Thursday, July 27, 2017

THROWBACK THURSDAY - RADIO DAZE

It's been quite awhile since I've posted a Throwback Thursday missive but this week I was thrust back, back, back to my early days in broadcasting.

You may (or may not) notice a blog link I've posted called "Minot Memories" over on the right side of Oddball under "Others' Observations".

It's a blog about old-time memories of Minot, North Dakota, written by a fellow who happens to be an announcer and a salesman at KCJB Radio in that town.

The other day he had a post that included a list of the top songs from 1974: the top 9 plus 10.

That was a sly reference to the station's frequency, which was 910 on the AM dial.

Well it took me back about 12 years to 1962, when I was the night disc jockey at that station.

I actually got my first experience in commercial radio at KEYJ in Jamestown, while I was going to college.

But my time at KCJB was based on rock and roll radio, or Top 40, as it was known in those days.


These four young men kept the records spinning from sign-on until sign-off.

Yes, the radio stations in those days went off the air at midnight and came on again at 5 or 6 in the morning.

As you can see, I was identified as Bruce Taylor on this Top 40 sheet but I was famous (or as famous as one can be at a small radio station in a small market) as Bruce On The Loose!

There are still people around who remember me with that monicker.

I've lost track of the other three guys, don't even know if they're still gracing the earth but I still remember some of our crazy antics from those early days in radio.

By the way, for music fans, here's the other side of that yellow sheet from above, showing that Ray Charles was topping Elvis Presley . . at least for that week.


Along with record sales and record hops you old timers may spot something else that's no longer around: a Transistor, or transistor radio, about the size of a smart phone today.