Tag Archives: May Music et al

Music et al, Music of the 60s, Today in history

WOR FM Announces NYC Rock

4 Comments

WOR FM Announces NYC Rock

June 16, 1966 announcement

NYC WOR-FM Goes Rock

Scott Muni…Saturday 8 October 1966, the first day of DJs on WOR-FM

In the New York metropolitan area, we Boomers had grown up listening to AM music in our parents’ car (when they’d let us) or on our own transistor radios (when we finally got one).

We could watch teenagers dance to the top singles on Dick Clark’s American Bandstand. His shows included a lip-synched performance by a current top 10 artist or band: like this one by Roy Orbison on June 5, 1966.

WOR-FM switched to its rock format on July 31. I remember seeing advertisements beforehand and using my parents’ radio–it had FM unlike my AM-only transistor radio.

WOR FM Announces NYC Rock

WOR-FM Goes Rock

WOR-FM Goes Rock

I didn’t realize that union difficulties meant no DJs at first. All I knew was that the lack of DJ chatter meant more room for music. And that’s what I wanted. The down side was that if I heard a song I liked but didn’t recognize (e.g., Buffalo Springfield‘s “Nowadays Clancy Can’t Even Sing”) I was stuck.

WOR FM Announces NYC Rock

Those songs of those first days were far from the future of album-oriented playlists. Here’s are some examples from that first day:

  1. Supremes, “Can’t Hurry Love”
  2. Supremes, “Baby Love”
  3. Georgie Fame & The Blue Flames, “Get Away”
  4. Simon & Garfunkel, “Dangling Conversation”
  5. Rolling Stones, “Mother’s Little Helper”
  6. Beatles, “Paperback Writer”
  7. Petula Clark, “You’re the One”
  8. Bobby Moore & the Rhythm Aces, “Searching For My Love”
  9. Frank Sinatra, “Strangers in the Night”
  10. Sandy Posey, “Born a Woman”
  11. The Capitals, “Cool Jerk”
  12. Herb Albert, “A Taste of Honey”
  13. [I don’t know and neither does Shazam] 
  14. Tommy Roe, “Sweet Pea”
  15. Billy Stewart, “Summertime”
  16. Ruby and the Romantics, “We Can Make It”
  17. The Supremes, “Back In My Arms Again”
  18. David Garrick, “Dear Mrs Applebee”
  19. Them, “Gloria’s Dream”
  20. Percy Sledge, “Warm and Tender Love”

Quite a variety, but obviously not the album cuts that many of us would come to love.

As WOR-FM’s DJ gained experience and confidence with the evolving format, management began to balk. Murry the K left in August 1967.  His replacement, Jim O’Brien, played more of a Top 40 format that management preferred to the free-form that had started to happen. By the fall of 1967, the Top 40 format, much like the traditional AM format, had happened. [Music Radio 77 article]

WOR FM Announces NYC Rock

WOR-FM Goes South

On October 2, 1967, DJ Rosko announced his departure and the reasoning for that departure right on the air. His discussion reflect the thinking and the approach that some young people were realizing was a preferred format and one that they had become attached to (click to listen):

WNEW-FM took up the reins of that more relaxed, increased choice, and variety-filled approach the fall of 1967. Rosko arrived. Scott Muni arrived. Alison Steele (already there) became the “Nightbird.” Jonathan Schwartz and Dick Summer also became part of that line-up.

WOR FM Announces NYC Rock
Music et al, Today in history

Sex Pistols Save Queen

Leave a comment

Sex Pistols Save Queen

Sex Pistols Save Queen

…but on May 31, 1977 the BBC told them they couldn’t.

R & R v the Establishment

Rock and Roll and those in Power have never been on the best of terms. At it’s best, rock and roll pokes a stick in the eye of Power.

1977 was the year of the United Kingdom’s Queen Elizabeth II’s Silver Jubilee.  Many adored and admired her and not just in the UK but throughout the world. Even popular in the former British colonies her country had often subjected to harsh rule.

What better time then for an outrageously named British rock group, the Sex Pistols, to sing an outrageously disrespectful song about their adored and admired Queen Elizabeth.

Sex Pistols Save Queen

God Save the Queen

“God Save the Queen” was released on May 27, 1977 and on May 31 the BBC banned it. Such a ban would normally be the death knell for a band’s song, but banning sometimes backfires and this ban did just that.

Even though the song was difficult to hear over the airwaves and even though the some major outlets refused to sell it, the recording sold more than 150,00 copies a day from the end of May and into early June.

Sex Pistols Save Queen

A #2 that was #1

That it didn’t reach #1 on the British charts and “stalled” at #2 is hard to believe given such sales. It doesn’t take much to think that it was a deliberate decision to keep it from the #1 spot.

