Friday, October 17, 2014

RETRO FRIDAY: “BEAKER STREET” KAAY 1972


If you were coming age in flyover country during the early 1970s you probably heard BEAKER STREET on KAAY AM 1090. From 11:00pm to 2:00am KAAY departed from its usual Top 40 format for a one-of-kind progressive rock program hosted by Clyde Clifford.   Clyde played the best tracks of “underground” music plus lengthy stoner tunes like In a Gadda da Vida by Iron Butterfly and Legend of the USS Titanic by Jamie Brockett.  Break out the munchies!

Here is a sample of BEAKER STREET from June 1, 1972:

 
A woman I worked with at Transtar Radio Network in the 1980s was the Traffic Director at KAAY, Little Rock during the BEAKER STREET era.  She told me that the station started using the far-out “space noise” to mask the sound from huge fans that blew through the building. KAAY was required to broadcast from the transmitter site during the night because of it’s giant coverage area. 

  KAAY AM 1090 was heard in all of the US east of the Rockies and west of the Appalachians plus parts of Canada, Mexico & the Caribbean.

4 comments:

  1. I listened in Hattiesburg, Mississippi. Beaker Street was one of my inspirations for getting into the radio game back in '78. Loved the weird background sounds!

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  2. Same here. Listening in late at night to KAAY opened a whole new world of music to me back in the late 60's and early 70's. To this day, KAAY provides a reference for how alternative radio should sound. The true art of radio is all too rare these days with automation and static playlists.

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  3. Thank you for posting this. I'm the one who originally captured this aircheck on tape, receiving KAAY on the skywave from Evanston, IL near Chicago. There are more memories of Beaker Street and KAAY at the Mighty 1090 KAAY blog: http://mighty1090kaay.blogspot.com/ - G.Barman

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  4. We listened Beaker Street from Havana (Cuba) during the 70´s defying the Cuban government prohibition of listening rock - the "music of the enemy". We loved that program. The soothing and mysterious voice of Clifford added even more charm to the whole ensemble. Even today, 45 years later, and from the exile where many of us live now, we still remember that show. Thanks for the good old times.

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