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- Newsgroups: soc.singles
- Path: sparky!uunet!usc!elroy.jpl.nasa.gov!decwrl!csus.edu!netcom.com!barry
- From: barry@netcom.com (Kenn Barry)
- Subject: Re: Query [FM]
- Message-ID: <1993Jan22.084024.11006@netcom.com>
- Organization: QQQCLC
- References: <305@cnmhnet.UUCP>
- Distribution: usa
- Date: Fri, 22 Jan 1993 08:40:24 GMT
- Lines: 36
-
- In article <305@cnmhnet.UUCP> keithg@cnmhnet.UUCP (keith garrard) writes:
- > FM stations began to proliferate in the early 70's
- >because peoples' tastes for quality music began to change.
-
- FM was big long before that; big in the sense of many stations,
- even if it didn't have the kind of audience share it has today. But, to
- get back to AOR (album-oriented rock) specifically...
-
- >The station that is
- >generally credited with creating and popularizing AOR is
- >a station in Raleigh NC with the call letters "WQDR". This is
- >actually the sister station of "WPTF" AM-68, and which used to
- >broadcast simutaneously on WQDR's FM band. Anyway, WQDR was
- >born one Sunday morning in the early 70's when they played a
- >song by the Rolling Stones called "It's a Bitch", or something
- >like that.
-
- AOR is older than that. Started in the late 60s. In LA, where I
- lived, I believe the late lamented KPPC was the first, going to AOR
- format in 1967 or 1968, but I got a hunch the Bay Area was ahead of us.
- We used to call it "underground rock" (god knows why; nothing
- underground about it). Incidentally, the first straight-through play of
- a rock album I ever heard on the radio (both sides, no commercials) was
- "Sergeant Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band", right after its release
- (1967), on KPFK, LA's Pacifica station. Elliot Mintz was the DJ,
- recently arrived from NYC, and was doing a mostly-talk show that became
- more and more musical as time went on.
-
- Another minor historical note: the "PPC" in KPPC stood for
- Pasadena Presbyterian Church, who owned the station. Us freaks got a
- small kick out of the fact a church-owned station was a rock 'n roll
- pioneer.
-
- - From the Crow's Nest - Kenn Barry
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