(I was born in the fifties.
)
Hey, I was listening to the radio, constantly, via a seven pound transistor radio plastered to my ear, when the Beatles came to America for the first time. I was more into Roy Orbison at the time and long dead Buddy Holly, but also Sonny Rollins, Lee Morgan, Kenny Burrell, Miles Davis, Jerry Lee Louis, Ray Charles and Carl Perkins.
I wasn't old enough to attend concerts, though. My dad took me to many early rock concerts, once things got to going in that genre, in the mid sixties. I was nine, ten, eleven, twelve and my dad was my HERO!!
An old transistor radio and station WBZ AM out of Boston was my sanity savior in the mid to late 60's.
Interesting! WBZ AM is now talk radio.
My old well-haunted radio station became "Newstalk O' the Town" and gave up music as well, once FM broadcasting became affordable. Now my old favorite is "the Spanish language Christian radio station of the Rio Grande Bible Institute." Talk about a change of format!
There was no FM in those days, except in major markets. Dallas was a major market, but we could receive Chicago clearer than we could Dallas.
WBZ AM really morphed over the years. It had the coolest 60's rock/pop music of the the time. My favorite was a nightime show called "Dick Somers "Subway", and he played some awesome Acid Rock, told stories and read poems, all to acid rock music.
Then about the fall of 1970, it switched to Big band/Frank Sinatra type music, then some form of Musak/elevator crap then like the majority of AM stations, eventually became all talk 24/7.
I also listened to WRKO AM out of Boston, but, they morphed too. I went to the FM stations for awhile, then gave that up when Disco became all the rage. In the 80's I went to classical and Public Radio Stations. But, Public Radio is turning into all talk/news. I rarely listen to radio stations any more unless I'm in my car and then it's channel surfing as commercials come on incessantly on the rock stations I do like to listen to. Or channel surf when the DJ's jabber non stop in an effort to be "hip".
We do have ONE good station in our area, WMWV FM 93.5. They do play a lot of decent stuff, but, their commercials are too long, and a few DJ's talk too much and they do try to slip in some crappy pop tunes. So now I listen to Records/CD's and tapes most of the time. Praise the Nimon for me having a large music collection!!
