THE WIND TOP 1000 - REDUX!!!

 Hi, everyone!

Six months ago, I shared a set of recordings that I made in 1971 and 1972, of Chicago radio station WIND, AM 560, when they featured their countdown of the biggest hits of the rock and roll era. Here's part of what I wrote at the time: 

In 1970, WIND had produced a list of the top 500 hits of all time (well, when they said "all time", they meant from 1955 onwards, it would appear). They aired the entire list, from #500 to #1- before doing so, they had a contest with prizes awarded to whoever (or one of those who could) guess the top ten in the correct order. After the program aired, the list was available at local stores or you could get it by mail, which I did. In retrospect - having studied the Billboard charts my entire adult life, and done my own figuring of the top hits many times over - it's clear to me that the WIND list was based directly on Billboard's rankings, which is as it should be. 

The following year, 1971, WIND announced that the list would be expanded to a top 1000, and that they would again play them, from #1000 to #1, starting on an upcoming weekend. There would be no changes to the all time top 10, as no song in 1970-71 had been nearly big enough for that. 

What I didn't remember at the time, and what I just recently discovered, is that not only did WIND re-run their entire Top 1000 in November of 1972, but also that I recorded large chunks of that presentation. Not only that, but I think (without immediately going back to listen to the earlier shared tapes) that these recordings contain considerably more of the commercials and newscasts that accompanied the presentation than did the previous share. You can hear these songs anywhere, but those news and sports breaks and commercials are moments in time which are always worth hearing, especially given that the 1972 presidential election was taking place the day after this countdown ended. That election, and the local elections, are covered at length in those newscasts. 

The list was the same for both presentations that WIND aired in 1972, although interestingly, there is not really that much overlap between the songs I recorded earlier in the year, and those heard in this set of portions of the countdown. Also, this recording of the countdown has the full top ten, some of which was missing in my earlier recordings/post. 

The songs heard here - almost, but not all of them heard in their entirety - are #'s 158-110, #103, #'s101-100, #'s 95-80, #'s 56-34 and #'s 12-1. 

The recording exists in my collection on two reels - the first of these reels contains nothing but recordings of the presentation, on both sides of the tape, in monaural - four tracks in all, lasting just moments under six and a half hours - and that's a good thing, because the software I use will not make a sound file longer than six hours and 34 minutes. That limitation means this is probably the longest single sound file I will ever share here. It contains all of the songs mentioned in the previous paragraph except for #'s 12-1: 

Download: The WIND Top 1000, November 5-6, 1972

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And here is the second tape which I used to capture the countdown, in this case, the very end of that big, long show. Oddly enough, my favorite moment among all seven hours plus that I'm sharing today is a a pretty crazy short news story about the incompetent way that the BBC covered the final game of that year's world series. That segment is heard starting at the 11:15 point in the segment below. 

Other than that, I remain deeply impressed by the long-ago tastes of the American radio listener and record buyer. Aside from the songs at # 9 and at # 1 (neither of which do much for me), ten of these twelve tracks are all fantastic records, thoroughly deserving of their massive success (and, I have to add, "Singing the Blues" by Guy Mitchell is simply one of the 10-15 best records ever made). Plus they represent a pretty wide range of styles and genres. 

And certainly, this is a list that is almost infinitely better than such a list of the top 12 hits of the 51 years since 1972 would be (a list from the last fifty years would likely include such material as "I'll Make Love to You" by BoyzIIMen, "One Sweet Day" by Mariah Carey, "You Light Up My Life" by Debby Boone, "Candle In the Wind 1997" by Elton John, "Physical" by Olivia Newton-John "Smooth" by Santana, and (God help us), "Blinding Lights" by The Weeknd, none of which will ever stay on my radio for more than ten seconds if I'm physically able to change the station). 

Download: The WIND Top 1000, November 5-6, 1972, Conclusion

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Okay, for our "Very Short Reel" this week, I am cheating. 100% cheating. Because this is not the sum and total of any one tape, nor is it a small segment of an otherwise uninteresting tape. But it is quite short, and it is relevant to the material above. For here you will hear Yours Truly, Bob Purse, at age 12 and a half, telling the listener that the show is over and you can "Stop Playing the Tape" now, then going on far too long with the shtick (and proving that one CAN go on far too long in 58 seconds), as well as a tuneless little song . Who, exactly, this directive was aimed at is unknown, but it was probably the same fictional "listener" that was in my mind whenever I was recording and pretending to be the host of a show or to be doing something I imagined other people listening to (as you can hear in this post).  

Anyway, here's what's on the tape immediately after the end of the second segment, above. 

