AM Radio Rocked My World
A few nights ago, as I was surfing the internet, I came across a website devoted to preserving the sounds and memories of AM radio, particularly those stations of the 1950s, ’60s, and ’70s that played top-40 rock ’n’ roll. I quickly lost an hour or two listening to some of the jingles and recordings of a few KAAY broadcasts. For that brief while, I was a teenager again, out on a date or going into town for a ballgame, listening to “The Mighty Ten Ninety”—KAAY’s frequency on the AM dial being 1090kHz. I particularly enjoyed an aircheck from an evening in May of 1971, the month I graduated from Stone High in Wiggins, Mississippi. This recording very vividly reminded me of how much radio and rock music was a part of my life in those years. Long before the internet, iPods and iTunes, before Spotify and all the other current-day streaming options—radio was big, and AM radio was the biggest. It was the primary conduit by which we consumed our music and how we learned of the latest songs from our favorite groups, and of the new and up-and-coming artists.
Throughout most of my growing-up years, even into college, it seems that an AM radio was always playing—whether at home, in the car, or on a transistor—as we rode to and from school, did chores, worked on the farm, went swimming, went on dates, or just hung out—if the music on the radio wasn’t in the foreground of our consciousness, then it was somewhere in the background. For me, about the only time the radio wasn’t on was when I was in school or at church, or at the dinner table. Everywhere else, just like in American Graffiti where the songs played non-stop for the entire movie, the radio was an ever-present backdrop to my daily existence.
Being born in 1953, I was a bit young when rock ’n’ roll blossomed into the full cultural sensation that it was. Even so, I was definitely aware of its presence at an early age—the phenomenon that was Elvis was hard even for a preschooler to miss. I remember singing “I ain’t nothing but a hound dog” as if it was just another lyric from a folk song like “Yankee Doodle Dandy” or “Tom Dooley” that we were always singing as kids. A little later, I was introduced to all the rock ’n’ roll hits of the mid- and late-’50s, from “Peggy Sue” to “Blue Suede Shoes” as they emanated from my sister Judy’s old tabletop radio in her bedroom. It was always on, always tuned to the best AM Top 40 stations within its reach. Judy, being four years older, would occasionally have school friends sleep over. I loved it when they would dance and sing along to songs like “Please, Mr. Postman” and “Runaround Sue.” Of course, they were still “twisting the night away” long after I had to go to bed.
It wasn’t too many years later that Judy gave me that old shoebox-sized radio—after its plastic casing melted and warped when she accidentally rested the hot steam iron next to it while she interrupted her ironing to go to the kitchen. I took that old radio apart, threw away the casing, and mounted the guts inside an actual cardboard shoebox. I was quite proud of myself for what I thought was a clever solution. The radio was still perfectly usable, particularly after I cut out holes for the volume and tuning knobs and a larger, rectangular hole so that I could see the sliding tuner indicator. I used that old radio for many years thereafter—throughout high school, in fact—leaving it behind only as I left for college.
For Christmas in 1963, at age 10, I got my first transistor radio—just in time for the British invasion that rocked the universe a few weeks later. For many of us of that era, the transistor radio was technology that changed our lives. Portable music, what a radical concept! I still have a vivid memory of walking down to the small, frozen-over pond behind Granddaddy Lott’s house a couple of days after that Christmas, sporting my nifty little GE pocket transistor with its tiny speaker erupting with the Beatles’ “I Want To Hold Your Hand.” This song, like all other No. 1 pop hits, got two or three plays an hour on every AM station we listened to. Just as “I Want To Hold Your Hand” always conjures that memory of walking to Granddaddy’s pond, several other songs seem to be permanently linked in my recall with a specific place. I first heard the Stones’ “Satisfaction” as I played basketball with my brother Keith on our little dirt court out in the field beside the house. Likewise, I associate Neil Diamond’s “Solitary Man” with being in the back-back seat of our station wagon as Dad drove my brother and me home from a late-night ballgame on the coast. I link CCR’s “Who’ll Stop The Rain” to a memorable evening hanging out at the Frosty Mug with my girlfriend. And I remember hearing Marvin Gaye’s version of “I Heard it Through the Grapevine” when I was at Lake-A-Way swimming with my friends on a summer Sunday afternoon. Whether this mental song/place connection is common for others, I don’t know. I can’t explain why it works that way for me, but it’s no wonder that these songs form the cornerstones in the soundtrack of my life. My tastes have expanded through the years to include many other genres and the music from other eras, but I make no apologies for my preference for these classic rock ’n’ roll songs of the ’60s that I first heard on an AM station. They are an integral part of my musical DNA.
