Re: boston-radio-interest-digest V4 #528

[Eli Polonsky <elipolo@earthlink.net>]

> From : PWerlin@aol.com
> To : eli@turntable.mit.edu, boston-radio-interest@bostonradio.org
> Subject : Re: boston-radio-interest-digest V4 #528
> Date : Mon, 10 Dec 2001 22:17:14 EST
> 
>> And some new oldies to the 300 or so song playlist that I've heard
>> over the last several days, such as "You've Ain't Seen Nothing Yet" by
>> Bachman Turner Overdrive, "Piano Man" by Billy Joel, "We've Only Just
>> Begun" by the Carpenters, "Philadelphia Freedom" by Elton John, and
>> "If I Can't Have You" by Yvonne Elliman just to name a few. All this
>> has seemed to occur since Greg Strassel added WODS PD duties to his
>> WBMX PD duties. Could more changes be on the way?
> 
> 
> All my favorites!   Is WODS an all '70's station now?

Not all 70's, but getting much heavier that way. They're still mostly
focused on the big 60's hits, Motown and of course Beatles, and you still
may hear a very occcasional 50's warhorse hit (Elvis, Buddy Holly, etc..)
once in a great while (outside of Little Walter's 50's show Sunday nights).

However, if you include the very early 70's ('70,'71) there seems to be
about as much 70's music at 50's/60's combined at this point, if not more. A
lot of it (especially the more "soft-rock" type stuff) was added under
former PD John Morgan who, I'm guessing, was concerned about competing with
WMJX and WROR.

BTO's "Ain't Seen Nothing Yet" was just added (by Greg or Joe Cortez, the
APD) and I must say it was a jarring segue out of The Everly Brothers "All I
Have To Do Is Dream" yesterday morning, even with a quick jingle in-between.

> Are the 50's and 60's finally "over"? I was a big fan of the "pre-Staying
> Alive" Bee Gees. 

I loved that first Beatle-esque "Bee Gees 1'st" album in 1967.

> Eli - do you spin at WMBR?

Yes, I do the Thursday version of the "Lost & Found" show block, which runs
weekdays 12 noon - 2 pm.  Anyone who is interested in unusual, obscure
oldies and forgotten (or never heard) classic rock should check out this
show. Each DJ focuses on different styles of music from the era 1960-1975.

(And we didn't derive the title from Barry Scott, he was still doing "The
Gold Rush" on WERS when we started this show block in 1983).

Some of the DJ's tend toward "lost" and/or obscure 60's pop and R&B, and are
very good at it. My Thursday show is essentially based on WBCN about 30
years ago, the so-called "FM underground rock" era. Some album music that
actually got a lot of play in the day, but won't be touched by WZLX, WROR,
etc.. anymore. Even sometimes the big name groups and artists they play, but
"deep" cuts. Of course, last week was a George Harrison tribute.

I don't know what I'll be doing this week, but I always get more than enough
good, format-appropriate requests to fill two hours. It's just a speck in
the scope of Boston radio, but popular in it's scale. It does quite well in
WMBR's annual fundraisers (over twice the pledges of the other weekdays).

I also used to fill in often on a similar show that used to be on BC's WZBC
in the mid 80's-early 90's, and did oldies part-time (with a pseudonym) on
the second incarnation of WMEX (1150 AM) in the mid-late 80's, and in the
last months of WKBR Manchester NH's days of live oldies in 1990. Nowadays I
may also be heard trying to stay awake enough to turn the mic on for two
minutes an hour part-time overnights at a certain big NPR news station.

Eli Polonsky

(Note: new e-mail address. Posting from receiving my WMBR mail externally
through Hotmail was causing problems/delays with the list for me).