Earlier photo of Radio station WLAY before remodeling
MUSCLE SHOALS – We talked with WLAY 100.1 FM’s Kevin Self about the 90th Anniversary celebration plans. When WLAY 1450 AM signed on, there were only 4 other radio stations in Alabama. It was on the cutting edge of mass media. Through the decades, WLAY has been a pivotal influence in our region of the State.
So, we asked Kevin to give us some hints of the planning, “Well, to start with, not only is it our 90th Birthday, but it’s also Muscle Shoals’ Centennial. That celebration’s coming up on April 22nd. So it’s going to be a great time. As a matter of fact, this year marks FAME Studios’ 60th Anniversary. So you have three significant milestones in 2023 that all relate to music.”
Kevin Self – Singing river Media Group, L.L.C.
Kevin continued, ” You think about from 1923 to 1933. Very few households had radios in, but it was gaining popularity. And when they did get a radio, it had specific stations already tuned in to it. So there would be one out of Memphis or maybe one out of Nashville, one to Chicago, New York, maybe New Orleans. And and those were the only stations that you could listen to. They were pre-programmed in those radio sets. Remember the days when car radios had those buttons where you could punch up your favorites? Well, these early home radio sets were the same way. They had buttons as well as a tuning dial. Those buttons were pre-set it for you and when you listened in, you didn’t get any local information. You got only what the people in those big cities were talking about that day and their specific entertainment. You know, they there were a handful of those, what were called Clear Channel stations in their 50,000 watt AM stations. AMS propagated differently than FM and it bounces. So it would start in Chicago and bounce all around the world and you could pick it up even as late as well, you could probably still do it now if you had a good antenna. I used to sit in my car in the late seventies and listen to WLS out of Chicago at night. It was clear as a bell because all the other stations that were around that frequency were required to either reduce power or sign off, and they were the only ones left on that frequency. You could hear them all over America.”
Kevin told us that when WLAY signed on, it was a big thing. “All of a sudden, radio stations started popping up everywhere. It happened really fast. and here in Muscle Shoals, we had our own radio station. And, how cool was that for our area? And we were the first one and the only one for quite a while. And it opened up the opportunity for local businesses to get in on the action by purchasing advertisements on Radio! And then all of a sudden the music scene starts happening in Muscle Shoals and Rick Hall starts, his studio starts producing music. And that’s 60 years ago. And so the synergy was there. You had an established radio station, you had a brand new up-and-coming studio, and they mixed together very well and helped each other. And it just somehow, someway, that bit of magic created a perfect storm of, of entertainment and availability and talent. And all of a sudden you have three important anniversaries all in one year!”
Kevin explained the economic impact that the first radio station had for The Shoals, “Yeah. It’s like it’s like a capturing a like a major industry. Yeah. You know it’s it’s like landing a Toyota plant, you know, in your own town. You got this thing, this magical thing called radio and it’s now in our town. That’s only for the big cities, right? Oh, no, no. We have one of our own!”
And it was a new economic force in The Shoals, “And and and all of a sudden it’s a really big thing for a business owner. We’ve got to got a radio station here in town, man. These people are really special. This is something really special. Now, all of a sudden you’re approached by someone from that radio station that says, I can put you on our air and get your message across. It was so novel and so unique. If you were a business owner and had the opportunity, you wanted to be a part of it. I’ve seen some old advertising logs and some old accounting work that was done keeping up with the building and that sort of thing, showing where businesses that are no longer existent advertised on the radio station and they would buy programming in the afternoon. It would cost them $4 or some nominal fee. But at that time it was a lot of money. You’ve got to remember in 1933 and 34 were in the height of the Great Depression. You know, that’s another thing that you got to give credit to the original, original people that put this radio station on. They knew that they were in for a hard time because nobody had any money. But they hung in, and the Great Depression ended, and things got so much better for business.” He continued, “And we still have lots of businesses advertising, even with the COVID slowdown. Thank goodness things are getting somewhat back to normal. But back in the days of The Depression, our Community came through it. The Muscle Shoals Area came out out of the Great Depression like everybody else did. It came out stronger, more popular and more prosperous. And we were lucky! Today, you know, 90 years later, we’re lucky to still have that radio station, WLAY, and still be on the air.”
Kevin summed up, “Our 90th Anniversary will be a musical party. It’ll be a lot of fun and it’s going to be an open thing and invite everybody and anybody that wants to come help us celebrate. And part of that 90th anniversary is where we’ve been working hard for the last two years on refurbishing our neon sign that was out front of our building that was there for decades. And it won’t be long before we have our sign back. That’s going to be a great day!”
You may listen to WLAY, by CLICKING HERE.
