CKLW and WJR Radio

[johnbasalla]

CKLW:  What a great station!  I lived in the Cleveland, Ohio market back in "the day" (1970s) and I remember that CKLW was so strong, listener wise, that they even had a few commercials for businesses in Cleveland!  Anybody else remember these?  Also, as a teenager, I always listened to the Top 30 countdown show which I think started at 6pm on maybe a Monday evening.  One of my favorite kinda-sex stories is an early 1970s CKLW story.  As a listener I got to know when to expect a few things.  At 9:55 am on most weekdays, they would always play one of their "extras", songs that were not in the Top 30, and it would be the same one.  I later came to understand that these almost always had some Canadian content to them for legal reasons.  Anyway, for a few weeks one of my favorite songs they played was one of these extras.  It was "Coco" by The Sweet released on Bell records in the U.S., three years before their break-out hit of "Little Willy".
I knew that it would come on between 9:55 and 10:00am.  I was in home-room in high school at the time, and we were inbetween classes.  So I used to hide my tiny transistor radio under my coat, lay my head on the coat to hear it and look at the legs of this pretty girl who sat next to me while listening to "Coco" by The Sweet.  The song was not a love song, however.  It was about a native dancer on an island and had a cool steel drum lead instrumental bridge in mid song. 

Other great "extras" of the era included a cover of the George Harrison tune "Awaiting On You All" by a group called (I think) Silverhorse.  Then there was one that actually made the Top 30 for a bit, "For Better or Worse" by The Bells (of "Stay Awhile" fame).  I think CKLW may have also played "Fly Little White Dove Fly" by The Bells which was the single that preceded "Stay Awhile".  CKLW was also the only station to play "Funky Music Sho Nuff Turns Me On" by Motown artist Edwin Starr.  That song is used on one of the Edwin Starr websites.  It wasn't a big hit, but packs a wallop.  I remember the CKLW countdown show DJ saying, "Here's a surprise...at #25 Edwin Starr is back with..."

Also, any memory of a DJ who was leaving CKLW, but on his last show he was crowing about going to a "progressive Rock" station and happy he wouldn't have to play anymore Donny Osmond, and the like.  I can't remember who that was, but it was in the early 1970s. 

The Big 8 was a Big One to me.

[nightfly61]

I remember CKLW running spots for Hills Dept. Stores in Sandusky(Ohio) & Toledo & in the summer they ran lots of ads for Cedar Point Amusement Park in Sandusky, where MANY a Michigander (still) go for fun.
Another jingle that stands out was for a tanning product called(sp) "Bandesole'", with the mellow jingle "Ban-de-so-lay for the cen-tral bayyy tannnn".

[Savage]

Greetings to all - my first post here on the Motor City board.  I'm Bob Savage, alumnus of CKLW, 1973.

Indeed there was dayparting of the playlist on The Big 8, as there was on most big Top 40 stations of the era.  But there was a form of defacto dayparting on CKLW owing to the fact that the CanCon carriage rules -mandating 30% Canadian music - were not in effect during the overnight hours.  From 6am to 12M, generally you had to play 5 canadian songs in a typical 14-song hour.

Offsetting this however was the fact that the CRTC had saddled CKLW with an absurdly large local news commitment, so overnights 20/20 news would be about 11 minutes per hour.  Fortunately the station was resourceful enough to transform news from being a tuneout to a programming feature people couldn't resist!  The outrageousness of CKLW 20/20 news is deservedly the stuff of legend. 

The CKLW jingles were sung by the Johnny Mann Singers, $1000 per cut in the day, and very pricey at 1970 dollar values.  They were 'logos' in Big 8 parlance (ballad logo, sweep logo, etc.)  A little-known piece of CKLW trivia: CE Ed Buterbaugh actually rigged an electromechanical doorbell which played the CKLW logo when somebody pressed the after-hours button at the back door!  It played over the house monitors all over the station on Ouellette Avenue.

[joybandit]

I remember listening to CKLW in Erie, Pennsylvania.  The signal wasn't too great during the day, but at night, it was loud and clear.  This was during the early 70s.  Boy I loved that channel.

[MsMusicRadio]

I remember CKLW from the sixties while living in Pittsburgh. It was better than KQV or KDKA cause they both had at least two hours a day without music( KQV 2 and KDKA 4) and KDKA was seriously dayparted.

[johnbasalla]

Here's one.  I was a freshman in college in September, 1972.  I worked at the college radio station (WBWC 88.3 FM at Baldwin-Wallace College in Berea, Ohio-still there and going strong).  In October, myself and 3 other guys hopped into one of the guys car and set out for the FCC regional office in Detroit to take the 3rd class FCC (with Broadcast Endorsement) tests.  We started out at about 3:00am.  Between 4:00am and 5:00am CKLW played the long LP version of "Light My Fire" by the Doors.  It was really cool to be speeding down the turnpike, with darkness all around, listening to that song.  Nobody in the car said a word while that song blasted out of the cars speakers thanks to "The Big 8".

