Old radio shows

[tico]

The "Powerline" topic on the Nostalgia board gave me inspiration for this topic. There are some old radio shows that I used to love listening to back in the day. A lot of them are not around anymore or are played on a very small number or radio stations. Some shows I remember:

Hitline USA (A weekly live call-in talk show on Sunday nights)
Future Hits (Rebranded as The Cut, don't know if it's still around)
Party America (hosted by Jay Thomas)
The Countdown (R&B countdown show hosted by Walt "Baby" Love)
On the Radio (hosted by Ron O'Brien)

That's just a few. Let's add to this list.

[Slinky]

Future Hits was hosted by now-All Access webmaster Joel Denver.

On The Radio was an awful, awful show and I'm glad it was cancelled.

Is the Net Music Countdown still around? I remember hearing it on a few affiliates, think it was hosted by Jeff-something.

[tico]

slinky said:

Is the Net Music Countdown still around?  I remember hearing it on a few affiliates, think it was hosted by Jeff-something.

Wasn't it David Lawrence?

[Slinky]

Yeah, that was the guy.

[reception]

The World's Greatest Hits (A global music one hour show)
60 Second LP (a shortform weekday program that reviewed new albums)
Rick Dees had a one hour show that played the hits Monday-Friday.
Countdown USA w/Dave Sholin, John Leader
Countdown America/US Music Survey with Dick Clark
John Lander's Hit Music USA (4 hours)
Scott Shannon's Rockin' America Top 30 Countdown
American Dance Traxx with Downtown Julie Brown, Jeff Wyatt

[billme]

Dick Clark National Music Survey/National Music Survey
Weekly Top 30 hosted by Mark Elliott
20/20 Music World hosted by Wink Martindale
Countdown America with John Leader, then Dick Clark
I loved "On The Radio" the best closing credits of any show
Radio Kandy hosted by John Candy
Earth News Radio hosted by Joel Denver
Hit List Live with Adam Curry, Elvis Duran, then Elvis & Patty Steele
The Rock Album Countdown/Rock Week

[johnm1120]

billme said:

Dick Clark National Music Survey/National Music Survey

Has this show been cancelled or was there a new host named?

[tico]

chbigemi said:

billme said:

Dick Clark National Music Survey/National Music Survey

Has this show been cancelled or was there a new host named?

Isn't this now called the US Music Survey? I remember when there used to be a CHR version of this show. Also, what about Dick's other show, Rock, Roll and Remember? Is it still around?

[reception]

tico said:

Isn't this now called the US Music Survey? I remember when there used to be a CHR version of this show. Also, what about Dick's other show, Rock, Roll and Remember? Is it still around?

The US Music Survey was cancelled at the end of 2005. On KFMN they still carry Rock, Roll and Remember with Dick Clark as the host. I'm guessing because Dick Clark is still recovering from his stroke, Rock, Roll and Remember are probably repeats with all those old interviews.

[johnm1120]

What about Open House Party, is that still on? The Hot AC station here used to carry that but dropped it like 3 years ago.

[Slinky]

Yup, OHP is still going strong, and making people think that random dance songs are going to chart because 1 OHP spin makes them +30 for the week.

[billme]

Ellen K had Rhythm Top 30 countdown

[tico]

chbigemi said:

What about Open House Party, is that still on?  The Hot AC station here used to carry that but dropped it like 3 years ago.

John Garabedian still hosts the Saturday night version. The Sunday night show is hosted by Kane of WFLZ.

[billme]

Dick Clark's National Music Survey debut 5-30-81 & lasted until 10-26-85 as CHR. Bill St. James with Mike Love of the Beach Boys took over the show from there. It remained a CHR for a time, then became an AC show. Sylvia Emerita replaced Mike Love when it became AC only.

Dave Sholin left Countdown USA & did Dave Sholin's Insider (a Top 40 CHR show) in 1990.

[Jeff]

Rick Dees' On The Line should be added to that list.

