"JC Golden Oldies" Returns To The Airwaves....

[Mark Watson]

 Mission Control wrote:


> Did anybody get a chance to listen in?

   I listened to some of both remotes that were a part of this 11 hour Elvis
special. From 6 AM till Noon, he was broadcasting live at Honey Dew Donuts
in Lowell. The Lowell remote was done over a dial-up, music played over the
phone line. Sounded bad, IMHO. I made a quick visit to the Lowell shop to
see first hand. JC was standing at a mic stand with a WMEX 900 mike flag,
Chuck Wright was manning the remote set up consisting of 2 Technics SL-1200
MK 2 turntables and 2 70's vintage Tapecaster cart machines. All the music
was on record, the carts were used for JC's jingles & bumpers. JC sent it
back to the station for stop sets, weather, AP news on the hour and half
hour. From 12 Noon to 1PM, pre-recorded material ran while they broke down
and drove up to another Honey Dew Donuts in nashua for the 1to 5 PM remote,
which sounded much better on a Marti. I think he had a blast playing music
on the radio again, even if it ends up being a one time deal. Hopefully it
won't be. I'm curious as to how this came about.

> I had the pleasure to watch Jimmy do his weekly show at the WLLH studios
(on Broadway) back in the mid 80's. I (often along with Dan Nelson) would
watch him from the production studio as he would Disk Jockey: actually
flipping his 45's onto the turntables (the big 16" transcription type - they
might have been Gates), cue them up, chat (well, it was kind of a
"controlled rant," if you know what I mean), and then hit the post as the
record spun. (Those records had some SEVERE cue-burn on them as I recall!)

   I recall the first time I saw JC at work in the plush WLLH 4 Broadway
studios, was on a Saturday night in April or May 1978, as I was helping then
night jock Michael B. (now Michael Burns of WMJX and WKLB) with a Lowell
High School dance, he had permission to use the WLLH van to take to the
dance. He brought me in to see JC at work, he was still tossing those 45's
like frisbees then too!! Always did his shows standing up, never sat down
until the show was over. I believe they had those 16 inch Gates turntables
until they left 4 Broadway in 1986 for 44 Church St. ( Note:WIRY in
Plattsburgh NY still has a pair in use in their on-air studio. Check out the
pics of their studios and transmitters too on their website  www.wiry.com)

> I wonder how he's really doing thesedays...

   He's doing great. He still packs in a decent crowd as he plays the oldies
(and flips the 45's) on Friday and Saturday nights at Cappy's Copper Kettle
in Lowell, just below the WCAP studios in fact. I believe the stage is under
the control room/ former on-air studio in the music days. Hey, I wonder if
Maurice Cohen ever considered running a long audio cable through the floor,
or through the rumored to exist/had existed at one time "beer door in the
floor" (Scott Fybush knows what I'm talking about) in the WCAP news booth
and hook into JC's sound system. Cheap, instant programming to lead into
"Music & Memories Overnight" 2 nights a week.

Now back to reality, already in progress
Mark Watson