Download: "Stop Playing the Tape"

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And for those who want more than just an imaginary "Bob" to go with the above 58 second recording, here is an exceptionally unflattering picture of me, taken perhaps three months or so after that recording was made, from one of those "four-pictures-for-a-quarter" photo booths. Actually, I think, in this shot, I look like I was just about as irritating a child as I sound like I was in that "Stop Playing the Tape" segment. You can probably use this to scare your kids on Hallowe'en this year.  

THE WIND TOP 1000!

 Today, I have only a couple of sound files to share, but given that, together, they contain over six hours worth of material, I don't think I'm shortchanging anyone. And I suspect you will cheer these items, if you are among those who enjoy vintage radio broadcasts. In this case, they are from the early 1970's, complete with lots of ads as well as newscasts (well, the longer of the two, anyway), to go along with the music. 

A bit of personal history here. I had a brief flirtation with Top 40 radio around age 10, and still have a very nostalgic love for the hits of the summer and fall of 1970. But in the following years, while most of my peers were likely just starting to become enamored of top 40 radio, and become lulled into a sense of complacency by the dubious charms of the likes of The Carpenters, The Osmonds, Carole King, Chicago, Cher, John Denver, James Taylor and their ilk (I recognize that your mileage may vary on the "complacency" and "dubious" part, but for me, that's only a toe in the barrel of the ecch that was the pop music of the early '70's), I fell headlong into the local oldies station, WIND, 560 on your dial. I found much more to appreciate in the sounds of the 1950's and 1960's than on contemporary radio (although WIND did sprinkle the biggest hits of the day in, here and there), and by the end of 1971, I barely knew any of the current hit songs, but was well versed in music from before I was born. (Perhaps the sole exception to my ignorance of then-current hits, and a record I swoon over to this day, was Melanie's "Brand New Key", which surely says something about me, although I don't know what.)  To this day, my single favorite year for popular music is 1957 - three years before I was born. 

In 1970, WIND had produced a list of the top 500 hits of all time (well, when they said "all time", they meant from 1955 onwards, it would appear). They aired the entire list, from #500 to #1- before doing so, they had a contest with prizes awarded to whoever (or one of those who could) guess the top ten in the correct order. After the program aired, the list was available at local stores or you could get it by mail, which I did. In retrospect - having studied the Billboard charts my entire adult life, and done my own figuring of the top hits many times over - it's clear to me that the WIND list was based directly on Billboard's rankings, which is as it should be. 

The following year, 1971, WIND announced that the list would be expanded to a top 1000, and that they would again play them, from #1000 to #1, starting on an upcoming weekend. There would be no changes to the all time top 10, as no song in 1970-71 had been nearly big enough for that. I recorded nearly five hours of this programming, along with the ads and newscasts which went with it, over that weekend, including two lengthy portions (#'s 260-233 and #'s 60-7), as well as two brief segments (#'s 93-92 and #'s 2-1). Unfortunately, I missed #'s 6-3 near the end of the countdown, but if I can find my copy of the list among all of the detritus I've collected in 62+ years of life, I will update this post. 

I recorded the 1971 segments at the extremely low-fi speed of 1 7/8 IPS - you will no doubt note some poorly recorded moments and wobbliness to some of the sounds here. 

The following year, WIND updated the top 1000 yet again, and I recorded a relatively short segment of the program during the evening - a period in which there were very few ads and no newscasts, so this segment may be of somewhat less interest if that is the appeal. I captured #'s 33-17 in a 90 minute segment. If you listen to both broadcasts, you will find that no 1971-72 hit song was big enough to enter the station's top 33, as #s 33-17 in 1972 are exactly the same 17 songs as #'s 33-17 in the 1971 broadcast. 

I'm going to share the shorter, and probably less interesting of the two recordings first, even though it came later, and then share the massively entertaining 1971 recording. 

Download: The 1972 WIND Top 1000 (33 Through 17)

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And here is the massive, four-hour-51-minute portion of the 1971 WIND Top 1000 broadcast. It starts with about 45 seconds of trying to find the correct station, and then another 75 seconds on a sports talk program, but starting at about the two minute point, the remainder of this massive track is all WIND. Be sure to listen for the point at which my older brother leaned into the microphone and offered a brief critique of the song playing at that moment, which was Santo and Johnny's "Sleep Walk". ENJOY!

Download: The 1971 WIND Top 1000 (260-233, 93-92, 60-7, 2-1)

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(A side note: I also recorded some of at least one of these countdowns onto cassette tapes, and if I can find those, I'll share them here, some day, if no one objects to cassettes being offered up on a reel to reel site.)

~~

Okay, you short-tape lovers, I haven't forgotten about you. Here's a one minute radio ad for HBO's cable premier of the movie "Multiplicity", created by a company called "Superdupe". You wouldn't know it from this creative and forceful ad, but the movie in question was neither a critical or box office hit. Maybe that's why they worked so hard to promote it - there was no significant built-in audience.  

