Monday, August 22, 2022

Heard It On the Radio #MusicMovesMe

It's Monday and it's time for music!

Who are the Music Moves Me bloggers? We are bloggers who blog about music each Sunday or Monday and if you have music to share with us, you are most welcome to join! (Music Posts Only-meaning at least one music video, please!)   Our head hostess is Cathy from Curious as a Cathy,  and she is joined by the knowledgeable Stacy of Stacy Uncorked and (last but not least) me.

Why not join our music loving folks?  It's so easy. All you have to do is join the linky above with a music post that contains at least one music video (there must be a music video or your post will be subject to removal or labeling "No Music").That's all it takes!

Each month, except December, we have a guest host. For August, we again welcome Adventures in Weseland.

His theme for this week is "Songs You Remember from the Radio".  This has been a fun post for me to put together and I hope it brings back a lot of memories for you, my dear reader.

I'm old enough to remember lots and lots of songs from the radio.  Today, I'd like to take a trip with you through my childhood and early adulthood.

I grew up in New York City.  In those days, I would carry around a transistor radio, which had terrible music quality.  But who cared?  Music videos? They didn't exist back then, although we had Dick Clark's American Bandstand on the black and white TV showing us live (or maybe taped live) performances.

Let's set the mood.


770, WABC (AM of course, because that's what we had back in the 50's and 60's) was my main station and I breathlessly waited for Tuesday evenings when the new music survey would be released.   This is a compilation of recordings from various New York City stations of the 1960's.

There was also WMCA, where The Good Guys reigned, but WMCA would not survive the advent of FM radio.  But wait, I'm getting ahead of myself.

Some of my favorite songs are from the late 1950's and 1960's. Of course, I heard them first on the radio.

Tequila - the Champs, from 1958.

Michael, Row The Boat Ashore - the Highwaymen, from 1960.


The Lion Sleeps Tonight (Wimoweh)- The Tokens, from 1961.

Then, the times started to change.

(I Can't Get No) Satisfaction - The Rolling Stones, from 1964.  Oh, how we loved to listen to one particular lyric, and I think WABC censored it by cutting an entire verse from the song (I'll let you guess which one.)  Oh yes, radio censorship.  There was plenty of it.

This song wasn't censored; it was just too long for a lot of stations.  This is the whole song: Bob Dylan's Like a Rolling Stone.

Moving ahead to 1968, length no longer seemed to matter.  "Hey Jude" by the Beatles ruled the New York airwaves. 

I think the last song I may have heard on WMCA was Simon and Garfunkel's Bridge Over Troubled Waters, which brings us to the 1970's.

The 1970's brought FM radio, and I switched my listening to stations like WNEW-FM and WCBS-FM, until I left New York City in 1974.  Let's get some songs from the 1970's.  Again, all of these were heard first on the radio.

Angie - The Rolling Stones,from 1973.

From 1975, Black Water - the Doobie Brothers.

I've had Year of the Cat, from 1976 - Al Stewart on my blog before but it deserves to be in this post, too.  I associate this song with several long trips we took in the 1976/77 time period, and listening to this song on the car radio as the miles rolled past.

Nowadays, if I listen to radio, it's satellite radio.  It's commercial free, but I can still miss the radio of my youth and early adulthood.  Of course, satellite radio can satisfy that need, but still...

Finally, it's time to honor with RIPs to my favorite DJ's from WABC, including Dan Ingram.  Another WABC DJ of my childhood, Bruce Morrow, is still active (at the age of 86), with a four hour podcast every Saturday night.  He's made the circle back to WABC, which is no longer a music station.

Finally, RIP to the Nightbird, Alison Steele, of WNEW-FM, who died from cancer at the young age of 58.

And that is a nostalgic wrap!

Join me again next Monday for another episode of Music Moves Me.

8 comments:

  1. Great song list! Funny that we both talked about transistor radios...

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  2. Ah, NYC radio … I’m a bit younger than you are, so I didn’t start listening to the radio until the late 60’s. WABC ruled the airwaves, Great song choices.

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  3. I can't remember if I ever had a transistor radio. I probably didn't because as I mentioned it was really difficult to get the radio stations living in the valley of those WV mountains. When our kids were small, someone gave them small transistor radio one Christmas. For cheapies they did really well. Luckily, we have good reception here which was a big help.

    You pulled together a nice set of songs. In the early 70s I remember I was really into The Doobie Brothers. I loved their music! From the first time I heard Simon & Garfunkel they had me. "Bridge Over Troubled Water" always puts me in such a somber mood.

    Have a boogietastic week, my friend!

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  4. Now that is a cool and classic playlist. Very nice.

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  5. Lots of wonderful sounds and many were favorites of mine.

    Have a fabulous day and week. ♥

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  6. Another great list, Alana. In India, in the 70s, we got our quota of Western Music from Radio Ceylon.

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  7. I was hooked on Allen Fried- WINS- the FIRST R&R station in NY. (Now, it's all news.) And, as soon as WNEW-FM dawned (it was alternative before folks knew what that was), I jumped ship.
    Thanks for the memories.
    (OH- and I was a Brooklyn Paramount and Fox guy- loved the live performances.)

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