ON THE TURNTABLE: November of 1967

ON THE TURNTABLE: In November of 1967 I was purchasing mostly albums, having drifted away from single (45rpm) releases.This change in my purchasing, as well as the purchases of like minded teens listening to the same current music, was due in part, a large part, by one singular event; that being the change in FM radio broadcasting.

(A brief history thanks to Allen Sniffen) In 1966 the Federal Communications Commission ruled that major market FM radio stations could no longer simulcast their AM sister stations.  FM had to become separate with individual programming.  This was deemed necessary to allow FM to grow and develop its own audience.  The ruling put radio station owners in a bind.  They needed to come up with new formats for these weaker and less desirable stations. Since FM was more difficult to receive,  its universe of potential listeners was much smaller… and so was its billing.  The new formats therefore had to be both different and relatively inexpensive to program. It was in that environment that RKO General Broadcasting launched its new WOR-FM  (98.7Mhz) “Hot 100” format on July 30, 1966.  The name is deceiving because, in fact, it was the first progressive rock station in the country.  It marketed itself as stereo as a way to distinguish itself from AM radio.  The problem was that many of the records played by the station were not in stereo.  While it was true that most record albums were stereo, singles were not.  Since the singles came out before the albums, much of the new music it was breaking was in mono.

So to me as a 14 year old, my listening experience changed overnight, well actually after purchasing an AM-FM radio which did not exist in my house.The newly staffed WOR-FM hired some of NYC’s hottest “Top Ten” dj’s, specifically MURRAY“The K”(Kaufman) from 1010 WINS, SCOTT MUNI from 570 WMCA and later 770 WABC, and ROSKO, the coolest sounding person on the radio, anywhere. Murray The K appeared to be the draw for WOR-FM and the “new” MURRAY was a 180 degree departure from what I was familiar with while listening to him on 1010 WINS (AM). This was not “Top 40” jive talking any longer, as a matter of fact it was a “cool” MURRAY, one who it has been claimed broke the song  “Society’s Child” in the Summer of 67 (because it should be heard), as well as PROCOL HARUM’s “Whiter Shade of Pale” simply because HE “liked it”.AND Murray  was famous in the area  for his holiday stage show extravaganzas, the last which brought THE WHO and (as billed) THE CREAM to NYC for the first time, Easter of 1967. My buddy went and raved about those two bands.

But WOR-FM was a short lived experiment as program directors tried to rein in the playlist, to the chagrin of the radio hosts. Murray was fired in September of 67 despite having the highest rated FM program in NY, even higher than most AM shows. During his short tenure at WOR-FM “The K” attracted not only a large audience but in the audience advertisers found a different demographic, a newer demographic,that being a more mature college aged kid and with this newer, older audience the station drew in record companies as their advertisers. Record companies had found the station (WOR-FM) was highly valuable at influencing sales of rock albums especially new artists and groups like Cream, The Doors, Jefferson Airplane, and The Jimi Hendrix Experience, acts which were having their records played and /or being introduced.

At WOR-FM (October 1967)with a new tighter playlist ROSKO quit while “on the air”. He was soon found (October 30,1967) hosting the 7PM to midnight program at the “all girls dj’s” of WNEW-FM 102.7 FM. WNEW-FM was at that time a MOR station with an entire staff of female Dj’s, a unique experiment at the time. But at the 7PM hour Rosko had a free hand to “do his thing”. JONATHAN SCHWARTZ (10AM- 2PM) was added on November19, and a few days later SCOTT MUNI (2-6PM) joined the staff. ALLISON STEELE  later dubbed “The Nightbird” (2AM-6AM) was held over from the formerly “all girl” staff and WNEW-FM took off.

Note: a few years later the line up included John Zacherle and Pete Fornatale with Vince Scelsa added on weekends.

So all this AM/FM babble is the background to my “new” listening experiences which in turn changed my record purchases from TOP 40 hits (45RPM) to albums.

