"Once again, the boy in the box, who is I, searches for the alleged humorous phone call, which is you." -John Records Landecker
In the mid-70's I discovered radio. Okay, someone else actually had discovered radio years before me (I'll get to that in a future posting) but the mid-1970's was when radio became a passion for me. I had listened to plenty of radio starting in the late 60's with Greensboro's Top-40 station, WCOG, and every morning before school with my father's favorite, WBIG (anyone else remember Poole's Paradise?). In high school I got into CB radio, Shortwave radio and Ham radio. And sometimes late at night I would sit up in bed and tune around on my parents' old Zenith receiver, circa 1948 vintage, to see what I could hear. That's how I learned about mediumwave DXing...listening to far-off AM broadcasters. My favorite was WLS 890 in Chicago.
WLS is a clear channel station, which essentially means it is the only station broacasting on its assigned frequency and therefore suffers little or no interference from other stations. WLS broadcasts with 50,000 watts of power day and night and can be heard regularly in 38 states. Not only did it have a strong signal, but it sounded powerful. In the 70's, WLS' audio had that distinctive reverb that made it sound big even when the signal was weak. The fact that it came in loud and clear in Greensboro, 575 miles from the transmitter site in Tinley Park, IL, was one reason it was my favorite AM station. The other reason was John Records Landecker. Landecker, to my ears, represents the perfection of the Top-40 DJ: fast-talking, quick-witted, and with a booming voice. His sarcastic edge also appealed to me, and nothing showcased this better that his nightly "Boogie Check", wherein listeners would call in by the scores for a chance to get on the air and say....pretty much anything, sometimes managing only a second or two before Landecker cut them off and moved on to the next caller. John Landecker did not suffer fools lightly.
Landecker, whose middle name actually is Records, was on WLS from 1972 to 1981 before moving on to other outlets and formats (he's been hosting in talk radio for years now). Since 2007 he's also on with a weekly syndicated show called Into The Seventies, which finds him back in his old Top-40 milieu. The only thing missing from the new shows are the original 1970's advertising and news reports.
I think I still have a cassette recording I made of one of his Boogie Check sessions in about 1975. If I can find it I'll get it digitized and put it online. In the meantime, enjoy this remarkable 1977 Columbia College film school project of the master at work.
Part 1
Part2
3 comments:
> anyone else remember Poole's Paradise?
Sure. In my case, my mother was the regular listener, every day at breakfast.
If I'm not mistaken, I was in at least one class--geometry maybe--at Page High with Bob Poole's son.
I remember one of his sons sitting in the same section my parents and I sat in at the Generals' hockey games in the 60's. I suppose he was there with one or both of his parents too, but I never asked about it.
Then there was radio sportsguy Jim Prichett. (Also WBIG?) His sons Jimmy and Billy--and ex-wife I guess, though never thought to ask at that age--lived three doors away and were regulars in backyard baseball and football games with my brother and me.
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