What Song(s) Remind You Of WAKY?

[John Quincy]

One of the features of my afternoon drive show is "The Super Groovy Seventies Challenge" where I play a snippet of a song from the 70s that doesn't get played on the radio much anymore. I ask listeners to call in and ID the song. The first one with the right answer wins a prize and I play the whole song.

Today's song was "Groovy Situation" by Gene Chandler. (It made it to #12 in 1970). Everytime I hear or play that song I think of WAKY, since it was a current when I discovered the Big 79. I've never gotten tired of it. (Killer bass line!)

Are there any songs you hear or play that immediately take you back to "the day" and remind of you of WAKY?

[Max]

Photograph-Ringo Starr
I've Got a Name-Jim Croce
Shambala-Three Dog Night
I've Been Searchin' (So Long)-Chicago
Long, Tall Glasses-Leo Sayer
Hello it's Me-Todd Rundgren
Heartbeat (it's a Lovebeat)-Tony DeFranco & the DeFranco Family
Sing a Song-Carpenters
Jet & Band on the Run-Wings
Goodbye Yellow Brick Road-Elton John
Leave Me Alone-Helen Reddy
Frankenstein & Free Ride-Edgar Winter Group
The Sound of Philadelphia- MFSB
When Will I See You Again-Three Degrees

[Travis]

Todd Rundgren's 'Hello, It's Me' always brings WAKY to mind because it was the first 45 I ever cued in the control room while the public affairs stuff was airing from the main production room.

Usually, the toggle that switched from the control room to the production room was thrown a few minutes early (just before 3:30 AM) and we would have a 45 ready to go in the main production room. One Sunday morning the 45 of choice was the Doobie Brothers' 'Jesus Is Just Alright (with me).' Following the record, the ID was played and Powerline was launched from a Scully tape deck. Can you guess what the first song was?

We learned to never play any tune that is Christian oriented, in any way, before going into Powerline because chances were the program would feature the same tune at some point within the program. From that Sunday on, we always used Black Sabbath tunes to get us into Powerline. ;D Just kidding.

Actually. I always think of WAKY whenever I hear the Guess Who's 'Broken', Three Dog Night's 'Woman', Ashton, Gardner & Dykes' 'Resurrection Shuffle' and just too many to mention. I should also point out that I only hear these tunes when I PLAY THEM. They're never on the radio.

[Mike Griffin]

PAUL MCCARTNEY & WINGS - "Uncle Albert / Admiral Halsey" Gary Burbank was playing it when I came in to interview with Randolph.

Ashton, Gardener, and Dyke - "Resurrection Shuffle" Weird Beard sneaking in a sly "see I know those words too" as he said the artists name.

Johnny Cymbal - "Mr Bass Man" WAKY was the only station still playing it in the '70s. I loved to play it on Saturday nights, on those times I worked that shift, until Randolph pulled it.

Raspberrys - "Go All The Way" Jay O'Brien talking it up.

Booker T and the MGs - "Time Is Tight" Mason Dixon playing this. Somehow they both seemed so Southern and natural. MLD gets two songs, Zaeger and Evans - "2525" couldn't belong to anyone else.

The Elegants - "Little Star" Somehow it seemed right when Johnny Randolph played it. Of course Randolph gets Charlie Rich's Behind Closed Doors too.

Hamilton, Joe Frank and Reynolds - "Don't Pull Your Love" When Dude Walker said dig it Louisville, you don't forget it.

Mason Williams - "Classical Gas" winner of WAKY's Battle Of The Giants" And "Deck Of Cards" by Wink Martindale that played too many times before loosing in that contest. I'll put Bob Todd here, it was probably his promotion.

"Ain't It Funny How Time Slips Away" Bill Bailey played this now and then and it seems an appropriate song when thinking about WAKY.

[Kevin]

OK, I am now going into my 70's zone, I will begin channeling sequence:

It is a hot summer afternoon, I mowed the lawn earlier in the day, I get on my 10-speed and meet friends hanging around the street corner, we talk about getting a baseball game going later, I hear mom yelling at my little brother in the distance, we start talking about the neighborhood chick down the street--she looks different, someone wonders if the Big Red machine is going to win the world series, neighboorhood chick keeps coming up in conversation, someone says Alice Cooper was Beaver in "Leave it to Beaver", another says Beaver died in Vietnam, we all wonder if the neighborhood chick would skate with us Friday night at Champs, someone asks who Alice Cooper is, someone suggests we go to the mall and sneak into to see "Billy Jack" at the matinee, somebody has a transister radio on (Coyote is screaming):