During that November I purchased “Love Forever Changes”, my first LOVE lp, their third and final collection. I picked up  CREAM’s “Disraeli Gears” (did not have “Fresh Cream”) and spent hours looking at the cover while trying to decipher the meaning of “SWLABR”. Incidentally, the album was recorded (May 1967) following the nine days of CREAM being part of MURRAY THE K’S “Music In The Fifth Dimension” series.

Murray The K’s Music In The 5th Dimension | RKO 58 St Theater (28 shows over nine days and nights) featuring:

Mitch Ryder & Detroit Wheels, Wilson Pickett, The Who, Hardly-Worthit Players, Cream, Blues Magoos, The Blues Project, Smokey Robinson & the Miracles, Jim & Jean, Mandala, The Chicago Loop, Phil Ochs, Simon & Garfunkel, The Young Rascals

(udiscovermusic.com)When both The Who and Cream made their live debut in America, it could hardly have been any less auspicious. It happened for both of them on 25 March 1967 at the RKO Keith Theater on 58th and 3rd Ave in New York City. The shows were redolent of the old 1940s variety shows with a bill packed with artists that actually began at 10 o’clock in the morning and ran all day with a movie thrown in for good measure. All the artists on the bill played five shows a day and it was grueling; the whole thing was promoted by New York’s legendary DJ, Murray the K.

The Who and Cream, or The Cream as they were billed, were well down the bill. Headlining were Mitch Ryder and the Detroit Wheels, Wilson Pickett, with Buddy Miles was on drums, The Hardly Worthit Players, The Mandala, the Chicago Loop, Simon & Garfunkel, Jim & Jean, Phil Ochs, The Young Rascals and The Blues Project, Al Kooper’s band.

My next album was “Buffalo Springfield Again” their second album (my first) followed by JEFFERSON AIRPLANE’s  “After Bathing at Baxters”. “Surrelistic Pillow” was a man stay on my turntable before this collection was released on November 30,1967. This was departure and I loved that band. By the end of the CHRISTMAS release season I also had Hendrix’s “Axis As Bold As Love”, Dylan’s “John Wesley Harding” and an album I still love “The Who Sell Out”. Times surely had changed and so did my record collection.

Recently, I checked the files for purchases I made when I was 16 years old in 1968. Not surprisingly, those discs were all receiving heavy rotation on WNEW-FM: “Super Session”-Bloomfield,Kooper and Stills, The Airplane’s “Crown of Creation”, Jeff Beck’s amazing “Truth”, Big Brother and The Holding Company’s “Cheap Thrills”, Traffic’s second album, The Doors “Waiting For The Sun” and a fav of mine The Small Faces “Ogden’s Nut Gone Flake”. Also included were:Dance To The Music,We’re Only In It For The Money, The Notorious Byrds Brothers, Anthem of The Sun, Child Is The Father To The Man, Odessey and Oracle, SweetHeart of The Rodeo, The Village Green Preservation Society, Wheels of Fire, Dr John’s GRIS GRIS, Electric Ladyland, Beggar’s Banquet, Music From Big Pink and of course THE BEATLES akaThe White Album.

 

ROCK’S IN MY HEAD: CHAPTER 18: AND THE JUKEBOX KEPT ON PLAYING…

ROCK’S IN MY HEAD:  CHAPTER 18: AND THE JUKEBOX KEPT ON PLAYING…

“There’s something happening here, what it is ain’t exactly clear”, Stephen stills wrote in the 1967 song FOR WHAT IT’S WORTH.

The music of the 60s famously captured the countercultures activism and ethos of those times. Music can inspire, it can galvanize and fuel movements, it can spread the key messages for social causes. However, do we define the music that the artists create or do the songs they sing about the social issues defined us? Sometimes it’s both as its almost impossible to separate the art from the artist.

