Rock Radio FEBRUARY 1971 It was/is a Wild World!

It’s a ♪ Wild World ♪ … and a-Changin’ World! 

Yes, even here, at Blast from Your Past, change is a constant. No, we’re not trying to change history aka Orwell’s 1984. ♪ … But then a lot of nice things turn bad out there … ♪ We’re simply sprucing up the site to bring you news of today and yesterday (not the fake kind). Then and now, ♪ … Oh, baby, baby, it's a wild world … ♪ (Cat Stevens; February 1971.)

Rearranging Blast’s sections allows for reasons to celebrate, which may have originated in Rock & Roll’s past or resonates with music, retro radio, and news of note today. First, News & Views to think about as we boogie into 50 Years Ago this Month. Enjoy!

Blast from Your Past ~ News & Views

February 3^rd (1959): The Day the Music Died … a date every year that commemorates the music we lost on this day in 1959 … already twelve years past in 1971. It is no less poignant or significant today, sixty-two years later. One can’t help but wonder what future marvelous music we missed over the decades with the deaths of industry innovators Buddy Holly, The Big Bopper (J.P. Richardson), and Ritchie Valens, in an airplane crash.
      We’ll revisit this subject no doubt, in December, the month Don McLean’s revered song, “American Pie” (with the famed line above) hit the charts and reminded us what we were missing. Rock & Roll music lovers, please bow your heads in a moment of silence.

February 11^th: Then honor them again on Get Out Your Guitar Day with a rousing rendition of “Chantilly Lace”!  (The Big Bopper; 1958) OR … “Come On Let’s Go” (Ritchie Valens; 1958); and “That’ll Be the Day” (Buddy Holly, 1957). There were no links associated with this day or The Day the Music Died, so enjoy a sing-a-long and have fun on these!  

Just a few from the BFYP vintage radio collection

February 13^th: While we have you cruisin’ down Memory Lane, flip on the radio and give some thought to its Rockin’ origin. World Radio Day 2021 marks the 10^th anniversary of UNESCO’s special day dedicated to more than 110 years of radio broadcasting. A great place to bone up on your radio history, and consider its subtheme: New World / New Radio. Celebrate radio’s evolution, innovation, and most importantly, how it foments our connection to each other.

      Radio stations and pioneering Rock & Roll Radio folks, fans and listeners—bop into your memory banks and tell us about your fondest radio listening experiences. What radio message, event, or broadcaster left their mark on you? Tell us! @BlastFromPastBk or email your comment for posting to site!
      Tell your friends! #WorldRadioDay #NewWorldNewRadio

February 27^th: Grab your fringe jacket, bell bottom jeans, funky vintage transistor radio, and turn on the lava lamp—it’s National Retro Day! Although I’m not sure what their link is about, I’ve included their “official” special day here, because I just love the idea of going retro—any day! Rock On!

50 Years Ago this Month on Your Tinny Transistor Radio    
FEBRUARY 1971 ~ a stellar month for pop music. KHJ/Los Angeles’s Top 30 for
February 17^th included such memorable greats as Judy Collins’s soulful recording of “Amazing Grace” at #24; “Mr. Bojangles,” a sentimental cover tune by The Nitty Gritty Dirt Band sliding down at #17; Ike & Tina Turner belting out #12, “Proud Mary”; Janis Joplin grousing about “Me and Bobby McGee” at #11; and Francis Lai’s "Theme from Love Story" moving swiftly upward at #4--did anyone who saw the movie ever listen to the instrumental hit without sobbing?!

And we have 50 Years of changing tunes ‘round your tinny transistor radio dial … last month we spoke of KADI/St. Louis’s numerous format flips and call letter changes over its radio tenure. But ABC Radio takes the award for multiple station changes in one day across the country.

Apparently the prolific radio parent company wanted to spread the love on February 14^th: All of ABC Radio's FM stations change call letters on the day of love …

>KABC-FM in Los Angeles becomes KLOS, for Los Angeles.

>KGO-FM in San Francisco becomes KSFX, for San Francisco (now KOSF).

>KQV-FM in Pittsburgh becomes WDVE, for a D o V E, the symbol of peace.

>KXYZ-FM in Houston becomes KAUM (today KHMX), meaning unknown.

>WABC-FM in New York becomes WPLJ, for White Port & Lemon Juice.

>WXYZ-FM in Detroit becomes WRIF, for a guitar "R I F F" – legend goes that the calls were meant for WLS-FM to symbolize the city's jazz scene). But …

>WLS-FM in Chicago becomes WDAI, supposedly meant for WXYZ-FM to celebrate the Detroit Auto Industry; it had no meaning in Chicago.

Rounding out February radio fun, February 20, 1971 nearly saw a second “War of the Worlds” sans the war or the worlds … simply an erroneous warning from the U.S. Emergency Broadcast System. Although most radio stations ignored it (hopefully they investigated it), WOWO in Fort Wayne, Indiana, took it seriously with a 20-minute programming interruption. Oops! And on to our regular programming of the month’s fun survey!

BFYP Featured Radio Survey     
FEBRUARY 1971  KHJ/Los Angeles featured a hit song’s star hitmaker in their February 17, 1971 “Boss 30” music survey. Hint: she’s mentioned above. And what hit #1 (again) for the trendsetting station? Take a peek … 50 Years Ago this Month in Rock & Roll Radio! Where were you that groovy day when your radio played …

Celebrate FEBRUARY 1971 and … Rock On!  