[The Atrium]

The Big 8 was huge in Cleveland! Talk about something we'll never hear again!

[nightfly61]

Greetings to all - my first post here on the Motor City board.  I'm Bob Savage, alumnus of CKLW, 1973.

Indeed there was dayparting of the playlist on The Big 8, as there was on most big Top 40 stations of the era.  But there was a form of defacto dayparting on CKLW owing to the fact that the CanCon carriage rules -mandating 30% Canadian music - were not in effect during the overnight hours.  From 6am to 12M, generally you had to play 5 canadian songs in a typical 14-song hour.

Offsetting this however was the fact that the CRTC had saddled CKLW with an absurdly large local news commitment, so overnights 20/20 news would be about 11 minutes per hour.  Fortunately the station was resourceful enough to transform news from being a tuneout to a programming feature people couldn't resist!  The outrageousness of CKLW 20/20 news is deservedly the stuff of legend. 

The CKLW jingles were sung by the Johnny Mann Singers, $1000 per cut in the day, and very pricey at 1970 dollar values.  They were 'logos' in Big 8 parlance (ballad logo, sweep logo, etc.)  A little-known piece of CKLW trivia: CE Ed Buterbaugh actually rigged an electromechanical doorbell which played the CKLW logo when somebody pressed the after-hours button at the back door!  It played over the house monitors all over the station on Ouellette Avenue.

Thanks Bob...also, do you remember when they started transferring their vinyl onto cart...and one more question...when they ran those Top 500 countdowns, were there number jingles(Johnny Mann Singers or sonovox) between songs, and (like most do today)...did they "shut down" the countdown after a certain hour or did it just roll on all weekend? Seems to me I remember my older sister with our dad's G.E mono cassette recorder up half the night with the old condenser mic on it's little plastic stand with it to the radio, recording the Top 500. Wish I knew if those tapes were still floating around somewhere!

[gr8oldies]

I'm not Bob but I do remember the Big 30 preview running on Tuesday nights with Tom Shannon (I don't know that it ran on-air much past 1970 if that long..I'm sure can-con may have made that difficult, though CKLW still ran "goldens" during the countdown). I'm thinking the top 300s, 500s, whatever ran continuously except for the Sunday morning Public Affairs block. I remember hearing a weekend-long "History of Rock and Roll" playback, and they took Sunday morning and just segued Canadian music. I heard it for 45 mion, don't know how long they actually did it. I don't remember Casem style number jingles at all.

[cklw800]

Well, I for one really appreciate the CKLW love.  A CKLW fan for life.  I remember the 1970s on CKLW and the many songs recalled in this thread.  My favorite CanCon was "Peace In The Family" by the Johnson Family.  I do remember "Funky Music..." by Edwin Starr and bought that record.  I first heard CK in 1968 when I would hear "People Got To Be Free" by the Rascals, "Don't Give Up" (Bobby Martin?) and "The House That Jack Built" by Aretha Franklin over and over and loved it!  "Harper Valley PTA" was another one during that time, which I believe was in August 1968.  I was around 7 or 8 and on a family trip to Cedar Point.  Years later in 1975 we returned and then it was "Jive Talkin'", "Fame" and "Get Down Tonight", all sounding ten times bigger than my records.  Interestingly, "Fame" on CKLW was the album version.  The single version played on most stations didn't have the "be my babe-won't you please" section, so that song was a nice experience for CKLW listeners.  They knew when it was appropriate to give you a little more of a good song.  I remember their special edit of "Got To Give It Up" by Marvin Gaye, which completely sidelined the infamously debatable "you can (bump?) me if you want to, baby". CKLW flipped to a section of "Got To Give It Up, Part II" for that part then flipped back to close with the last minutes of "Part I".  A brilliant edit.  The 20/20 News...man!  It was great!  Brother Bill Gable, Charlie O'Brien, so many more great names.  They didn't talk long at all.  I only remember one line of DJ dialogue and it was O'Brien commenting on "Fame".  He said, "C-K-L-W! Anyway you look at it, it's a hit.  "Fame by David Bowie".  Then he went into a "Farmer Jack's" commercial.  They were all short like that.  I remember the temperature given in Farenheit and Celsius.  That was interesting entertainment in itself.  Good rock and roll with Bob Seger and soul stuff you didn't even hear on the soul stations sometimes.  I remember a lot of Funkadelic, in particular "I Wanna Know If It's Good To You" or similar title.  The R&B was always interesting and universal sounding. Just a refreshing sound, followed by a sure fire pop hit, then a rocker, then an interesting CanCon.  You'd never know they were sidelined by that law.  I just thought they were trying be interesting.  Any station that started with a "C" I expected to be interesting!