The Production Room Collection
Description
Kaaaaay A eff why, Bakersfield [By Uncle Ricky] Best I can figure, these are jingles of the Drake-Chenault variety purchased by KAFY in Bakersfield California, probably no later than 1971.
Some (but only some) of these are on the site for WOR-FM as the Double A Image Pack , but I don’t think the majority
of this composite is from that series. I didn’t work at KAFY until late 1976 and these jingles were long gone when I arrived. I can’t remember how I got these. They are here via Reel2Reel technology, and the tape was made at KAFY, but I don’t remember finding these in my office when I checked in for PD duties. Years before I arrived, KAFY was a Big Boss thing north of 93KHJ . Even with
a directional kilowatt on 550Khz, I got a call from San Francisco when KSFO (560) was off the air. At times, KAFY had a listenable signal “over the grapevine” in Los Angeles. Genuinely Famous People who made a Good Living in Broadcasting worked at KAFY in Bakersfield. Again, I wasn’t there during the Bakersfield Boss Era, but these are (some of) the famous formula jingles. Of course, some of these were also heard for dozens of stations all over America (even ones that were not owned by RKO .) An interesting sidebar from Tracy Carman of Media Preservation Foundation : Though this package was produced and sold by Drake-Chenault, and though the Johnny Mann Singers may have recorded the first versions of the vocal tracks for some RKO stations, it was suggested that these were not the Mann Singers. COMMENTS (below) have challenged that. The tracks from this package made the rounds, apparently, and many jingle houses (including PAMS and Otis Connor ) sang vocals on these original Drake-Chenault tracks.
Description
Avco Broadcasting for California [By Uncle Ricky] This was created from Yet Another Tape I dubbed in Brother Dave ‘s Production Room at WIXE (Monroe, N.C.) in 1968. Like many (unofficial?) demos that PAMS distributed in those days, this was not narrated, nor tightly edited as you will hear it here. It was just a 5-inch reel with representative cuts, presumably off the PAMS reference copy. I’ve only heard airchecks of KYA as a result of the Repository, and I suppose it’s possible that these jingles were never used on the air, (or at least, not as heard here.) This was a PAMS “GRID” package – a new twist – the performers did “parts”, and then you mixed the parts to make bunches of jingles. They had a ten-track recorder in Dallas, and they could jam-up a bushel of jings from minimal sings with lots of things. You could sit there with the friendly engineer and he’d roll the same piece of tape, over and over, but each time, do something different. I watched Bruce Collier do that for a WECU session in 1970. You could walk out of a single session with many dozens of “different” cuts by interchanging and mixing vocal and instrumental parts. I really don’t care for the “buzzsaw” moog sig here, but otherwise, I have always been fond of this KYA Grid Demo.
KYA was blessed with a three syllable call. A 3-note ID. And this particular PAMS “mixed group” with this particular logo has always been a personal favorite. For KYA, the lyrical content seems SO classic, particularly from 3000 miles and 30+ years away: In Beautiful San Francisco . And the sleek Avco Broadcasting of California always sounded so warm and wonderful and respectable – and so very far away. Now, I’ve been there and was lucky to afford the parking.
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Beautiful! [By Uncle Ricky] This is a “reference dub” tape distributed by PAMS (Copyright, 1972) for their Philadelphia Story jingle series. REELRADIO contributor Tom Corbett says that Tom Merriman of TM originally created the theme and that PAMS “borrowed” the idea note for note! Hear the evidence in Tom’s Vibra-Sampler One exhibit. Nevertheless, this series was heard on WFIL for a long time and remains one of the most
memorable named PAMS series. And it concludes with “a comment from the engineer” after a
portion of our favorite copyright jing.
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Sunshine’s Smilin’ On You [By Uncle Ricky] This exhibit was created from a PAMS reference dub that I acquired in the early ’70’s. It’s always been a favorite. I remember listening to WEEI-FM in Boston when I worked in Providence and these jingles were an important part of their groundbreaking “Soft Rock” format. This was stylish radio for quality young adults with good aural hygiene. The Sunshine’s Smilin’ On You, You And Your Man And Your Music Keep The Clouds Away jingle features the
unmistakable voice of Trella Hart , but this package includes even more classic one-liners set to music: Put A Little Love In Your Music , We’ve Got Something You Can Stay With , They’re Playin’ Music For The Two Of Us , When You’re Alone, We’re Together , and other touchy-feely melodies and lyrics (including MusicRadio ) are all built around an unforgettable musical signature.
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The first complete chronological up-to-date documentary ever produced [By Uncle Ricky] Sure sounds like Charlie Van Dyke voicing this demo for TM Productions ‘s
1977 Evolution Of Rock . Featured program segments were narrated by Chuck Riley . The show won a “Syndicated Special Of The Year” Award and was produced by CHUM , Toronto before being syndicated as a 64-hour program by TM. This demo also boasts endorsements from some genuine radio heavyweights of the time, like John Gehron ( WLS ) and Ted Atkins ( WTAE ), plus a generous
sample of show clips featuring Ed Sullivan , Dick Clark , and others. The demo cassette also included a 52 minute “condensed” version of a “chapter” of the show, which we’ll feature at some future date in The Production Room at REELRADIO.
