Re: Boston Network Radio Affiliations: 1950's and 1960's.

[Donna Halper <dlh@donnahalper.com>]

Dan wrote--
>Adding to the idea that WCOP was top 40 before 1956 is that, while I was
>still an undergraduate at RPI (that is, sometime before June 1956) while
>visiting my parents in New York, I visited a former classmate, Ed Greene,
>who had dropped out of RPI and was working in a recording studio in the
>basement of the Brill Building in the heart of New York's Tin Pan Alley.
>>From the control room, I observed serveral recording sessions, one of which
>was for the jingles that later appreared on WCOP while it was owned by
>Plough Inc. At the session I observed, jingles were cut for another Plough
>station, WMPS Memphis. But I'm pretty sure that all of the Plough stations
>ran the same top-40 format, and that Plough acquired WCOP while I was still
>at RPI.

It would not surprise me if WCOP played with top-40 briefly and then
abandoned it before going back to it.  So did WNAC, several times.  In
fact, throughout 1955-6, according to newspaper articles I have, this was a
real crisis for radio programmers in Boston-- should they keep on playing
"standards" or go more for what the kids wanted?  The airstaffs were
largely comprised of older guys who had made a name doing
middle-of-the-road programming (except it wasn't MOR to them-- in the
1940s, what they played was considered "the hits" of that time... Martin
Block never played a rock record, as far as I know, but he was written up
repeatedly as a popular "disc jockey" by Newsweek, Time, and various radio
magazines of the 40s and 50s...) and this new and loud music was a mystery
to many of them.  A few adapted, but others decided they hated it.  Marlowe
was being very disingenuous when years later he expressed disgust for
rock-- he had played it at several stations, and had been quite
enthusiastic about it when he was being paid to do so...

Anyway, Marlowe left WCOP for WBZ in March of 1957, according to Variety.
My d.j. list for March of 1957 has these announcers on WCOP:  Jim Dixon,
John Scott, Bill Clark, Tom Evans (and in parentheses it says Neil Mack).
       
>
Dan wrote--
>Now, as I recall the Plough version of the top-40 format, the jocks were not
>personalities; they probably all had "house" air names. They had a generic
>sound and were all but anonymous. Also, in the fall of '56, Marlowe was
>working at WBZ as one of the original "live five".

Umm, not according to either the Globe or Variety, but maybe he came and
went quickly?  Jocks did move around a lot back then... Norm Prescott was
doing double shifts for WBZ in late 1956, according to the schedules I
have.   And articles stated that not all of the d.j.'s had yet been hired,
since until September, NBC programming still occupied large portions of the
day...

Dan wrote--
>Also, in a recent post, somebody supposedly listed the names of the original
>live five, and got at least one name wrong.

I was that somebody, but I am not sure about when Leo Egan became one of
the Live Five.  As I said earlier, I have a newspaper clipping with a big
ad announcing his arrival as a newsman in 1953.  But my photos of the Live
Five, including publicity photos from early 1957 do not show Egan.  That
doesn't mean he wasn't there-- but maybe being a sidekick to DeSuze didn't
qualify you as a member of the Live Five?  And yes, John Bassett is in
those early 1957 photos (although Jack Loring, who had been doing
overnights for years, wasn't in them either-- perhaps because he didn't
play pop music?).
  

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