In my generation’s time the biggest example of music affecting culture had to be the music of the Beatles. Their music created an iconic shift in our culture. Take a look at photos in any high school yearbook before 1964, and you will see the American middle-class males all have really short haircuts. However in just one years time, everyone’s hair was a little longer. The Beatles were influencing culture, as a matter of fact they changed the entire culture. Fortunately during that time the music scene was not as fragmented as it is today. With about only five popular radio stations and/or TV stations( in NY) everyone heard the same songs. It was truly broadcasting in a “broad” sense of the word as opposed to today’s “narrow” casting. Music mobilized people and songs became anthems as music was one of the strongest ways to influence our generation.

By ’67 I was an avid reader of magazines, books, news weeklies, most somewhat politically skewed to the left, well as left as I could get away with in my household. Even my newspaper of choice was the VILLAGE VOICE, a weekly out of Manhattan. My high school’s reading assignments, the general novels assigned, the poems, did little to excite me, but I read what I was asked to read, mostly.  But then, I read Ralph Nader’s UNSAFE AT ANY SPEED which intrigued me. His invitation to the auto makers to produce a safer machine was researched so well, and his requests and suggestions to the industry and to the government made so much sense. Yet no one did anything about it. The CORVAIR car, transmission gear positions on cars, safety to pedestrians, wind shield standards and seat belts.WOW, simple safety. That year Nader was “the man” to me.

THE SUMMER OF LOVE: 1967

A news item came across the screen the other day (2017) declaring that JEFFERSON AIRPLANE’S album SURREALISTIC PILLOW was certified Platinum, I’m talking a few month shy of it’s 50th anniversary of its release. That’s a long haul. The LP went GOLD back in July of 1967, THE SUMMER OF LOVE, finally platinum in 2017.

50 Years ago “it” was all over the press: San Francisco and the “SUMMER OF LOVE”. The SF Chronicle was the first to depict that designation to which I am sure they regretted almost immediately. But, WHAT WAS THAT SUMMER OF LOVE LIKE?

I was 15 and it was no summer of Love for me, summer of Confusion might best describe my circumstances. SURREALISTIC PILLOW was on my turn table yet I actually had to look up and research what the heck “surrealistic” meant and how the hell did it apply to a pillow. This was too far out.

Summer of ’67 nearly 100,000 kids head to San Francisco’s HAIGHT ASBURY  with “flowers in their hair, flowers everywhere”. It is time to “turn on, tune in, drop out”. This coincides with young adults declaring rock and roll was here to stay, it was not some phase we would grow out of. Rock was to be our music, an essential part of our being, the way we expressed ourselves. I’m in, I ready to volunteer. Frank Sinatra, not for me. Even the sounds recorded at that moment in time changed. Listen to JORMA KAUKONEN’s feedback on PILLOW. It was new, unique, and different.We took this music, our music seriously, and so did the musicians who made it . Singles were fading fast as bands/musicians sought to make a statement or two. Albums became the rage. Musicians experimented and so did we.

Our radio changed. AM stuck to the hit parade format. Recent legislation stated that AM stations could no longer simulcast on FM, so the clearer sounding FM was free to experiment and experiment they did. The AM dj’s catch phrases, their gift of gab would not survive the coolness of the FM disk jockey playing THE DOORS Light My Fire (extended version).And in June of 67 The BEATLES released Sgt. Pepper’s which had no singles on it. Truly the listening teens were FM bound.

Reporting on the “happenings” changed also. The cigar smoking, shirt and tie wearing newsman suddenly had long bushy sideburns, bell bottom jeans, smoked a joint and wrote from the heart. Journalism,the reporting of the news was way different from what it was only a few months before. Slanted as it might have been, these new writers helped me develop a better understanding of culture and politics. An example would be RAMPARTS magazine, which started as a Catholic Quarterly, but now in ‘67 it was a full blown anti-establishment rag. It’s articles raised the hair on the back of my neck; Vietnam, the CIA, The Black Panthers. And then the NewYork Times Best Sellers List had names like Norman Mailer, Tom Wolfe and other non-traditional authors topping the charts. Hail, hail to THE CLASS OF ’67.These “New Journalists” led me to read authors who influenced the new generation: Lincoln Steffens, Ida Tarbell, and many other so called “muckrackers” as Teddy Roosevelt named their genre.

