MUSCLE SHOALS – In our last installment about Singing River Media Group’s, WLAY FM 100.1, we heard from Kevin Self about the interconnected arc of history of The Shoals, and WLAY. We talked 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. In this week’s article, Kevin describes how radio has stayed on the cutting edge of communications tech. If radio back in the early days delivered a sort of ‘coal-fired steam engine’ level of technology to households, today’s Radio Broadcasting has kicked in the after-burners. And the acceleration began with 45 RPM records.
“Quin Ivey was one of our young announcers back in the 1960’s. Folks who spoke on the microphone at radio stations were called ‘announcers.’ But something happened when 45’s hit the scene. ‘Announcer’, as a term, just didn’t seem to fit with the new way of radio. and so Quin and the others, a.k.a. ‘The WLAY Good Guys’ got to be known by a new moniker, explained Kevin.
Kevin Self – Singing river Media Group, L.L.C.
Like he explained in an earlier article, if the programming didn’t come from live studio productions or local news reading by the announcer, pretty much all that was aired came from a library of old standard hit songs of decades past. They were recorded on 78’s. In the mid-1950’s music publishers started producing the 45’s. The recording and playback tech was improving. Young people couldn’t get enough of Elvis, Jerry Lee, Conway and all the rest. There was an avalanche of demand for new music. Instead of full albums being released, most of the music coming into the radio stations were 45 rpm singles. And the guy in the control room would juggle around a few dozen singles that would get placed on the platter; ‘cued-up’, and spun. And that’s how these folks got to be called ‘Disk Jockeys’.
WLAY AM 1450’s original control room’s equipment from, circa 1980’s.
“So Quin got this idea. He could see the wave starting to break, and opened a record store down the street in Sheffield. “Quin Ivey’s Tune Town” It seemed that, overnight these little record shops were springing up everywhere! Radio drew in the kids to listen to the new music and the corner record stores provided a place there they could go in a buy the record for themselves. And Quin, was doing both. He was really something special!,” Kevin continued, “He had Tune Town and the notoriety that came with being a jockey because the form of entertainment radio at the time was so popular and he was so trusted. If you were a disc jockey in a small market like this one, you were special.”
And while there are still many Disk Jockeys in larger markets, most of radio has changed. As tech grew, things such as commercials didn’t have to be read aloud in the control room by an announcer. They we recorded on reel-to-reel tape. Not long after that, the reel-to-reels gave way to tape cartridges that held only one advertisement or radio jingle. the workflow was getting more refined as the tech improved. the carts, as they were called, looked like 8-track tapes. It was real simple to stack up a commercial break in a multi-cart player. And that gave the DJ time to get the next portion of his radio shift ready to go with cued-up 45s and write down stuff in his FCC Logbook. The new tech really improved the workflow, and the quality of the production.
Kevin told us, “Then there were the Compact Discs. Entire albums at the push of a button! And no scratches either. And now… Oddly enough, CDs are just about obsolete You see, all of a sudden computers became viable. And automation systems got highly technical and you were able to digitize songs and commercials very easily and you were able to call them up very easily and sequence them and play them and, and arrange things all on a computer. The speed that tech has changed the way we do Radio is really pretty amazing!”
WLAY FM 100.1 Control Room of today.
Today, most Radio shows are sequenced, produced and stored on computers. Gone are the times of flipping 45s and reading commercials in most radio stations. Sure, there are still announcers producing their shows. But they can do their work more efficiently and produce a better product for the Listener.
Kevin finished up by saying, ” And so you think about the evolution of the technology that helped revolutionize the radio business and bring it where it is today. There’s so much more capability and flexibility than we ever could have imagined. And it is just going to get better!”
You may listen to WLAY, by CLICKING HERE.