Description
When four males sing they sound like they mean it [Description by Jonathan Wolfert , President, JAM Creative Productions and PAMS Productions, Inc .] During the late 1960s, PAMS made a concerted effort to recruit fresh, young talent into the radio jingle industry. It was the vision of PAMS founder Bill Meeks to be able to serve the younger end of the top-40 market with jingles that had more of a youthful rock sound, while maintaining the classic PAMS sound for the more traditional top-40 and easy listening clients. Jim Kirk ( not the captain of the Starship Enterprise ) was one of this new generation of singer/writer/musicians. Between the years of 1968 and 1972 he wrote and was heard on many PAMS jingles, including portions of Series 38, 39, 40 and 41. Fred Hardy , who had a radio background but always loved jingles, joined the staff at PAMS in 1970. He handled sales for the Southeast US. In 1974 Fred left PAMS and started his own company to work with stations and ad agencies. He knew he could handle the sales, but was looking for someone to take care of the creative end. By this time, Jim Kirk had gone to Seattle, where he was doing commercial jingle work for Kaye-Smith . But he wanted to come home to Dallas. So the partnership of Hardy-Kirk was born. The new firm needed to have a demo reel to send out, just to prove to stations that it could do IDs. So Fred contacted people he knew who might buy something from him on faith. One of these clients ran KJIM (AM 870), a 250 watt daytimer in Fort Worth. They didn’t really know what kind of jingles they wanted, so Hardy-Kirk decided to make them a jingle all about the different kinds of jingles there were to choose from. The idea was that it would be novel, and of course there would be short mixouts to use as basic cuts. The piece was called ” The MOR Overture” . The music for ” The MOR Overture ” was written by the late Wayne Harrison . I don’t know whether Wayne or Jim came up with the lyrics. The result was certainly interesting, but no station (including KJIM) knew what to do with it, and most of it was never used anywhere. The Hardy-Kirk Demo Includes : The MOR Overture The cuts “in the clear” Mixouts Vocal styles : Mixed Duet, Stacked Male Duet Four Males Five Voice Mixed Seven Voice Mixed For a variety of reasons the partnership of Hardy and Kirk didn’t last more than a couple of years. Jim returned to freelance status, and contributed to several early JAM packages.
In 1978, Jim Kirk joined the staff at TM Productions. In 1982 he co-headed a new “communications division” to design and create shows for corporate meetings and presentations.
In 1986 Jim and Buddy Scott purchased the division from TM and began operating under the name Corporate Magic . Jim has been there ever since as “chief creative officer”. Fred Hardy came to work at JAM early in 1976 and was part of our sales team until he passed away in January 2002. JAM did buy some of the Hardy-Kirk tracks, including the Overture. In 1978, when we were creating the original ” I’d Rather Be In Denver ” campaign for KIMN , I decided to use the individual sections of the MOR Overture as part of the package. I wrote completely new lyrics and vocal arrangements, and remixed all the cuts. We had to create :29 versions too, so that they’d be usable under TV spots. The JAM ” I’d Rather Be In Denver ” series was very successful and was used worldwide. Our thanks to Jon Wolfert of PAMS Productions, Inc. and JAM Creative Productions, Inc. for the story behind this Hardy-Kirk Demo!
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Rock and Roll Roots is the great innovator, with fifteen different themes, every week [By Uncle Ricky] Jack Alix (d. November, 2006) was the host and creator of Rock and Roll Roots , (Copyright 1978, Rock and Roll Roots Associates.) This STEREO unscoped program demo features segments 1-A and 2-B of Program 17 from vinyl distributed in 1979. It’s a representative hour of the three delivered to affiliates each week. At amandfmmorningside.com , (a REELRADIO hosted site), Jack Alix wrote: “(I) Developed a nationally syndicated radio show called “Rock and Roll Roots” in Richmond from Q94 with great support from John Valentine and the late Norman Freedlander (“Bob-a-loo”) who helped sell the show to over 140 stations worldwide including Australia and Japan. The show aired at Q105/Tampa, WKTI/Milwaukee, and many others. It aired from 1977-1982.” Jack Alix had a long and outstanding broadcast resume, including hosting the Beatles ‘ historic public concert in Washington, D.C., in 1964. Alix enjoyed great success on WPGC , WEAM and WEEL , WDCA-TV , WLEE and WRVQ . Rock and Roll Roots was built around themed segments. On this demo, you’ll hear segments featuring The Great Male Stars , The Royalty Songs , The People Songs , The Car Songs , and Same Title, Different Song . Obviously, this “theme” concept allowed more creative music presentation than the typical weekly countdown or daily oldies format.
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and imagine your call letters and lyrics coming across with the power of The Music Force [By Uncle Ricky] Here’s a fairly hi-fi STEREO demo of ” The Music Force ” Demo, distributed by Toby Arnold And Associates in 1978. Even though few of our visitors actually heard this package on their local radio station, these were good jingles for the time, featuring top-drawer Dallas musicians and vocalists. And who did the v/o for this demo?
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the no nonsense radio ID package for people who know who they are, and know what they want! [By Uncle Ricky] Wow. If you didn’t know better and believed the Demo, this package was used by WLS , KFRC , WABC , WQXI , and other hot radio stations of Top 40 legend. But it is a very good demo, great vocals, exceptional tracks – first class jings all the way. And once again, we have no idea who narrates this demo. And in many ways, the tracks are so short and generic that few who heard them will remember them. But this exhibit is in broadband STEREO! In fact, for 1981, this was probably as far as radio jingles would go. It would be difficult to sound more polished and “traditional” than these beauties.
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ZNS One plays the kind of music everyone likes [By Uncle Ricky] I’ve always loved these jingles! Here’s a short composite, pieced together from a PAMS reference dub made in the early ’70’s. In addition to jingles for ZNS1 (Nassau), there are also a couple of tracks for Radio New Providence . These stations apparently operated (or at least, they do now) on 810, 1240 and 1540 Khz. The bongo-driven beat is infectious and the All Male PAMS vocals are outstanding. For me, these clever jings are evocative of an island paradise. All I need to complete the fantasy is a rum drink in a coconut (with a little umbrella, of course…)