Friday, June 10, 2016

A KMPC playlist circa 1971

One of the nation's top MOR stations, KMPC-AM in Los Angeles was high-grade "personality" radio featuring heavy-hitting disk jockeys like Gary Owens, Dick Whittinghill and Geoff Edwards, and its sports, news, andespeciallytraffic coverage had the ear of every kid in Southern California's parents. But it also had an album orientation that distinguished it as uniquely early '70s MOR. The adult contemporary formats of the future would drift away from this deeper cut approach.

For such a widely listened-to station, playlists from the early seventies are scarce, with only two readily available online at a 710 KMPC tribute site. They come from 1971 and 1973 and list only albums instead of song titles. The following playlist for 1971, then, includes songs that most likely would have been chosen for KMPC airplay. (I'm guessing it comes from February of that year.)

Perry Como - It's Impossible ("It's Impossible")
Simon and Garfunkel - Bridge Over Troubled Water ("El  Condor Pasa")
Minnie Riperton - Come to My Garden ("Les Fleur")
Buddy  Fite - Changes ("Evil Ways")
Original Soundtrack - Love Story ("Theme from Love Story")
John Rowles - Cheryl Moana Marie ("Cheryl Moana Marie")
Original Soundtrack - Madron ("Till Love Touches Your Life")
Ramsey Lewis - Them Changes ("Them Changes")
Dionne Warwick - Very Dionne ("The Green Grass Starts to Grow")
Blood, Sweat and Tears - Blood, Sweat and Tears 3 ("Lucretia MacEvil")
Anthony Newley - For You ("We Took Our Love Outside Today")
The Assembled Multitude - The Assembled Multitude ("Woodstock")
The Partridge Family - The Partridge Family Album ("I Think I Love You")
The Renaissance - Bacharach Baroque ("Always Something There to Remind Me")
Gordon Lightfoot - Sit Down Stranger ("If You Could Read My Mind")
Johnny Mathis - Sings the Music of Bacharach and Kaempfert ("I'll Never Fall in Love Again")
The Lettermen - Everything's Good About You ("Everything Is Good About You")
Gabor Szabo - Magical Connection ("Close to You")
Sergio Mendes and Brasil '66 - Stillness ("For What It's Worth")
Nancy Wilson - Now I'm a Woman ("Now I'm a Woman")
Andy Williams - The Andy Williams Show ("Joanne")
Pat Moody Williams - Carry On ("Junk")
Bobby Goldsboro - We Gotta Start Lovin' ("Watching Scotty Grow")
The 5th Dimension - Portrait ("One Less Bell to Answer")
Liz Damon's Orient Express - Liz Damon's Orient Express ("1900 Yesterday")
Original Soundtrack - Jesus Christ Superstar ("I Don't Know How to Love Him")
Luiz Bonfa - The New Face of Bonfa ("Window Girl")
Elton John - Tumbleweed Connection ("Come Down in Time")
Bert Kaempfert - Orange Colored Sky ("Orange Colored Sky")
Neil Diamond - Tap Root Manuscript ("He Ain't Heavy...He's My Brother")
Henry Mancini - Love Story ("Love Story")
Steve and Eydie - A Man and a Woman ("Love Is Blue/Autumn Leaves")
Ed Ames - Ed Ames Sings Songs of Bacharach and David ("Make It Easy on Yourself")
Dawn - Candida ("Knock Three Times")
The Carpenters - Close to You ("Close to You")
Al DeLory - Love Story ("Love Story")
Elvis Presley - That's the Way It Is ("You Don't Have to Say You Love Me")
Jack Jones - Jack Jones in Person at the Sands ("Get Together")
Anne Murray - Snowbird ("Snowbird")
Floyd Cramer - Class of '70 ("Make It with You")

4 comments:

  1. https://www.pandora.com/station/play/4190005300388394619

    Pandora station based on KMPC 710

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  2. Thanks for this Mike - like it! too bad no early '70s LA traffic reports.

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  3. For me, KMPC was best when the music was like the sample playlist. MOR-ish, for sure, but not a lot of dreck and more sophisticated takes. In Buffalo, there was a station, WADV, that was similar, musically. Of course they didn't have the uniquely droll yet absurd Gary Owens. But instead of playing Perry Como, they'd play Buddy Greco. Instead of Percy Faith, Claus Ogerman, etc.

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    1. Thanks for this - it inspired me to go poking around at https://www.wadv-fm.org/

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