In the mid-sixties, I was the weekend jock at a station, whose owner detested R&R. The reason was both personal and business. His station had for 4 years dominated the market with a Top 40 format. But then a new top 40 station appeared in the market with 10 times the power and very few commercials. Soon his station was dethroned, causing him to quickly flip to an easy listening format. So here I was hardly outta my teens working at station even my parents would find boring. I longed to play artists like the Beatles, Stones, Elvis, etc, but all R&R artists were strictly banned. But on one Sunday afternoon air shift, I finally could stand it no longer. I found in the stations library, Floyd Cramers rendition of Hang on Sloopy, a top 10 hit of the day by the McCoys. Thinking I could surely get away playing this, since Cramers version was somewhat sanitized, I cued up the LP and away we went. But I was sadly mistaken about being able to escape the potential wrath of the GM. The song hadnt been on the air more than 15 seconds, when the hot line started flashing. I knew instantly I was in deep do do. Yes, it WAS the GM and he was none too happy with me. He scheduled a meeting with me in his office the next morning and demanded I take the album to the dumpster. Lesson learned. I never again played anything remotely close to R&R on that station.
Posted on: Sun, 07 Dec 2014 14:56:37 +0000
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