… Plays The Hits Time …
[Description by Uncle Ricky]
Jimmy P. Stagg is the star, TM jingles and all, in this
ultra-expanded super-long uncut unscoped studio sample of Big Ten WCFL, that once-giant VERY first-class radio station operated by The Chicago Federation of Labor. It’s March of 1970. Remember? Does it take a Union to make a radio station this good?
Well, it did then. This is exceptionally professional radio, with the exception of a turntable
that accidentally stops turning in the first few minutes. (At least it happens to a deserving song.)
Jim Stagg was silenced by cancer in November of 2007. His friend Sam Hale wrote:
Jim was among the select few who traveled with the Beatles on their American tours. In fact, I was surprised to see him at the Atlanta concert in August, 1965; not knowing he was traveling with them. At that time, Jim was with WCFL. He later was at WMAQ, but on the Friday when the jocks were called together for a meeting and informed that on the following Monday the station was going country, and each one could apply for a position with that format, Jim decided he had enough of the politics of radio.
It was then that he opened a record store in the Northern suburbs of Chicago and later added more stores, including one in Orlando.
Prior to Chicago, Jim was afternoon drive jock at KYW and, earlier he had been at KYA, WIBG and, where I first met him, WYDE – Birmingham. Jim had a marvelous voice and during his college years was the featured soloist with the Crimson Tide orchestra at the University of Alabama.
Our thanks to Sam for his comments, and to John Celarek for this full-length exhibit.