The WDAS-FM Black Rock LP

 

In early 1971, Philadelphia's WDAS-FM switched from a "progressive rock" format to "progressive soul." ("Progressive" in early '70s radio lingo meant "album-oriented.") This was apparently prompted by owner Max Leon's exasperation over the inability of his on-air staff (which included his son Steve) to stay on the right side of the FCC by not airing drug-friendly records. With LeBaron Taylor as station manager, WDAS become one of Philadelphia's legendary stations and still stands tall as an adult-oriented R&B outlet.

A late '72 promo album called WDAS-FM Black Rock gives us a good look at the format philosophy that gave the station its pioneering legacy. Benefiting from its album-rock background, the station's progressive soul offerings were picked "exactly in the same way progressive rock stations pick their music," as Taylor says in a late '71 Billboard. The term "black rock" never stuck - early WDAS was probably too experimental, even incorporating jazz into playlists, for such a narrow label. And by the latter part of the decade, soul had softened enough for it to seem unthinkable.

The playlist (links take you to YouTube):

Africa - "Here I Stand" (1968): Africa was an updated incarnation of the Valiants ("This Is the Night"). Their Music from "Lil Brown" LP, with album art mimicking the Band's Music from Big Pink owes as much to the Isley Brothers' "Your Old Lady" as it does to Haitian voodoo music. "Here I Stand," though, could have been nailed by the late '60s Dells.

Mandrill - "Symphonic Revolution" (1970): Nowadays we recognize the term "progressive" to signify "ambitious," "complicated," or "on the long side." Along those lines, this War-meets-King Crimson track, which is taken from Mandrill's debut LP, is one of this compilation's most "progressive soul" tracks.

Earth, Wind and Fire - "I Think About Lovin' You" (1971): This drowsy #44 R&B hit, having appeared on the group's sophomore LP The Need of Love by the time Black Rock came out, features the vocals of Sherry Scott and manages to offer few hints of the group's explosive glory days to come.

Jerry Butler - "I'm a Telling You" (1961): This is one of "Iceman" Jerry Butler's many early '60s Curtis Mayfield-penned tracks, and it's cut from the same cloth as "He Will Break Your Heart," which also featured background vocals by Mayfield. Standing in as this compilation's important "oldie" representative, "I'm a Telling You" hit #25 on the Billboard Hot 100 and #8 on the soul charts, and is only the second song I know of to mention "baseball shoes." (Claire Hamill's "Baseball Blues" is the other.)

The Impressions - "Choice of Colors" (1969): This sophisticated Impressions classic, a staple on many a Top 40 station promo comp for its ambassadorial qualities, is actually credited on this album to songwriter and head Impression Curtis Mayfield (see above). The song was a #1 soul hit and reached #21 on the Hot 100.

The Counts - "Why Not Start All Over Again" (1971): The Counts, from Detroit, were led by alto sax player Demo Cates and first made their mark as the Fabulous Counts ("Get Down People"). This funky track features Levi Stubbs-like vocal outbursts and an extended B3 organ solo.

Rotary Connection - "Peace at Last" (1968): Funkadelic meets the Delfonics on this Christmas track explaining how St. Nick works his magic by getting stoned on mistletoe. Lyrical refrain: "He's an institution/We like him like he is." (A controversial December 1968 Billboard ad for Rotary Connection's Peace album depicted Santa as a war casualty.)

Richie Havens - "Just Like a Woman" (1967): Havens' notoriety as a Woodstock vet made him a shoo-in for a compilation like this, but so did his habit of rephrasing Dylan and the Beatles in worthwhile ways.

Quincy Jones - "Money Runner" (1972): Although Quincy Jones qualified as a seasoned music biz pro long before this, "Money Runner" was only his second Hot 100 hit, peaking at #57. Taken from the soundtrack for the heist movie $ starring Warren Beatty and Goldie Hawn, this cut, along with those by Earth, Wind and Fire and the Persuasions, served as one of the Black Rock compilation's other hot new offerings.

The Persuasions - "Buffalo Soldier" (1971): This stentorian recording by the still-active kings of a cappela, taken from their third album (Street Corner Symphony), still had that new record smell when this compilation came out.

Joe Cuba - "Bang Bang" (1966): Cuba-tinged dance tracks that found an easy fit with soul playlists in the '60s were called "boogaloo." Although the genre was no longer in its prime by '72, quintessential tracks like the Joe Cuba Sextet's "Bang Bang" (with its "cornbread, hog maw, and chitterlings" refrain) had all kinds of business joining this "black rock" party.

Demon Fuzz - "Hymn to Mother Earth" (1970): This is the other truly "progressive soul" song on the compilation according to our present-day understanding of that term. Although it shows up here in edited form, "Hymn to Mother Earth" clocks in at over 8 minutes on Afreaka, Demon Fuzz's only album.

When's the new Humble Pie album coming out?

Ads like this one in a 1971 issue of Cash Box launched records toward ever-specific audiences. Did A&M really need to worry about an age/gender issue with Humble Pie, though? (Neil Zlozower, the kid in the photo, went on to become a well-known rock photographer.)