Mouth and MacNeil "How do you do"
Barry White "Love's theme"
Exorcist theme (still gives me the creeps)
Stories (I think) "Brother Louie"
Captain "Love will keep us together"
Elton John "Philadelphia Freedom"
Edwin Bear "Last Song"
You know who: "Crocidile Rock", "Bennie and the Jets"
Wings "Band on the run"
Barry Manilow "I write the songs"
Robert John "Lion Sleeps tonight"
Helen Reddy "Delta Dawn" "I am woman"
Jim Croce "Bad Leroy Brown"
Cher "Gypsy's Tramps and Thieves"
"Ain't no woman like the one I got"
Eagles "Witchy Woman" "Take it easy"
"Brandy"
"I Can see clearly now"
"Use Me"
"Drift Away"
ELO "Starge Magic"
Starship "Miracles"
3 Dog "Black and White"
"Wild fire"
"Strawberry Letter 22"
Redbone "Come and get your love"


I could go on forever...did I mention the chick down the street?

[Travis]

Yo, Mike Griffin!

How did you get ProBoard to show "Ashton, Gardner & Dyke" without it censoring "Dyke" (as it just did here)? Oops! It didn't do it this time. Nevermind.

I agree with Zager & Evans' 'In The Year 2525' as belonging to Mason; especially, when he would use the tune to follow his 'Harbinger' poem (which is exactly what he did on the very front of his last show which can be heard on the airchecks page).

Dude Walker saying "Dig It!!" can be heard on one of his earlier airchecks. He had a lot of energy in those days and the "bull's nut" microphone combined with the highly cranked Grundy plate reverb seemed to add to his style. By 1971, the reverb had been reduced considerably, the "bull's nut" mic had been replaced with an AKG and Dude's delivery changed. It wasn't a bad thing; especially with that voice. He just evolved into a more polished sound on his intros & extros.

There are many versions of 'Funny How Time Slips Away' and Elvis' version is my favorite. Which version did the Duke play on WAKY?

[John Quincy]

You can now write "Dyke" on this Website without being censored.

[Mike Griffin]

JQ handled the word thing.

I couldn't remember the version of Funny How Time Slips Away. It wasn't Elvis, I don't think it was Brook Benton either, I can't recall.

Dude Walker was always great though I prefer the Hi-Energy Dude. He revised his sound for doing mid-days rather than it being due to any other factors.

I also think of "Church Street Soul Revival" and "This Old Heart" tied to WAKY. You didn't hear them anywhere else.

[Max]

Somehow I forgot to mention Gary Glitter's 'Rock and Roll Part 2'. Come to think of it, it also makes me think of WKLO, which I'm not so sure that's not where I heard it first. In any case, it received heavy rotation on both stations.

And ya know, the song just doesn't sound the same on FM.

Oh, oh, oh-oh-oh...The song just popped into my head that takes the crown from all the songs I've listed (I'm listening to it now):

Show and Tell-Al Wilson

This is the song that perhaps makes me think most of the Super 79!

[Travis]

Max!! Al Wilson's 'Show & Tell' is my tune, man. I was passing by the TV one night as my son was watching 'Malcolm in the Middle' and the actor who plays the dad was playing the song and singing along with it in his shorts. He was preparing for a night of whoopee with the wife. Hhmm... maybe I should have pulled my son from the TV at that point.

Anyway. The song is from around 1974 and when the local Clear Channel "oldies" station plays it, they label it as a "lost oldie." Yea, right.

Also. While there are many tunes that will remind me of WAKY and WKLO, there are tunes that will bring these stations to mind, even more so, merely because of their intros. With a DJ state of mind you will identify with the intros that you loved to talk-up. Cornelius Brothers & Sister Rose's 'Too Late to Turn Back Now' has such an intro. There are just some songs that have an intro you just love to talk-up even if you really don't care for the song as a whole.

[Max]

Cornelius Brothers and Sister Rose! Now there's a memory!! That makes me think of another song I can hear only by playing from my collection: "Starting All Over" by Mel & Tim...two fine examples of fine 70's R&B!!!

[GilHerbigJr]

Then of course there was Mel & Tim's "Backfield In Motion" which was also misunderstood to be Backfield Emotion. I haven't heard or even thought of that one in years.