Download: Superdupe - HBO's Multiplicity Ad

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Some Suspect Gold Records, 1958 News, An Odd Audio Letter and Moonlight Madness

Good Day, Ladies and Gentlemen, 

Before I get to today's offering, I wanted to respond to someone whose name was listed as "OldRadios90", and who responded to another post, asking me about sharing other vintage recording mediums here. I answered his comment from three weeks ago with a comment of my own, on that post. But I didn't know if it would be better to answer here, and others reading this might be interested, as well. 

Specially, I wrote that I have often thought of expanding this site into Acetates, of which I have many, many (although I've sold some in recent years), and may do so, but I barely find the time to post what I do share at the moment. Still, maybe this will light a bit of a fire under me! As to the other recording mediums you mention, I do not own any of those, although I've always been fascinated by wire recorders. To anyone reading this: if you have anything of this sort you'd like to contribute, I'd welcome having you host a post here. 

~~

A few months ago, I came across this most odd little recording. WVVX was a fairly peculiar station in the far north suburbs of Chicago. It had a tiny signal - probably not reaching very far beyond the north boundary of Chicago - and it was a bartered station (various interests bought time on the station, making for a hodgepodge of programming in various languages), for much of the day, it was a sort of esoteric oldies station, playing a goodly amount of what you'd expect from such a station, but featuring, in heavy rotation, such things as "Rock and Roll is Here to Stay", rather than its predecessor hit "At the Hop", and Cliff Noble's and Company's largely forgotten (even then) instrumental hit, "The Horse".   

I'm not exactly sure what the time frame was for WVVX as an oldies station. I know this tape is from around 1979 or so, and they were still doing the oldies thing when I briefly drove a cab in 1982 - I listened to them all the time during that period. More information about WVVX (no known as WPNA) can be found on this Wikipedia page. 

In this segment, two deejays explain the meaning of a "Gold Record", and also explain that some labels never accepted the accounting that the RIAA would require in order for a record to be certified as "Gold". They then play a medley of moments from he "hits" they believe, after some degree of research (I guess) qualified as Gold Records, over the years, in roughly chronological order. 

The problem here is that their research methods seem to have been lacking in, um, research. A few of these records were never even singles, and a fair number of other ones were mid-charters at best, and quite unlikely to have sold enough to have gone Gold. 

An odd project, and odd results all around.

Download: WVVX Plays the Records They Think Were Gold Records

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Next up, here are the remaining fragments of two different recordings from a Washington D.C. radio station, made at two different points in early 1958. The first segment was at the very start of the tape, then was erased by something of far lesser interest, and the second segment was what remained at the end of the tape, after that erasure and less interesting stuff. There is a brief break between the segments. There is an interesting "looseness" to the entertainment report that I have not generally perceived in news broadcasts of that era. 

From the stories told during these segments (the first a newscast, the second a light entertainment report), dates can (sort of) be determined. The first segment is from January 22, 1958, while the second is a bit confusing. It is probably from later that week, as it mentions a film starting on January 27th. Yet it also mentions two films playing in town which, per IMDB and Wikipedia, didn't open anywhere until February of that year. Ah, well. 

Download: WASH, Washington - Two Fragments: News and Entertainment Reports, Early 1958

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And now we come to something a bit peculiar. This is a audio letter sent from someone named Dick Kenny. It would seem, based on the opening comments, that he is sending this tape to someone he doesn't know well. 

Mr. Kenny clearly considered himself quite the cut-up. Much of the tape is made up of him speaking in the third person, portraying people talking about him, first in impersonation of Amos and Andy, and later - for much of the tape - in a series of phone calls to people involved in sound recording. I assume these calls (and the other material on the tape) were meant as humor, but they are god-awful - dry, repetitive, painfully dull and devoid of anything that has ever worked for people who've made a buck via "Funny Phone Calls". He also beats to death his own (fake) concept of a recording term, "Faggacycles".

I will add that Mr. Kenny seems to have considered himself quite the skilled audio man, and if the sound recordings/effects he offers up (early in the tape) are real, then I would have to agree with him on that, but I have no idea if these were just yet another "bit". A weird tape, to be sure. 

Download: Dick Kenny - A Tape from Dick Kenny

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And finally, here's today's "Very Short Reel". This comes from a city called Turlock, in central California, but other than that, I don't have a date or a station, as this was unlabeled, apart from saying "Moonlight Madness". This seems to have a region-wide sale, or perhaps a street-wide sale or something. 

Download: "Moonlight Madness in Turlock" Promo

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