So what was 1967 through the eyes and ears of a fifteen year old boy? Well, January 15 the very first SUPER BOWL was held with a television audience of 60 million folks.The Green Bay Packers beat the Kansas City Chiefs 35-10. Interesting to note that according to all research this singular event catapulted the NFL in viewership which in turn drew advertising money to football. The cost of a 30 second SUPER BOWL ad in 67 was a mere $37,500.

By February my neighbor, a guy I tried to get to take me to see the Lovin Spoonful told me about a new group he saw at Stony Brook, a local university. The band was Jefferson Airplane, yes, same group I read about in NEWSWEEK. Now, I was more than interested in that band.

The 25th Amendment to the Constitution was ratified in February 1967 thereby establishing the “succession” to the Presidency which was vitally important as our Vice-Presidency had been vacant at least 16 times through our short history. This Amendment gave us a clear path to what steps were needed to take place, especially after the death of JFK when we had a void. This would prove to be politically significant in subsequent years.

In April Muhammed Ali, aka CASSIUS CLAY the Heavy Weight Champ who became a CO, was stripped of his heavyweight boxing title for refusing induction in to the US Army.

THE SIX DAY WAR (June 5-10) occurred just as we were finishing our school year. The  Arab Forces were defeated and Israel took possession of additional territories.  This news item intrigued me as I knew little if anything about the Middle East which we had studied this past year history class, but not like this.This was for real. My knowledge or lack thereof about the Middle East would soon change.

Thurgood Marshall became the first black Supreme Court Justice in October. These events made ’67 an interesting year. Monterey Pop was held (June), Otis Redding died, and SGT.PEPPERS was released. We listed to Sgt. Peppers almost every afternoon that June at my girlfriend’s house,with the music blasting through the speakers from her brother’s stereo which she placed in the front window while a group of us were playing whiffle ball in the street. Life and relationships were simple then.

My 45’s record collection seemed to grow by the end of each week: The Letter by the Box Tops with Alex Chilton on vocals is still a gem today, Light My Fire by The Doors (the edited radio version of course), The Rascals lovely Groovin’, Little Bit Of Soul, Kind Of A Drag, Expressway to Your Heart, Soul Man, Incense And Peppermints, Somebody To Love,and Whiter Shade of Pale just to name a few. However, I used more of my limited cash on albums: The Doors(first), the aforementioned Jefferson Airplane’s Surrealistic Pillow,  Moby Grape’s first, The Beatles Sgt. Peppers, Jimi Hendrix Experience, The KinKs Something Else,The Doors Strange Days (which my dad bought for me),Cream’s Disraeli Gears, The Who Sell Out, The Rascal’s Collections and The Soul Survivors, which I was led to believe by the guy behind the counter at the local RECORD RACK sounds “exactly” like the Rascals.This proclamation was not necessarily true and another story all together. By years end I included the newly established ROLLING STONE magazine to my mandatory reading list .

By end of 1967 heading into ’68, listening to FM radio and watching television rock was not enough for me. Like every other red blooded discophile I was drawn to the fire of live music. Having no true curfew I started to attend The Hullabaloo, a local teen club in the neighboring town of Lindenhurst. A true TEEN SCENE club serving 15-20 year olds  with an affordable  $2.00 cover. Their stage hosted a few bands each weekend (Friday and Saturday nights), many were local garage style combos, with a few noted National acts tossed in…The Vagrants, The Hassels, and Vanilla Fudge just to name a few.

During this period I saw The Critters (Younger Girl; My Dyingly Sad) at the local Roll N Ice, followed by Every Mothers Son (Come On Down To My Boat, Baby) at my 10th grade dance, The Good Rats (pre-TASTY) at a high school art show(1968), and a WMCA (NY Radio station-THE GOOD GUYS)sponsored “Sock Hop Show” featuring The Left Banke (1967).  And of course Long Island’s own The Vagrants (Leslie West), and The Hassels (Billy Joel) regularly played at the aforementioned Hullabloo.