[jslone]

Well here are some of the songs:
x-Indicates When Was The Last Time Ya Heard This One
She's A Lady/Tom Jones
Wild World/Cat Stevens
Eddie's Love/Eddie Kendricks-x
Heartbeart-Lovebeat/Tony DeFranco
Sound Of Phliadelphia/MFSB
Showdown/ELO-x
Nothin To Lose/Kiss-x
Keep Your Head To The Sky/Earth,Wind & Fire-x
Katmandu/Bob Segar
Shannon/Henry Gross
Happy Days/Pratt & McLain-x
Blow Your Whistle/Gary Toms Empire-x
If Your Talk If Your Sleep/Elvis-x
When Will I Be Loved/Linda Ronstant
Saturday Night/Bay City Rollers
Good Hearted Woman/Waylon & Willie
Behind Closed Doors/Charlie Rich
Billy Dont Be A Hero/Bo Donaldson & Heywoods
Power Of Gold/Dan Fogelburg
Trouble/Lindsey Buckingham-x
IF ANYONE KNOWS ON WHAT CD "EDDIE'S LOVE" IS ON PLEASE LET ME KNOW. CANT FIND IT ANYWHERE

[GilHerbigJr]

Now These remind me of WAKY:
Ballroom Blitz - Sweet
Wild Thing - Fancy
Christine Sixteen - KISS

[Travis]

Yo, Jslone!

Regarding 'Eddie's Love.' I really don't know what CD it's on, but according to Eddie Kendricks' discography:

The 45 single:
"Eddie's Love" b/w "Let Me Run Into Your Lonely Heart" (Tamla 54218, May, 1972)

The Album:
People...Hold On (1972, Tamla 315)

If You Let Me
Let Me Run Into Your Lonely Heart
Day By Day
Girl You Need A Change of Mind
Someday We'll Have A Better World
My People...Hold On
Date With The Rain
Eddie's Love
I'm On The Sideline
Just Memories

Good Luck in finding the CD.

[Ben Pflederer]

Crusher ..... The Novas
Leader of the Pack ...... Shangra-las
Summertime Blues ..... Eddie Cochran
Shake Sherry ..... Sherry Schanault & Local Band (memory escapes)
Mule Skinner Blues ......Fendermen

The 60's were Great! Rock was Rock

[bruiser]

"Funny How Time Slips Away" went around the block a couple of times. It was a country hit for Billy Walker in '61. It was covered by Jimmy Elledge in '62, and by Joe Hinton in '64.

"Shake Sherry" was a local hit by The Shadows, who morphed into The Chateaus. The song was an original by The Contours.

[Ben Pflederer]

:)Thanks Bruiser. Apparently it was a lot of senior moments. I could not think of the "Shadows". I should have remember them.

[carolrose]

"Vincent" Don McLean
"Let Your Love Flow" Bellamy Brothers
"Silly Love Songs" McCartney & Wings
Anything from the summer of '76, when I obsessively listened to Gary King's midday show.
"Song Sung Blue" which Bill Bailey always sang along with.

[John Quincy]

Here's another one for me:

"Mississippi" by John Phillips: "Down on the bayou oh you never know just what you're doing..." (Of course, it didn't hurt that it mentioned Louisville in the first verse.)

[dudewalker1]

I loved all the songs that we played at WAKY but the songs that remind me of WAKY when I hear them are " I heard it through the grapevine" by Marvin Gaye, "Song sung blue", Neil Diamond and the Spiral Staircase with " More today than yesterday". it's hard tp pick specific songs but when I hear those I immedoiately have memories flooding my brain and thinking of the awesome time I had at WAKY. That was the greatest time of my life and the memories are enough to last me a lifetime. I thank Bill Crisp for hiring me and Johnny Randolph for all that he did for me as a PD. Thanks Johnny for letting me do my thing.

[Max]

In my first response to this survey, like most of you I came up with a grocery list of songs that made, and still makes me think of WAKY. In a second post I gave a song, "Show and Tell" which reigned over the others. Well, now, I must list a song which must share top honors with this Al Wilson gem, that being "Love's Theme" by Barry White & the Love Unlimited Orchestra. These two songs, along with their 'court' (the first list) will forever be pop royalty in my mind and will forever make me wax nostalgic for the Super '79!

[Travis]

I liked the Dramatics' 'What You See Is What You Get' which was quite popular back in '71. It had one of those intros that gave any jock a high (so to speak)when talking over it. I also liked the Guess Who's 'Broken' which I only heard on WAKY and have not heard it on radio since.

