“Diamond” Jim Nettleton (d. October 4, 2009) is featured in this noisy capture of his early afternoon show on Hartford’s Big D/WDRC from July 7, 1964.
In addition to the very high noise level, the receiver was slightly mistuned. It’s only obvious on the jingles, sounding like they’re sung by Sylvester the cartoon cat. For their Summer Celebraton, some of the classic Big D jings were mixed with water and boat sounds. It’s likely that all the jings got a little high-end tweak in the production room, and it was just enough to splatter on a radio tuned a little off center.
Technical issues aside, Nettleton is super-smooth. He went on to an impressive career which included WFIL, WABC, WCAU-FM, WUSL-FM, WSNI-FM and WOGL-FM.
This was a great American Top 40 radio station. It’s obvious WDRC was big-time all the way, with their Best Sellers, Swingin’ 60 Survey, Listener Songquests, Vacation Dedications and their Big D Exclusives!