These two images are close approximations of the radios mentioned above, courtesy of Google Images. They’ll have to suffice, as I couldn’t find the actual items in any of my old photos. My portable transistor had a leatherette light tan carrying case. Judy’s tabletop unit was dark brown; I’ve forgotten it’s brand.
During the daytime hours we’d often listen to WNOE or WTIX out of New Orleans, two of the most popular Top 40 AM stations in the area. But at night we always switched to KAAY out of Little Rock or WLS from Chicago. These two were both large, 50,000-watt stations whose clear-channel signals had a huge, multi-state reach after sunset, covering most of the middle section of the U.S. and Canada. We couldn’t get these faraway stations during the day, as there was too much interference from the many local stations, but from 7:30 or 8:00pm into the late night they sounded as close as any other. Many a night I would do my homework while listening to one or the other of these stations, as they had the best DJs, the best mix of music and crazy promotions, and of course, being from so far away, they had an exotic quality about them that was hard to resist. With my bedroom window open on a warm, muggy, March evening, I would marvel at the announcement of the freezing temperature in Little Rock or the even colder, often snowy weather in the Windy City. I ask you, what can be more exotic to a South-Mississippi country boy than lake-effect snow?
An aircheck from 1964 of DJ Skip Wilkerson on WTIX-AM.
A collection of announcers, jingles, and music from WLS-AM of the ‘60s.
Often, with my younger brother John already asleep in the top bunk, I would lie in bed with my shoebox radio on the floor under me as I listened to Beaker Street, KAAY’s cult-like, underground music program that came on at 11:00pm. This nightly program featured longer album cuts of a form of rock music that was edgier than the popular Top 40 hits. Clyde Clifford, the soft-spoken late-night host, opened a door that lead me into a whole new world of music. He wasn't your typical fast-talking, Top 40 disk jockey. Clyde spoke slowly and softly over a background of eerie, spacey music, introducing me to what we would call "hard rock” or “heavy metal” music, from bands with strange-sounding names like Pink Floyd, Yes, Iron Butterfly, and Steppenwolf. This is where I learned that "Light my Fire" by the Doors was not a 2½-minute pop-rock song, but a 7-minute guitar and organ opus.
By the way, that old shoebox radio may have had an FM tuner—I think it did—but it was useless to me. AM was the only game in town, for in those days, there weren’t many FM stations, and those typically played classical or oh-so-soft elevator music. FM supposedly had a higher fidelity sound, but it didn’t have rock ’n’ roll. In that province, at least in the ’50s and ’60s, AM was king. Later, when FM stations converted to stereo, most Top 40 programming moved over to that format and the heyday of the rock ’n’ roll AM stations quickly died. By the mid- and late-’70s, like carhops and drive-in movies, Top 40 AM was gone—the end of an era.
Nowadays, with computers and the internet, almost all of us, old and young alike, have other ways of receiving our music. Admittedly, the options are exponentially greater, but I’m not so sure these modern services have made our lives exponentially better. Sure, iTunes, Spotify, and all the other streaming services allow us greater-than-ever access to music, but I think there’s something elemental missing. Transistor radios were a vehicle for social interaction that has been largely lost in the digital music age. Maybe I’m just wallowing in nostalgia, but for me, today’s computers, tablets, and smartphones don’t foster the same communal feeling that we once got from gathering around a transistor radio with our friends. Can someone say “Yeah, yeah, yeah”?
A Word to Ponder
viv·id (adjective): producing powerful feelings or strong, clear images in the mind. From Latin vividus, from vivere to live.
Source: merriam-webster.com
Song of the Day
“Cherry Bomb” by John Mellencamp (The Lonesome Jubilee, 1987)
My favorite lyric:
“Laughing, laughing with our friends
Holdin’ hands meant somethin’ baby
Outside the club Cherry Bomb*
Our hearts were really thumpin’
Say yeah, yeah, yeah
Say yeah, yeah, yeah”
*This song really resonates with me. However, instead of
the Cherry Bomb, I’m thinking the Frosty Mug.
Bonus Track
“Having A Party” by Sam Cooke (The Best of Sam Cooke, 1962)