[reception]

On The Radio with Ron O'Brien from 1989 (I don't know the date it aired)

#5 B-52's: Love Shack
Bon Jovi: Living In Sin
Bon Jovi: Living On A Prayer
Stopset: US Navy, Clearasil, Levis 501 Jeans
Fine Young Cannibals: I'm Not The Man I Used To Be
Prince & Sheena Easton: The Arms Of Orion
#4 Richard Marx: Angelia
Stopset: Clearasil, Levis 501 Jeans, US Navy
Quincy Jones f/Ray Charles, Chaka Khan: I'll Be Good To You
#3 Paula Abdul: The Way That You Love Me
Stopset: Levis 501 Jeans, US Navy, Clearasil
Soul II Soul: Back To Life
#2 Milli Vanilli: Blame It On The Rain
Stopset: US Navy, Clearasil, Levis 501 Jeans
#1 Bad English: When I See You Smile (2 weeks at #1)

billme said:

I loved On The Radio, the best closing credits of any show

Here are the closing credits for that show, it's off a poor quality cassette so the sound is far from crisp but listenable.
www.youtube.com/watch?v=5-x7-WhU2nE

[billme]

Might as well add Weekly Music Magazine with Charlie Van Dyke which debuted 1-9-82 and ended with the Top 60 of 1982. It's was a Pop show with an AC lean and each week a different "cover story". This replaced Weekly Top 30 with Mark Elliott and its replacement was Countdown America with John Leader during the first week of 1983.

[cartman2002]

I remeber Music Magazine was still being on Feb 1983

[mst3k]

billme said:

20/20 Music World hosted by Wink Martindale

Was this the show that counted down the Top 20 of the week, alongside the Top 20 from several years prior?

[billme]

cartman2002 said:

I remeber Music Magazine was still being on Feb 1983

I have a December 1, 1982 letter from James Kefford that said "I regret to announce that the "Weekly Music Magazine" will discontinue production with our New Year's show scheduled for broadcast January 1/2. During the last year, the "Weekly Music Magazine" was distributed by the RKO Network. RKO has opted for a new production in 1983 called "Countdown America."

If you can provide some tapes, I will believe this letter.

[billme]

mst3k1 said:

billme said:

20/20 Music World hosted by Wink Martindale

Was this the show that counted down the Top 20 of the week, alongside the Top 20 from several years prior?

That's the show!! It was AC based. I haven't heard of anyone having any airchecks or vinyl copies of this show. I know it was on in 1982.

[mst3k]

billme said:

mst3k1 said:

Was this the show that counted down the Top 20 of the week, alongside the Top 20 from several years prior?

That's the show!! It was AC based. I haven't heard of anyone having any airchecks of vinyl copies of this show. I know it was on in 1982.

Yeah, that was the year that I heard it. Only listened one time, but I remember it was while Chicago's "Love Me Tomorrow" was charting.

[Hervard]

billme said:

Dick Clark's National Music Survey debut 5-30-81 & lasted until 10-26-86 as CHR.

Don't you mean 10-26-85? If my memory serves me correctly, Clark took over Countdown America from John Leader in November, 1985.
Countdown America was a CHR countdown until the week of July 5, 1986, when it became an AC show. They counted down the Top 30 songs of the week, plus had about fifteen extras (a Spotlight segment, plus the Top Ten songs from a chart X years ago this week). I heard somewhere that it was exactly five years later that the show was trimmed to three hours. It still had a Spotlight segment, but the Top Ten chart was replaced by Flashbacks (to one, five, ten, and occasionally fifteen years ago). And, of course, only the Top 20 songs were counted down. Sometime in 1994, the show's name was changed to the "Dick Clark's US Music Survey", but the format remained the same (except that they changed the years they used for the Flashback segments). The show remained that way, I think, until the end of 2005, when the show was cancelled.

billme said:

Dave Sholin left Countdown USA & did Dave Sholin's Insider (a Top 40 CHR show) in 1990.

Oh yeah, I remember that one. I believe that Countdown USA was dropped in March, 1990 and was replaced with "Dave Sholin's Insider" the first week of April 1990. The number one song was "I Wish It Would Rain Down" by Phil Collins. That show was da bomb! It used Gavin's Top 40 chart (for which Mr. Sholin himself was the editor) and every hour, it had a special feature. In the first hour, they played the number one song X years ago this week (usually not going beyond five years). In the second hour (right near the beginning, as I recall), they had the "Inside Scoop Of The Week" (from the previous week's "Inside Rumor", which followed the "Scoop"). In the third hour, they read off the singers that were celebrating their birthdays that week and would play a song by one of those artists. The last hour, they had the "Inside Joke Of The Week". You could call in and tell a joke. At first, they would play your actual recording (so content and presentation counted). But, sometime in 1991, they discontinued that and had an old geezer by the name of Jackie Jerry tell the joke, after which he'd doze off, mumbling about game shows and stuff. I tried to call in with a joke, but they were never read (and a few times, the line cut out on me before I even started talking, so apparently, they used a secondhand answering machine).
The show counted down the entire Top 40 during the first year, but as of May 12, 1991, it was cut back to a Top 30 (since three-hour shows apparently sold better than four hours). This didn't work, however, as the show ceased production in late September, 1991.

