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Page Deux Monthly Newsletter Updates for Management, Sales, Promotion McVayMedia.com Domain Names Podcasting 411 Recommended reading, flix Cool Deals/Free Stuff HC bio, airchecks: [WPRO 1977] [WBIG 2001]

aircheck (AIR-check) n. recording of a radio show, used to review talent performance.

I always recommend that talent NOT listen to airchecks right away.  Wait at least a couple weeks, and you'll hear LOTS more than you'd hear if you listened in the car on the way home from doing the show.  Try it, and you'll appreciate what a whack-on-the-side-of-the-head it was for me to find this old tape of me on WPRO (AM), where I hosted 7-midnight 1974-1980.

"Later, I worked bigger markets, and made bigger money, but I never had a better on-air job." Even then, we all knew we were in a radio Camelot; that "it doesn't get any better than this." <<< NOT Tony Orlando! We were owned by the best company in the business back then, Capital Cities Communications, which eventually bought ABC.  Our GM was Dick Rakovan (now Senior VP/Stations, Radio Advertising Bureau); the PD was Jay Clark (who left us for WTIC/Hartford, left there for WABC/New York, then became head of programming for Sirius Satellite Radio); and our sales manager was Bill Campbell (later CEO of Charles River Broadcasting). And I'd stack-up our on-air staff against any station anywhere back then.

The more I listened to this old show, the more I heard.
This recording is much less about me than it is about Rhode Island in 1977.

