[78-L] More on Mitch Miller

[Michael Biel]

  I also grew up in NYC, and I think you will find that you are 
remembering the 60s, not the 50s.  WBAI was free-form hippie in the 
mid-60s and was commie talk prior to that.   WOR-FM did not go rock 
until 1967 -- the absolute first rock FM in NYC, and it was album 
oriented rock -- and WOR (AM) never did play any rock (except for a 
little on Martin Block's Make Believe Ballroom in the 60s after he left  
WABC.   WMCA didn't really go rock till around 1960.  Same with WABC.  
Post-payola scandal.  Other than the Negro stations high up on the dial, 
the 50s rock stations -- pre-payola scandal -- were WINS 1010 and WMGM 
1050.  The prime time jocks were respectively Alan Freed and Peter 
Tripp.  Freed was no longer Moondog, and was much tamer.  These two 
competitors were playing as many slow dance numbers as fast rock.  While 
Freed would not play a Pat Boone cover of Fats or Little Richard, he did 
play April Love, Love Letters In the Sand, etc.  Since we are talking 
about the rise of rock 55-59, those are the years that air-checks would 
show what was REALLY being played.

Mike Biel  mbiel at mbiel.com

On 8/3/2010 2:02 PM, Malcolm Rockwell wrote:
> Yes and no.
> I grew up in NYC in the 50s and 60s and we evidently had a much wider
> variety of rock n roll to choose from, as did the popular jocks. Yes,
> all the pop artists you mention were there, and more, but we also had
> material from as far away as Philadelphia (!) and New Orleans as well as
> all that early R&B. I still have tapes I made of the air from WOR (I
> think),  WMCA and WBAI. The WBAI stuff is esoteric, and so outside the
> scope of this thread, but the other two were mainline rock/pop. I
> specifically remember Murray The K (and his Swinging Soiree) and I guess
> he musta been progressive because a lot of the stuff out of New Orleans
> showed up there. Don't know how much Memphis material showed up in NY,
> though.
> Hmm, I'll have to dig up some of the play lists of my tapes and see
> who's right here. Could be different views from different sources.
> Mal
>
> *******
>
> On 8/3/2010 7:13 AM, Michael Biel wrote:
>> If you listen to REAL rock station air-checks from the 50s and look at
>> their published charts, you will find to your amazement that usually
>> less than 25% of the records played on these formats were really what we
>> now consider to be rock 'n' roll.  There was a LOT of Perry Como, Doris
>> Day, Johnny Mathis, Pat Boone, Four Aces, Four Lads, Kingston Trio, and
>> even Yellow Rose of Texas, and very LITTLE of Jerry Lee Lewis, Chuck
>> Berry, Little Richard, etc.  We are remembering the era thru the filter
>> of oldies stations in the 70s and 80s, and those Oldies But Goodies LPs,
>>
>> Mike Bielmbiel at mbiel.com
>>