We are taking a break
this week from blogging this week to do consulting work for a new client. New Spark News posts will return on Monday
8/20.
This week we are
featuring some of our favorite oldies about radio. Most of these songs come from
the period when we worked in album rock radio. These songs meant sometime to us
then and still do today.
JONI MITCHELL
You Turn Me
On, I’m a Radio
In
the 1970s I was working on air at WCCO-FM in Minneapolis. At the time WCCO-FM
had an “eclectic oriented rock” (“EOR”) format – a combination of acoustic
progressive rock and jazz artists like The Crusaders. It was a very pleasing sound.
In
1974 I did a brief interview with Joni Mitchell and Tom Scott, leader of the LA
Express. Scott’s group was backing up
Mitchell on the Tour. That night Joni
Mitchell played her then-unreleased song You Turn Me On, I’m a Radio and
dedicated it to all of the DJ (like me)
who played her music on the air.
No recording exists, to my knowledge.
WCCO-FM was precursor to the Soft AC formats of the 1970's, but still applied some of Tom Donahue's Underground Radio/Early AOR and playing deep cuts. The most successful station is Philly's WMGK which become a tight AC as time marched on. Eventually competition had MGK evolving into a Classic Rock format.
ReplyDeleteWCCO-FM's rival crosstown station KQRS aka KQ102 signed with Lee Abrams/Kent Burkhart and adopted their Superstars concept and the station embraced Album Rock. But their would be KTCZ Cites 97 and went that sour enter The Current which we have today. It cost the market a Classical Station that the choral music fan likely preferred (it was owned by St. Olaf. Home of one of the top respected college choirs in the world).