Blast from Your Past Gifts
Share on Twitter: @BlastFromPastBk

LinDee Rochelle is a writer and editor by trade, and author by way of Rock & Roll. Two books (of three) are published in her Blast from Your Past series, available on Amazon (eBook and print): Book 1 – Rock & Roll Radio DJs: The First Five Years 1954-1959; and Book 2 – Rock & Roll Radio DJs: The Swinging Sixties. Coming soon … The Psychedelic Seventies!

Note: FYI – All links in the BFYP site are personally visited, verified, and vetted. Most are linked to commonly accessed sites of reputable note. Occasionally, since I often feature real people and/or singular sources there may be an unsecured link. As with everything cyber-security, use at your own discretion and risk. No compensation is received for any mentions of businesses, products, or other commercial interests. *All holiday and special event days are found at Brownielocks.com’s calendar site. Enjoy! 

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Rock Radio JANUARY 1971 Outasight!

♪ Have you ever seen the rain …

Comin’ down on a sunny day ♪* … Just think … we have a whole New Year of grand opportunities waiting to be discovered, if you can see them through the rain. As we learned in 2020, good … even great … can come from extreme adversity. Like the sun peeking out from behind the clouds and its beauty, opportunities are in the eyes of the beholder. Find your sun …

I really need to stop making promises. Tried not to take another day, but life these days is too erratic for promises. Blast from Your Past’s 50 Years Ago this Month is (finally) ready (a day late and a dollar short … literally) to bring you another year of music and mayhem behind the microphone of those wild-and-crazy Rock & Roll Radio DJs. Happy New Year 2021 and let’s flip the switch to ...  

JANUARY 1971 News & Notes …  
For all of my BFYP writings, from books to blogs, the most fun is researching radio station histories.

Not always an easy task, as memories dwindle and ill-kept records on numerous format flips disappear over the years. What’s left can be a skewed timeline that’s as fuzzy as those dice hanging from the rear view mirror of a 1965 Chevy Impala. 
      Case in point is this month’s Featured Radio Survey: KADI/St. Louis. It had so many incarnations that 1971 kind of got lost in the shuffle and sandwiched between its progressive Rock in 1969 and a move down the dial in 1972, from 96.5 (96-FM) to 96.3, where it stayed. But through the decades KADI’s personality eventually morphed into the current WFUN-FM Adult R&B.
      If you ask me, it was just as “fun” back in ’71, with its “Outasight Record Report” boasting, “Under 1 Billion Listeners” on its groovy survey #40.

January 2^nd:  The 1970s continued the ‘60s’ society reformation efforts with a ban on radio and television cigarette advertisements. Ummmm, I don’t see that it has done much to help quash smoking in the past fifty years.

January 21^st:

Every year in January on his birthday, we honor the guy who loved playing wolfman with his nephews long before he became the infamous DJ Wolfman Jack (Robert Weston Smith, 1938-1995). His salacious microphone style and over-the-top personality endeared him to fans and set him on a path to fame and fortune, and all the fun and not-so-fun stuff that comes with it.
      Wolfman’s book title says it all: Have Mercy! Confessions of the Original Rock ‘n’ Roll Animal. The Blast from Your Past book series is dedicated to the DJ who introduced syndicated radio shows and turned his captivating persona into a business brand. Awwwwoooo! You diggin’ the Wolfman Jack Show!

On Your Tinny Transistor Radio 

KADI/St. Louis vacillated between album-oriented Rock, top 40, and progressive formats, throughout 1971. Their surveys reflected the muddled music lineup. Makes ya wonder how the program director kept track of what music to schedule and when!
      While KADI’s January album survey features Creedence Clearwater (*Pendulum), Grateful Dead (American Beauty), Ten Years After (Watt), and John Lennon (Lennon / Ono Band) in the top ten, at Cincinnati’s WSAI, the top 40s format listed none of those artists in the top ten. The Osmonds’ “One Bad Apple” topped WSAI’s hit list, with “Precious Precious” (Jackie Moore) coming in at #10.
      What makes the WSAI survey unique is its top ten songs include two by George Harrison—“Isn’t It a Pity” and “My Sweet Lord” tying at #3—and two by the inimitable Elvis Presley—“There Goes My Everything” and “I Really Don’t Want to Know” doubling up at #4. Nice goin’ guys! ♪ There goes the one of my dreams … ♪ No, no … I’m right here … sigh.

BFYP Featured Radio Survey  
♪ Meet Me in St. Louis!* ♪ at KADI/St. Louis, Missouri, January 8, 1971 to see a brooding Elton John on the cover. He had just enjoyed a great run with “Your Song” and his new Tumbleweed Connection album still held on at #26 of the KADI album survey … 50 Years Ago this Month in Rock & Roll Radio! Where were you that groovy day when your radio played …

Celebrate JANUARY 1971 and … Rock On!  

Blast from Your Past Gifts

Share on Twitter: @BlastFromPastBk

LinDee Rochelle is a writer and editor by trade, and author by way of Rock & Roll. Two books (of three) are published in her Blast from Your Past series, available on Amazon (eBook and print): Book 1 – Rock & Roll Radio DJs: The First Five Years 1954-1959; and Book 2 – Rock & Roll Radio DJs: The Swinging Sixties. Coming soon … The Psychedelic Seventies!

Note: FYI – All links in the BFYP site are personally visited, verified, and vetted. Most are linked to commonly accessed sites of reputable note. Occasionally, since I often feature real people and/or singular sources there may be an unsecured link. As with everything cyber-security, use at your own discretion and risk. No compensation is received for any mentions of businesses, products, or other commercial interests. *All holiday and special event days are found at Brownielocks.com’s calendar site. Enjoy! 

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