The song holds up well nearly 40 years later. And I suppose some are still asking for God to save the Queen. The Sex Pistols cannot. They were gone within two years.

God save the Queen
The fascist regime,
They made you a moron
A potential H-bomb
 
God save the Queen
She ain’t no human being
There is no future
And England’s dreaming
 
Don’t be told what you want
Don’t be told what you need
There’s no future
No future
 
No future for you
God save the Queen
We mean it man
We love our Queen
 
God saves
God save the Queen
‘Cause tourists are money
And our figurehead
Is not what she seems
 
Oh God save history
God save your mad parade
Oh Lord God have mercy
All crimes are paid
 
When there’s no future
How can there be sin
We’re the flowers
In the dustbin
 
We’re the poison
In your human machine
We’re the future
You’re future
 
God save the Queen
We mean it man
We love our Queen
God saves
 
God save the Queen
We mean it man
There is no future
And England’s dreaming

The Sex Pistols were: Steve Jones , Paul Cook,  Glen Matlock , and John Lydon (aka, Johnny Rotten).  Sid Vicious replaced Matlock.

The Rolling Stone magazine bio on the band begins with: Unabashedly crude, intensely emotional, and calculated to exhilarate and offend, the Sex Pistols’ music and stance were in direct opposition to the star trappings and complacency that, by the mid-Seventies, had rendered much of rock & roll stagnant. Over the course of their short, turbulent existence, the group released a single studio album that changed the course of popular music. While the Sex Pistols were not the first punk rockers (that distinction probably goes to the Stooges), they were the most widely identified with the genre — and, to appearances, the most threatening. Never Mind the Bollocks, Here’s the Sex Pistols unquestionably ranks as one of the most important rock & roll records ever, its sound a raw, snarling, yet mesmerizing rejection of and challenge to not only rock & roll music and culture but a modern world that offered, as Rotten sang in “God Save the Queen,” “no future.”

Sex Pistols Save Queen
Music et al, Music of the 60s, Today in history, Woodstock Music and Art Fair

CSN Crosby Stills Nash

3 Comments

CSN Crosby Stills Nash

May 29, 1969

CSN Crosby Stills Nash

CSN Crosby Stills Nash

E Pluribus Unum

The Hollies were part of the British Invasion on the heels of America’s Beatlemania and we first heard them on “Look Through Any Window” without realizing we were listening to Graham Nash.

The Byrds were part of “that” California sound that provided counterpoint to the Beatles. It was Roger McGuinn whose voice we were hearing mainly, but David Crosby’s was an important part, too.

We likely thought Buffalo Springfield’s “For What It’s Worth” was a war-protest song, not realizing it was about teenagers being allowed to stay out late. If someone had said Stephen Stills we may or may not have recognized the name.

Then we found out that Buffalo Springfield was no more; that the Byrds kicked David Crosby out of the band.

CSN Crosby Stills Nash

April 1969

In early April 1969, the brand new Rolling Stone magazine had an article about the three finishing their album. The article gave high praise to this latest “supergroup” : “The album, as yet untitled, is arguably the most talked-about LP-in-progress in Los Angeles, one of the most talked-about in the industry.”

When Atlantic did release the album on May 29, 1969 such praise gave it an automatic boost. Unlike today, the group did not tour beforehand nor did  it tour right away.  And by the time they got to Woodstock and sang in front of the half million strong it was only their second gig. And they were, quote, “scared shitless.”

CSN Crosby Stills Nash

Crosby, Stills & Nash album

Though they were new, Crosby, Stills and Nash (no Oxford comma) did not need Woodstock and it’s accompanying movie and triple album exposure (Warner Bros owned the rights…Atlantic by this time was under WB’s umbrella…and Cotillion, the Woodstock album’s label was under Atlantic’s umbrella), but it helped of course.

The CS & N album went on to have two hit singles (” “Marrakesh Express” and “Suite: Judy Blue Eyes” ) and  itself peaked at #6 on the Billboard Top Pop Albums chart. It now has had sales of over 4,200,000 copies.

CSN Crosby Stills Nash

Cover trivia

Some trivia about the well-known album cover taken by the famed Henry Diltz. When Diltz took the photo, the band hadn’t settled on a name yet, but did within a day or two. Realizing that the band name did not match the photo, they returned to re-shoot. Unfortunately, the building had been demolished in the interim.

When the jacket is fully opened the “whole” photo appears. At least it appears to appear with drummer Dallas Taylor Prisoner of Woodstock. That part of the photo was pasted in later with a photo of Taylor posed in Crosby’s door.

CSN Crosby Stills Nash

CSN Crosby Stills NashCSN Crosby Stills NashCSN Crosby Stills Nash, CSN Crosby Stills Nash, CSN Crosby Stills Nash