At home I played Rubber Soul and Revolver over and over again. Two of my favorite albums at that time and probably my two favorite Beatles albums of all times.

See you next time….Chapter19:THE SUMMER OF LOVE. Comments? jazzbus@gmail.com

ROCK’S IN MY HEAD: Chapter 6-THE RADIO

Last outing I wrote:

The Wall Street Crash of 1929, known as “Black Tuesday” (October 29), actually began the previous Thursday on October 24 (Black Thursday).That incident was the most devastating stock market crash in the history of the United States, one causing massive lay offs followed by years of extremely hard times. Radio audiences grew as a result of those unemployed folks having lost their disposable income, therefore not having the cash or in some cases the desire to leave home for their entertainment.

Fact: During and immediately after the Great Depression and Recovery the radio gained in popularity becoming the main source of family entertainment. But how?

The beginning of radio:

The Italian inventor and engineer Guglielmo Marconi (1874-1937) developed, demonstrated and marketed the first successful long-distance wireless telegraph and in 1901 broadcast the first transatlantic radio signal.

Radio wouldn’t have been “RADIO” without  Guglielmo Marconi and two other gentlemen: Owen Young and Ed Nally, Jr.

Owen Young, originally from GE and using his GE assets was instrumental in forming The Radio Corporation of America ( RCA). In 1919 Young acquired  a company known as American Marconi. In doing so, Ed Nally, Jr., the former vice president of American Marconi became the president of RCA.

Let’s talk about the machine itself. Prior to 1925, virtually all radio receivers cost about $65.00 and were powered by large batteries not electricity: a single 1.5v dc dry cell battery and a 22.5v dc B+ battery.

One also needed a set of earphones, a suitable antenna and ground wire.

An amplifier could be purchased at the additional cost  of $60.00 to gain a stronger signal so that with a horn speaker  also purchased with additional cost, one could allow the entire family to enjoy “the radio”.

A few years later the invention of the A.C. rectifier tube made “plug in” (electric) radios possible.

In 1923 there was about 3 million radio sets (all battery operated) being used in the United States. In 1925, RCA introduced the all-electric receiver set, a game changer. By 1936, America had over 30 million radio sets all AC-powered.

The GOLDEN AGE OF RADIO, the time when radio reached its peak popularity with the general public is considered the period from 1933  throughout most of the 1950’s. Strange as it may seem this period started when most Americans had few luxuries, many with fewer necessities. For these depression era folks the radio was their escape as it supplied cheap, “affordable” entertainment.

While radios units were considered a “luxury” most could be bought “on time”. Even a hard pressed family struggling made their required radio payments, sometimes in lieu of other necessities.

These radios of The Golden Age weren’t small, they were large, tubular devices usually built into a cabinet and utilized as a piece of furniture in the family room.

By1935, automobiles were being equipped with radios.This radio phenomena was catching on. So, now that you have one of these new fangled inventions, what was there to listen to?

At first, radio programs were produced “live” in house. Imagination was the key, radio was strictly audio, not visual. The bike riding unicyclist telling tired jokes once a star in vaudeville would not make it on radio. To make it one had to come up with an idea, a concept or be a “star” attraction to have a show developed around you.

Most radio shows were about an hour in length and a bit expensive to produce depending on the salaries of cast members, the audio equipment, staffing, rent, etc. So sponsors, patrons of the arts so to speak, were needed.

Radio programs of that era were typically produced by a singular sponsor. There was The EVER READY HOUR, THE CHASE AND SANBORN HOUR, MAJOR BOWES AMATEUR HOUR, THE BAKER’S BROADCAST(with Rudy Vallee) and THE KATE SMITH HOUR. With the sponsor “owning” the show, the sponsor also controlled the show’s content.

