
I've never been an oldies show type but the historical info can be interesting
 
What memories!

WABC was a radio mainstay.

Bus driver listened to WNBC. Don Imus in the mornings.

My mother always listened to WNEW AM. They played standards such as Sinatra, Horne and Torme.

My Dad was a Newsy. 1010 WINS.
 
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colbert17 said:
If you lived in the NY area growing up in the 60s once WMCA went down WABC was the king of music.
I remember those summer weekends at Seaside, Pt. Pleasant or Lavalette and every transistor radio on the beach would have the station on and it was like listening in surround sound. Even though it turned into a political talk station my memories of those beach days and the trips home up Route 9 or the Parkway on Sunday evening (while sneaking a peek at what was playing at the Amboys Drive In) listening to the station will be part of some fond memories. Cousin Brucie, Dan Ingram, Harry Harrison, Ron Lundy, Herb Oscar Anderson and Chuck Leonard are names I'll never forget.
Please don't hijack this into a political thing and have it just be about when everyone listened to WABC.

nypost.com

Beatlemania, mobster shootings and more incredible moments from WABC radio’s 100-year history

As the iconic station celebrates its centennial, The Post looks back at its defining moments and the radio personalities that worked there.
nypost.com nypost.com
Click to expand...

Also Scott Muni as mentioned above. Looking back, WABC in it's heyday with admittedly a "play list" certainly played a diverse selection. You could have the Beatles followed by the Supremes, followed by the Rolling Stones followed by the Temptations followed by the Beach Boys followed by James Brown.
 
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Our old friend and part of rutgers history, Sid Rosenberg, is on the morning I think .
 
I remember Harry Harrison would help the ladies in the audience dress by zipping up the back of their dresses with a loud "ZZZZZZZZZIIIIIIIIIIIIIPPPPPPPPPP"!
 
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colbert17 said:
Harry Harrison and Herb Oscar Anderson were both on WMCA for a while.
Scott Muni worked at both stations also but is better know for his time on FM, especially WNEW one of the greatest FM stations ever. Evenings with Alison Steele, the Nightbird. Probably the sexiest voice ever on radio.
Click to expand...
"We're having a ball with Cousin Bruce!".......brings back memories......
and yes, Alison Steele was a special voice....
 
WhiteBus said:
The oldest AM station in NYC would be WFAN which goes back to 1919 under the call letters 2XB. Changed to WEAF in 1920 from there WRCA, WNBC, and now WFAN.
A lot of stations came on the air in 1922 as regulations changed. The most important was the coming changes to higher wavelength.
Click to expand...
I'm so old I remember when WRCA become WNBC -- it was a change in name only. I didn't realize that WNBC is no more; I would have thought that the network would care about having a radio station with its name. It shows how unimportant radio has become.

For me, the rock stations were WMCA, WABC, and WINS (the last with Murray the K). Then WINS became all-news -- perhaps the first all-news station. I remember WMCA good guy sweatshirts!
 
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And don't forget interlopers like Wolfman Jack (a New Yorker) and Zacherle who crashed the scene.
 
colbert17 said:
If you lived in the NY area growing up in the 60s once WMCA went down WABC was the king of music.
I remember those summer weekends at Seaside, Pt. Pleasant or Lavalette and every transistor radio on the beach would have the station on and it was like listening in surround sound. Even though it turned into a political talk station my memories of those beach days and the trips home up Route 9 or the Parkway on Sunday evening (while sneaking a peek at what was playing at the Amboys Drive In) listening to the station will be part of some fond memories. Cousin Brucie, Dan Ingram, Harry Harrison, Ron Lundy, Herb Oscar Anderson and Chuck Leonard are names I'll never forget.
Please don't hijack this into a political thing and have it just be about when everyone listened to WABC.

nypost.com

Beatlemania, mobster shootings and more incredible moments from WABC radio’s 100-year history

As the iconic station celebrates its centennial, The Post looks back at its defining moments and the radio personalities that worked there.
nypost.com nypost.com
Click to expand...
And there was also Dave Herman
 
Yes to the summers and transistor radios down the shore. My Clearest memory is listening to WABC on New Year's Day 1980, doing a homework project while they counted down the best hits of the decade that just ended (1970s), and thinking what a huge difference there was between 1970 and 1980.
 
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colbert17 said:
My mom spent the mornings Rambling With Gambling on WOR. Don Criqui did the sports report.
Click to expand...
My parents were Rambling with Gambling all the way, but for some reason in the car, my dad would torture us with WPAT music. We'd make fun of it and he yelled at us once: "Who do you like? Sgt. Jock and the Five Kimonos?!" To this day, I don't know where the hell he got that from. I think he may have been channeling a glam rock act like Gary Glitter or something.
 
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Some of you may remember Symphony Sid who djed a show featuring jazz music. His show came on at midnight. I can’t remember if he was on WABC or not but I do recall that his show immediately followed a rock and roll broadcast. There was a jingle that introduced his show- the opening line was “Dancing with my boy Sid in the City”. Anybody?
 
I remember when they turned 50, they had a contest for the most artistic birthday card, the smallest, the largest, etc. I sent in a card that was about 1 inch big, and as a 9 year old that seemed pretty small and i couldn't imagine anyone making a smaller one.
 
newell138 said:
I remember when they turned 50, they had a contest for the most artistic birthday card, the smallest, the largest, etc. I sent in a card that was about 1 inch big, and as a 9 year old that seemed pretty small and i couldn't imagine anyone making a smaller one.
Click to expand...
Welp, WABC had a contest when the Mona Lisa came to the US, for the ‘64 Wolds Fair IIRC, for the biggest, smallest, funniest Mona Lisa.
 
RU Husky said:
Some of you may remember Symphony Sid who djed a show featuring jazz music. His show came on at midnight. I can’t remember if he was on WABC or not but I do recall that his show immediately followed a rock and roll broadcast. There was a jingle that introduced his show- the opening line was “Dancing with my boy Sid in the City”. Anybody?
Click to expand...
The "bebop king" and "the dean of jazz radio" was on WMCA in 1949 and then joined WJZ the next year where he could be heard regionally. WJZ later became WABC. He left for Boston and came back in the late 1950s. He worked at WEVD and his engineer in the late 1970s encouraged him to play some of his jazz likings. So he began playing jazz in the final hour of his show.
 
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We even listened to WABC in South Jersey. I remember flipping to it when WIBG played a crap song.
 
A few more radio memories.

W R FM was always on at my Dentist.

Never listened to WVNJ as they played music that would put elevators to sleep. They did go to jazz format in the early 80s. Their towers were off of Mt. Pleasant Ave. in Livingston my hometown.

WXLO was a popular FM station in the 70s.

The next decade brought the Top 40 FM radio wars. WHTZ and WPLJ specifically.
 
It was possible to listen to the top 40 stations in other faraway cities at night. Like CKLW 800 Detroit/Windsor, WKBW 1520 Buffalo, WLS 890 Chicago, etc. Decades before streaming made it possible to listen to almost any radio station online
 
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