WLS - Back to Music for July 4th

[jon]

One of the finest Top 40 stations ever, WLS-890 in Chicago, is running the WLS Big 89 Rewind on Wednesday, July 4th. The one on Memorial Day this year was fabulous, featuring current shows from the likes of Larry Lujack.

You have three choices to listen. With commercials, you can tune to 890 KHz if you live someplace where the WLS signal can be heard. http://www.wlsam.com provides live streaming.

But, without commercials, you can hear an initially 5 hour delayed version (i.e. - beginning at a more sane hour: 9 a.m. Pacific, instead of 6 a.m. Central) streamed (i.e. - not On Demand) at http://www.reelradio.com. The combination of better audio quality and no commercials would alone be worth the $12 U.S. per year subscription price for ReelRadio, let alone the nearly 2000 airchecks on the site.

I did a lot of homework and other activities listening to WLS in the evening from Vancouver in the 1960s. CJVI in Victoria on 900, next to WLS' 890, could be annoying at times. The only station I could honestly say I preferred to WLS was WBZ during the winter of 1964-65, solely because WBZ was then playing new hits first, slightly ahead of WLS.

Here in Edmonton, WLS was the last distant station I found worth listening to, for pure enjoyment. WLS switched to Talk and local CHQT switched to 880, effectively ending my interest in listening to WLS.

To celebrate 89-WLS, RadioWest has changed the number of minutes to count active users to 89 minutes.

[crs]

i totally GOT into radio after spending many a night with my transister turned low (lest the parents find out) listening to John "Records" Landecker and his boogie check. WLS was king in the 70s and is should be a model (along with CKLG & 14 CFUN 70's era) when the corporate types wanna find out how to put the "Fun" back into radio. everyone can play music, but a select few hire the right performers to pull it off right.

[sparky]

It's great to hear the BIG 89 playing music again. Fred Winston sounds as good as he did 30 years ago. Nice clean stream.

Thanks for the tip jon.

[jon]

Busy morning, so just listening now. So the reelradio time shift is helpful, as I get to listen to Lujack with Tommy Edwards. Nice stream, too, AAC+ MP4 stereo 32Kbps which delivers a nice 15 KHz high end.

[jon]

John "Records" Landecker just did a priceless "Wolfman-like" bit over the intro "My Love is Alive" by Gary Wright. A couple of "Soowies" fit so well with the music that you would have thought they were part of the song. But, at the same time, a great tribute to WLS in its days as the station of the Prairie Farmer.

It has not been said, but I wasn't sure until I heard it, but this is a repeat of the Memorial Day broadcast day. Only difference is the Traffic and News, which, of course, is current.

[jon]

I forget who told it on the WLS Rewind, but there was an interesting story of a little Midwest town with one radio station, daytime only. They discovered that the vast majority of their listeners tuned to WLS after sunset, so patterned themselves after WLS, becoming a virtual "sound-a-like".

The DJs, of course, were less experienced.

[Neumann Sennheiser]

Reminds me of some guy I recall hearing on an aircheck in the late 70's; can't begin to hope to remember his name. He had such a hard-on to work for his "dream" station that he positioned himself as
"..(jock) on CKPR..Your chum in Thunder Bay"!