In 1932 Ed Wynn pioneered the idea of performing LIVE in front of a studio audience.

But first a word about the development of radio networks. In 1923 two east coast radio stations thought it would be cost effective, that is more profitable, if they could share a few programs by linking two stations via telephone lines thus broadcasting one show on two stations at the same time, a revolutionary idea. Soon more stations linked in and the first radio NETWORK was born.

Well…NOT SO FAST, as AT&T (American Telephone and Telegraph stepped in attempting to monopolize the “wireless telephone service”.

The Department of Justice decided this infringement by AT&T was a monopoly and this being the era of TRUST BUSTING, AT&T had to pay dearly by selling off their radio company. Stepping in was RCA for a piece of that action. AT&T not to be outdone by the DOJ  banned all competitors from using AT&T lines.

GE, WESTINGHOUSE, and RCA decided to sidestep this ban by starting their own network of stations The National Broadcasting Company and THE NBC RADIO NETWORK and it’s Affiliates with David Sarnoff as their President is born.

The local affiliates were given the authority to run their own local commercials around network programming, a practice still found today in TV land. Another regional network The CBS RADIO NETWORK started to show signs of struggling financially.

WILLIAM PALEY thought that purchasing CBS would in turn help his father’s profitable cigar company sell more cigars.(Yes, folks you could not make this up and it is THEE William Paley). Once up and profitable CBS became a rival to NBC.

When NBC’s monopolistic tendencies were challenged, the NBC network was forced to split into two parts, NBC RED and NBC BLUE. NBC BLUE was later sold and became ABC RADIO NETWORK.

Let’s not the leave the newspapers out. Before radio, news print was the way most citizens received their news, however slanted that news might be, this being the era of Muckrackers, Yellow Journalism, etc, etc.

So these new fangled radio networks start to do public service news reports, mostly local news with a bit of national flavor tossed in.

However, more importantly was the radio’s “breaking news” flashes and “news as it was happening” reports. Advantage in news reporting moves from newspapers to the radio and with that advantage those precious advertising dollars also shifted over to the radio. The only problem was newspapers controlled all the teletype machines which supplied the radio stations with their news, features, weather and up to date bulletins from around the world. In an attempt to side step this teletype issue William Paley of CBS set up its own news gathering agency.

The newspaper men became irate and sued CBS to cease .The paper unions also threw NBC under the bus for good measure by demanding that NBC News could broadcast only 2 five minute news summaries each day AND only after the morning edition of the newspapers hit the street AND again later after the evening’s edition of the paper was out. Also, to stymy the radio’s revenue, the radio news programs were prohibited from having sponsors. Newspaper men were “Giants of the Earth” at this time and won out.

Well, may be not in the long run. The radio stations found the chore of seeking, gathering, and producing news was not profitable so they reverted to music. Music being a lot cheaper than supporting a news staff. Ratings also supported the fact that most listeners were more interested in hearing music than the news.

In this The GOLDEN AGE of radio it must be asked how did a program grab and keep the interest of its listeners? Answer is simple : By imagination and a little thing called soap operas (sponsored by soap companies).  The brain trusts of radio networks started to develop good family oriented programs like: “AMOS ’N ANDY” (racist as it might have been), GUNSMOKE,  THE SHADOW, DICK TRACEY, BUCK ROGERS and  then the “SIXTY FOUR DOLLAR QUESTION” a game show where the prize was not 64 thousand dollars, not 64 hundred dollars, just 64 bucks. THE 64 DOLLAR QUESTION was such a success it fostered the rise of other quiz shows:STOP THE MUSIC, BREAK THE BANK, all offering numerous cash prizes to participants.

Most ad agencies controlled the radio shows into the late 1940’s,  hence we had Geritol, Evaporated Milk, and the proverbial “9 out of ten doctors recommend Lucky Strike cigarettes”.

See you next time…. Chapter 7:  MORE THIEVERY . Comments? jazzbus@gmail.com