[Description by Uncle Ricky, contributed by Mike Miles] 

How great to hear genuine, mass-appeal, hit-music radio on B-100 (KFMB-FM) in San Diego! It’s late Summer, 1986 – the Lionel Richie concert has been delayed a day, The Monkees are appearing after the Padres game, and it is America’s Finest City week, after all. According to the official Records of the City of San Diego, that was August 16 – August 25, 1986. Yeah, that’s more than a week but I’m sure they feel good about it.

Danny Romero offers a very friendly, natural performance here. There is a wonderful VARIETY (not diversity) in the music mix, lots of good R&B, pop & ballads, and overall, familiar music. Note also the heavy emphasis on recurrent and recent gold. This was a 1986 FM CHR station, still following *most* of the rules…

There’s only one element of this exhibit to which old, grumpy Uncle Ricky objects: the dead segue from Take My Breath Away to Let It Whip. Lord help us, it was only 1986 and the madness had already started. Two tunes back to back with NO ID. See, even in 1986, there was a belief that listeners were psychic and could somehow remember what they were listening to without being told. The trend continues today. I guess they’ve all signed on to some starship where listening is reported automatically. (sigh) But in all fairness, it only happens once (in this 45 minutes.)

Both the unscoped and ‘scoped version of this exhibit include a fresh, unscripted exchange between Romero and Ellen Thomas near the conclusion. It’s just some of that “Human Interaction” that used to occur when Humans were actually at the radio stations on which they were broadcasting.