MUSCLE SHOALS – It’s simply mind-boggling to consider that the technological arc of radio communication fits within the span of about 130 years. Following the logical path of James Clerk Maxwell and Heinrich Hertz, we wonder if Mr. Guglielmo Marconi could imagine the impact that his invention of long-distance radio communications would have on the world. Probably he got the notion of just how earth-changing his work was when he and German Physicist , Ferdinand Braun won The Nobel Prize for Physics in 1909.
The other day, we sat down with Kevin Self of Singing River Media Group, Inc., and WLAY FM 100.1 to talk about the technology of radio and how it applies to our listening experience of today from the first days of Broadcasting back in the 1920’s. “Things were pretty simple at first. Radio was so new that people would listen just for the thrill of hearing somebody’s voice that originated maybe hundreds of miles away. It wasn’t anything like the Broadcasting of today,” he said. “There weren’t many recordings. It was pretty much live. When radio first became a means of mass communication in the mid twenties and even up through the forties, the only way that you were going to get any programing content was someone was going to come to the radio station in person and they were going to deliver their content into a microphone,” Kevin explained, “If there was to be music broadcast for the listeners, musicians would come to the studios to perform. that’s what they did here at WLAY and all over the world.”
The home of Singing River Radio is at the same address as it had in the 1930’s, right there on 2nd Street in Muscle Shoals. The space next to the two control rooms was a large studio where the musicians and voice talent would perform. and their sound would ‘fly out into the aether’ to be picked up on radio sets for listeners to enjoy.
Kevin Self with a photo of his Father, Mitch Self
Kevin continued, “A lot of the content was just the spoken voice. So you would have preachers and other people come in and do farm reports and any kind of any kind of thing that you can imagine that would have been of interest to people like that. And sponsors would come in. They would sponsor their their automobile dealership, for example. You know, you’d have the the Chevrolet place or the Ford place from back in the day, and they would have a 30 minute show talking about their latest models. And those kinds of shows was the only only thing on the radio. Most radio stations would have sign-off at dark. They would just just turn the transmitter off and come back the next morning at daylight and turned it back on. At that time, there was little need or little desire to have any any radio entertainment at night. Now, that changed with the advent of recordings like like 78 records. 78 RPM, those were the fire! Records were what kind of changed things. And all of a sudden, now radio stations had turntables and they would have a collection of these 78’s. And a lot of the content was going to be very old recordings that were classical music and old standards and those sorts of things. And then you began to have different kinds of shows, so you could have a popular recording and do a whole lot of popular music evening-listening. What was being played was actually secondary to the fact that radio brought that entertainment into their home.”
And music became more and more important than the live studio content, although the live studio programming remained integral for many years.
Kevin Self at the “Board”
Kevin explained the evolution of Radio Broadcasting, “After the 78 RPM records, then next came the 45 rpm records. Yeah. And this is where rock and roll came into its own. This is where modern-day-style radio hit. And we’re the kids who listened. I say kids, high school kids. Young America just fell in love with the radio. It was in the the doo-wop era of the late 1950s that radio was king. Every kid in town had a radio blasting. Not like they do today, but everybody had their favorite radio station. And that’s where WLAY came in, because it was the station! It was there when it was the only one this area for a long, long time. And it was the only one that was playing the rock and roll. WLAY played the songs, the 45’s that young people collected and played at gatherings and sleep-overs…”
In our next installment, we discuss with Kevin Self the radical changes in technology to Radio Broadcasting.
You may listen to WLAY, by CLICKING HERE.