This thread may be about what songs remind us of WAKY, but in listening to the many airchecks that are on this site, and that of WKLO, I'm often reminded of tunes that I once loved and have not heard in years. When was the last time you heard Joe Simon's 'Power of Love'? Gary Burbank, Jason O'Brien and others were just absolutely on fire when they would intro or extro that song (as can be heard on their airchecks).

[Max]

If you would allow me to be a little melancholy and a bit weepy for this time ONLY , I just heard "The Way We Were" and that made me long for the good ol' days. I know WAKY & WKLO were known for their high charged, intense input/output, but that song just really made me long for those days again and so much more of the culture of yesteryear. Thanks to all WAKY talent, behind the mike and behind the scenes, who helped all this happen.

[Kevin]

"Two divided by Love" was played on WRKA last night (I can't remember who was the artist on that one) but I hadn't heard that song in years, and yes....it reminded me of WAKY.

Max, you mentioned "The Way We Were", I heard the Partridge Family's "I think I love you" the other day and it really took me back. "Bah, bah, bah, bah, ba, ba, bah, bah, bah..."

[Max]

Kevin, Two Divided by Love was by the Grass Roots.

And talk about ironic, shortly after I heard "The Way We Were" today I heard "I think I Love You" as well! Funny you should mention that. I heard them both on an internet radio station today. Yes, that one takes me back to, when "The Partridge Family" followed "The Brady Bunch" on ABC Friday nights.

Ah, dem were da days.

[Kevin]

Max, let's see ... Nanny and the Professor, Room 222, Brady Bunch, Partridge Family, and Love American Style. I think that was the ABC Friday night line-up.

Then after the 11pm news, the "Blob" or something similiar was on Creature Features. All brought to you by WLKY. (Or was Creature Features on WHAS?) Hmmmm...

Changing the subject somewhat ... Does anyone remember the WHAS Late Show way back in the day when they played a song that sounded like a clock ticking in the intro, and they had this chessy picture of a clock? It was Black and White TV.

[Max]

Kevin, wasn't that the best night for TV? Of course, I wasn't really a 'Nanny' fan like my sister was, but I sure loved the rest. And Friday nights meant the next morning was cartoons. It was especially exciting for the new fall cartoon line-up. I would try my best to be up early the first Saturday after we'd gotten the new fall line-up TV Guide!

For me, Fridays were ABC. Saturdays were NBC...I think that was the night for Emergency! and Adam-12. The only other specific nights I remember was Monday nights and the Rookies (ABC). Oh, and on a particular night I liked to tune in and see Jaclyn Smith and Cheryl Ladd running around in bikini's!

Not sure about Creature Feature...you may be right about WLKY. As far as CBS, I liked all the Quinn Martin shows, especially the FBI and of course CBS's M.A.S.H.!

More Retro, more Retro, PLEASE! And thinking of me begging, does anyone remember the "Show with No Name's" Larry? There was supposedly a crowd outside Ron and Terry's window begging "Larry...we wanna hear Larry!"

"My name is Larry, my name is Larry, I have a mother, her name is Mother...my name is Larry, my name is Larry, I have an uncle, his name is Bob (Hi, Bob!)...my name is Larry, my name...."

[Travis]

Kevin, you have quite a memory. I can hear that music with the tick-tock sound in my head as I wri... uh, type. It was quite a happy tune. I'll have to track it down.

When I was in grade school, President Kennedy had stressed that all Americans should walk or become active in some form of physical fitness. So at one point during the day my teacher would take us all to the school gym and make us walk continuously, in a single line, around the gym for about 15 or 30 minutes. That same music was used and our steps were in time with the ticks & tocks. I was in the 2nd grade at that time.

I also remember when WHAS-TV would sign off by playing Samuel Barber's 'Adagio for Strings' while some minister would read some words of inspiration over the music and all you could see was a black backdrop, covered with stars and a bright white cross at the center. This was followed by the actual sign-off, the National Anthem and white noise. I would turn the TV off and watch the small circle of light slowly fade out in the middle of the screen. Ahhh, those were the days.

[Travis]

I was with QMF back when Ron Clay & Terry Meiners were doing their 'Show with No Name.' They pulled a great deal of their novelty tunes from Dr. Demento's collections, including their theme, 'Boobs-A-Lot.'

'My Name is Larry' (Wild Man Fischer) was from one of Demento's records and was extremely popular (even though I never found it to be funny, myself).

Insert WAKY SHOUT here to maintain relevancy.