I was born in a great Radio Town; Jacksonville Florida. So it was only natural that I joined WUSC (AM at the time) in my first semester 1963. I went on to a career in commercial radio and television in Columbia, WCOS AM & FM, WIS-TV, WIS Radio, SCETV and PBS. I'm retired now, giving back since 2010 to the station that started my career, WUSC-FM. If you did the math you will know that I celebrated the 60th anniversary of my first radio show ever in November 2023.
The End of the Cruzin’ Era April 4, 1968, was a typical Thursday, but the world changed that day. I had distributed the paper copies of the WCOS Top 40, no longer the “Top 60 in Dixie” to the record and drug stores where they were ready to be picked up. I spent a few extra minutes talking shop ...
Friends and Competitors In 1965, besides WUSC the USC operated Carrier Current station on 730, there were only 6 AM stations in Columbia; WIS – 560 (Middle of the Road), WCAY 620 (Country), WNOK 1230 (Top 40), WOIC 1320 (R&B), WCOS 1400 (Top 40) and WQXL 1470 (CountryPolitan.) Two of those; WCAY ...
Records and Contests One of the hallmarks of Top 40 radio was getting the audience involved through contests, and boy, did we have contests at WCOS. But before you had contests you had to have prizes. The value of these prizes ran the gamut from “three records from the “WCOS grab bag” to a single ...
Old School Radio One of the hallmarks of medium and small market radio in the early 60s was small block programming elements. Typically these consisted of News, Weather, Sports, Lost Pets, Police Reports, and a “Swap and Shop” block. By the time I started at WCOS, the Police Reports, normally ...
The Cruizers The Nightbeat Show audience was a motley three groups, and I had to be careful to pay attention to all of them. There was the onsite audience, the customers sitting in their cars in the packed rows of teletrays. They were sending in their requests scribbled on pieces of paper, sometimes ...
Car Hops and BouncersLike so many other drive-ins, Doug Broome's had its own eco-culture, and I soon became a part of it. The two largest groups were carhops and customers. Smaller groups were managers and bouncers, and finally, there was me, who at first didn’t fit into any of them. The first ...
The World of Cruizin' In the decade after WW II the GIs came home and started their civilian lives. Automobiles were a big part of that and the “hot rod” and music culture caught so well in the film “American Graffiti” dominated the teen scene. Top 40 Radio was in the driver’s seat in ...
In 1975 Kenny Vance (formerly of Jay & The Americans) and the Planotones released a song named “Looking For An Echo” in which they describe the search for the perfect natural echo. WCOS like many other Top 40 stations of the day featured an artificial reverb sound in order to sound more ...
The Wonderful World of Overnights To Paraphrase Dickens, “It was the worst of Dayparts, It was the best of Dayparts!” Typically broadcasters divide the day up into shifts called “dayparts.” They include “Morning Drive” (6 AM – 10 AM), “Middays” (10 AM – 2 PM), “Afternoon Drive” ...
Top 40 Radio & WCOS Since this is Volume 5 of this blog, so I’ll remind you that my memory is not perfect. That was ingrained in me when I undertook a podcast series for the SC Broadcasters Association and a group of retired broadcasters called the SLOBs, Slightly Legendary Old Broadcasters. ...