We had no idea... ...how complicated life would become.  Soon.  In just a few months, The Great Blizzard of '78 would paralyze New England for a week. Meantime, the summer of '77 seemed pretty darn carefree. The Viet Nam war was over.  Voters had banished the last bastion of Watergate, punishing Gerald Ford for pardoning Richard Nixon, by replacing him with Jimmy Carter.  Rhode Islanders who visited New York City came home raving about the view from atop the World Trade Center towers.  Joe Garrahy was governor, and Buddy Cianci was Providence mayor (the first time).  It would be a year before "Saturday Night Fever" replaced AM radio's diverse Top-40 playlist with a seamless, sound-alike 150-beat-per-minute disco din.  At the movies, we howled at Peter Sellers as Inspector Clouseau in the Pink Panther movies.  "Charlie's Angels" was a TV show.  Internet???  1977 was before fax machines! In 1977, our biggest beef was gasoline prices, which averaged an outrageous 64 cents per gallon.  Remember, it was just a few years earlier that we lined-up to gas-up, on even or odd days.  Thus the Grand Prize -- and four equally-economical Second Prizes -- that we gave away in the summer-long contest you'll hear promo'd at the very beginning of this aircheck. Click here to listen in RealAudio Click here to listen in WindowsMedia NINE! Count 'em, NINE cart machines. I thought that was really cool. And for you youngsters, that object in the foreground is "a turntable." Liner Notes: If you lived in Rhode Island in the 70s, or if you're in radio, note also these details: The very first voice you'll hear is PD Jay Clark.  Those-who-know-him-best will recognize real Jay Clark copy ("WE WANT YOU TO WIN!"); and another technique of his that I've shamelessly borrowed elsewhere, using multiple voices, sometimes cutting from voice-to-voice mid-sentence.  Following Jay, you'll hear, in this order: midday host Jimmy Gray, mid-morning host Larry Kruger, Jay again, then longtime WPRO production director Austin "Jake" Paquin, before yours truly tags it live. Even though nobody talks in this next break, I included it, a jingle segue, because I just LOVE these jingles.  This was a custom package that Jay conceived, and it became PAMS Series 41.  It replaced some very classy WFIL jingles we played for several years.  And the WFIL jingles replaced some WKBW jingles we'd played previously.  Because "WKBW" (our sister station in Buffalo) had more syllables than "WPRO," the singers sang the "O" as a down note, and held it.  In the replacement WFIL package, the "O" was lavishly layered voices singing an up note.  One year, at the big Bristol RI 4th of July parade, Jay noticed something.  Even though the slick WFIL jingles we were then airing ended with an up note, folks in the parade crowd sang-out "WPRO" to us as our float passed by, mimicking the previous WKBW package, which ended with a down note.  Jay, himself a musician, observed that "unless you're a professional singer, you can't sing that up note;" and he made a point of returning to the old WKBW logo when PAMS wrote the Series 41 music.  Though 3-second shotguns were in vogue at the time, this package  included some :30 and :60 length lyrics; and was themed "EVERYTHING WE DO IS FOR YOU."  The unadorned segue you'll hear in this break is me aping the elegant simplicity of WABC, then still New York's music radio ratings gorilla. Yep, that's legendary 50+ year WPRO morning host Salty Brine leading off the 4th of July Parade promo, joined by Larry Kruger and afternoon host Gary DeGraide, and (reading the fine print, as he did so anonymously), Jake... Me with Salty, years later at a WPRO reunion. Then, a spot announcing that former horse track Lincoln Downs would re-open as Lincoln Greyhound Park.  Newport Jai Alai -- now Newport Grand, a slot and simulcast casino no longer actually playing Jai Alai games -- had just opened, and was sucking-in the pari mutuel revenue that formerly flowed into Lincoln Downs and now-defunct Narragansett Raceway.  Thus the copy line in the Lincoln Greyhound spot about "NO TOWNS TO GO THROUGH, NO HASSLE," since Lincoln Greyhound was right off a highway, and Newport Jai Alai was a trek from Providence.  Voicing the Lincoln Downs spot:  Sherm Strickhouser, a long-time Providence radio host who passed away several years ago. The pups still run in Lincoln, now known as slot palace Twin River. Next break, first spot, Midland Mall, which has changed names twice since (now it's Rhode Island Mall).  The spot is voiced by Mike Sands, affable and popular midday host for years on WJAR (now Clear Channel's WHJJ AM) and later on WSNE (FM), which I programmed 1982-84.  We were all stunned when Mike died suddenly in terrible car crash in the late 80s.  Listen to that lithe Midland Mall jingle.  The lyrics seem quaint today, with identity theft such a concern.  Back in '77, the mall wanted to assure you that "WE'VE SEEN YOU AND THE THINGS YOU DO, QUITE A WHILE...WE'VE COME TO KNOW YOU." Same break, Gary DeGraide voices a spot for the Emerson Lake & Palmer concert at The Providence Civic Center (now The Dunkin Donuts Center).  In the 70s, this was the 5th biggest concert venue in America, even with ELP tickets as pricey as a whopping $7.50 and $8.50.  Then, into "Ariel" by Dean Friedman, the jingle I often played after concert spots. Next break: Live on-hour ID, WPRO's perennial summertime moniker, "THE STATION THAT REACHES THE BEACHES!"  Back then, you could walk up and down Scarborough Beach in Narragansett without a radio and hear WPRO. Next break: Jingle segue to oldie.  My clock featured back-to-back top ten titles across the hour, then an oldie, in this case "Saturday Night" by The Bay City Rollers. The talk-in to the next stopset demonstrates what Jay called "the subliminal."  I'd never heard that word before I knew it as the name of a jingle.  Jay had us hit that moog logo underneath the temperature as we said the call letters at the end of the AccuWeather forecast to subliminally underline that you heard the forecast on WPRO. Next break, a call-in contest.  WPRO's call-in number is different now, but a year before this show, when the USA's Bicentennial was such a big deal, our having 224-1776 was a coup.  A year later, in '77, we used that short "PRO!" sing to exploit the fact that 224-1776 was also 224-number-one-P-R-O. Same break: WPRO's "utility infielder" Brother Bill Goodman, who did weekends and filled-in for everyone, voicing a promo for an appearance at Crescent Park.  At the time, Rhode Island had two classic amusement parks, Crescent Park and Rocky Point Park, now both are closed. Next break, the contest winner.  WPRO-FM, by then 3 years into its CHR format, was snowballing, so we started emphasizing that we were WPRO-AM.  As you'll hear from the contest winner, the repetition worked. Last break: My all-time favorite sweeper jingle, WPRO's half-hour sing. One day, we named the building after him. GM Dick Rakovan unveiled the surprise.