Mr. Sholin had another show after that called "Fast Track with Dave Sholin". As I recall, it was like "Future Hits", except it was two hours long and he played that week's #1 hit in Gavin at the end of the show. Not sure how long this show lasted, but my station picked up on it the week of October 10, 1991 and the last time I heard it was the year-end show. I usually didn't listen to it because it started at 5:00 in the morning, which is early as it is, but I usually worked until midnights on Friday nights and, at 20 years of age, five hours of sleep wasn't gonna cut it. I heard that it was cancelled in February, 1993, so it didn't last long.

[irock]

Wow, when I saw this topic I thought you meant really old radio shows, like Lum & Abner, Burns & Allen and Gunsmoke. When I was growing up, our local rock station WZZQ would run old shows like this for (I think) two hours each Sunday night. The lineup would always start with a mystery series called The Shadow. Sometimes they'd run famous old radio plays like Sorry, Wrong Number (the movie was an adaptation of the radio play). Every Halloween, they'd run an old radio adaptation of Dracula and the infamous War Of The Worlds as directed by Orson Welles and first aired in the late 1930s. In case you didn't know, that broadcast began as a series of "news bulletins" about UFOs landing in a field near Grover's Mill, New Jersey. When the martians appear, it quickly becomes evident that they're impervious to human weaponry, and everyone at the scene, including the panicked "news" announcer in mid-sentence, is killed. The play was so realistic that it caused a panic, and quite a number of people committed suicide rather than suffer what they believed would be certain death at the hands of the martians.

A show called The CBS Radio Mystery Theater (very, very similar to The Shadow) ran on radio every weeknight for most of my teen years. I used to listen to it fairly often.

Like silent movies, radio plays were a unique genre, and one I wish was still active.

[tico]

^^
Really old radio shows can count. In fact, when I was living in California, KNX 1070 played old radio drama shows on Saturday nights. For the life of me, I can't think what shows they were.

[billme]

When the National Music Survey debuted without Dick Clark, it featued a Super Song countdown of the Top 100 of the past 10 years. However, they only played the Top 30 and sent cue sheets to radio stations wishing to do their own countdown of the rest. Yes, this was 1985.

[reception]

Rockin America Countdown Top 30 Countdown w/Scott Shannon (from ebay). I hope the chart positions are correct. Weekend of April 8/9, 1989.

30 MARTIKA-More Than You Know
29 LIVING COLOUR-Cult Of Personality
28 ANITA BAKER-Just Because
27 SWEET SENSATION-Sincerely Yours
26 ENYA-Orinoco Flow
25 JODY WATLEY-Real Love
24 CHER & PETER CETERA-After All
23 CHICAGO-You're Not Alone
22 PAULA ABDUL-Forever Your Girl
21 SA FIRE-Thinking Of You
20 WAS (NOT WAS)-Walk The Dinosaur
19 DEBBIE GIBSON-Lost In Your Eyes
18 DEF LEPPARD-Rocket
17 .38 SPECIAL-Second Chance
16 ANIMOTION-Room To Move
15 MIKE & THE MECHANICS-Living Years
14 ROY ORBISON-You Got It
13 VANESSA WILLIAMS-Dreamin
12 POISON-Your Mama Dont Dance
11 BON JOVI-I'll Be There For You
10 DEON ESTUS-Heaven Help Me
09 KARYN WHITE-Superwoman
08 ROD STEWART-My Heart Cant Tell You No
07 TONE LOC-Funky Cold Medina
06 REM-Stand
05 MILLI VANILLI-Girl You Know Its True
04 MADONNA-Like A Prayer
03 THE BANGLES-Eternal Flame
02 FINE YOUNG CANNIBALS-She Drives Me Crazy
01 ROXETTE-The Look

[threedollafoaholla]

Apr 13, 2006 11:16:37 GMT -5 billme said:

Ellen K had Rhythm Top 30 countdown

Which was later hosted by a jock out of Cincinnati by the name of "Fish," who is now a station owner in southern Illinois.

[threedollafoaholla]

Apr 13, 2006 11:18:47 GMT -5 @tico said:

chbigemi said:

What about Open House Party, is that still on?  The Hot AC station here used to carry that but dropped it like 3 years ago.

John Garabedian still hosts the Saturday night version. The Sunday night show is hosted by Kane of WFLZ.

Sunday is now hosted by Kannon of WRDW/Philly.