Casablanca Records and the "New Bubblegum"

What I especially appreciate about Larry Harris's recent book And Party Every Day: The Inside Story of Casablanca Records is that it offers a human relations perspective on a label that still epitomizes carefree '70s hedonism and excess. Harris (former Executive VP and Managing Director of the label) knew and loved Casablanca head Neil Bogart, but also regretted a good many of his tactics and decisions. The label, after all, was notorious for its willingness, as Art Kass puts it in Fredric Dannen 's Hit Men (1991), to spend "three dollars to make two dollars."

I suspect those familiar with some of the stories in Hit Men and elsewhere will be disappointed with the low volume of additional shockers offered up by Harris, whose purpose is not so much to top or refute familiar tales, but to offer some insight into the thought processes of those in charge. I, for one, loved reading about all the radio promo Harris was involved in, working his contacts at WBCN in Boston, WSHE in St. Louis, WNEW in New York, and WMMS in Cleveland, to name only a few. Harris also takes Dannen's revelations concerning the pop-chart doctoring activity of Billboard chart editor Bill Wardlow a step further in a chapter titled "Writing the Charts" - the title of which is evidently no exaggeration.

In Early '70s Radio, I talk about Neil Bogart as one of the key cultivators of the preteen market in the late '60s, which developed into something formidable in the early '70s. He coined the term "bubblegum" for the double entendre-prone genre that flourished under his watch. The preteen market-on-steroids nature of Casablanca in the late '70s, for which the word "transgressive" might apply, was at once an innovation of Bogart's and a natural result of broader, post-sexual revolution cultural forces. Kids loved Kiss, Donna Summer, and the Village People, and observant adults knew that all three trafficked openly in sexual connotations. This was "the new bubblegum," a term Harris uses for another chapter title.

I was curious, incidentally, when I got my hands on the book, to see if I could learn more about Dannen's report in Hit Men about an "adorable little girl" who would make daily rounds in the Casablanca offices to take drug orders, which kinda strikes me as child exploitation to the utmost. Harris claims, though, that this story was probably a cover up fabricated by Dannen's source, Danny Davis. The drug runner, says Harris, was likely an adorable little boy.

KCPX 24 Superstar Hits (c. 1972)

I grew up listening to 1320 KCPX-AM in Salt Lake City, and I've got a few of these promo records, all in horrible shape. I've also seen this same packaging used for other AM radio compilations across the US. I wonder how the track listings compare . . . The five DJs in the gatefold are (clockwise, left to right): Lynn Lehmann (6 AM-10 AM, Libra); Hal Buckner (10 AM-2 PM Aries); "Wooly" Waldron (2 PM-6PM, Virgo); "Skinny" Johnny Mitchell (6 PM-10 PM, Scorpio); Chad O. Stevens (10 PM-2 AM, Virgo); and Jordan Mitchell (2 AM-6 AM, Libra). I know at least Lehmann, Waldron, and Mitchell were still holding the fort down in the late '70s.

The song titles give a pretty clear indication of the adult/child hybridity characterizing so many playlists in early '70s Top 40: Puppy Love (Donny Osmond); Signs (Five Man Electrical Band); Chick-A-Boom (Daddy Dewdrop); One Fine Morning (Lighthouse); Midnight Confessions (The Grass Roots); Montego Bay (Bobby Bloom); Don't Pull Your Love (Hamilton, Joe Frank and Reynolds); Hey There Lonely Girl (Eddie Holman); Dizzy (Tommy Roe); The Thrill Is Gone (B.B. King); Hair (The Cowsills); The Candy Man (Sammy Davis, Jr.); Baby It's You (Smith); Down By the Lazy River (The Osmonds); Vehicle (Ides of March); Magic Carpet Ride (Steppenwolf); California Dreamin' (The Mamas and the Papas); Smile a Little Smile for Me (The Flying Machine); Tracy (The Cuff Links); How Do You Do (Mouth and McNeal); Ma Belle Amie (The Tee Set); Maggie May (Rod Stewart); Gypsy Woman (Brian Hyland); Girl Watcher (O'Kaysions).

Hee Haw and the CBS Country Massacre of 1971

The late John Aylesworth was one of the co-creators of Hee Haw, and in his recently published memoir, The Corn Was Green: The Inside Story of Hee Haw, he talks about "The Great CBS Country Massacre." This refers to CBS's 1971 efforts to "de-ruralize" its programming by axing Hee Haw, The Beverly Hillbillies, Mayberry RFD, Green Acres, and The Jim Nabors Hour (the only rural-ish survivor being The Glen Campbell Goodtime Hour).

For CBS, this decision was more conceptual than it was numbers-oriented, with a new show called All in the Family representing the direction the network had in mind. Because Hee Haw was going great guns in its brazenly cornball way, the decision came as a shock, especially to Aylesworth and his creative partner Frank Peppiatt ("They couldn't kill us with a stick, so they killed us with a pencil," said Peppiatt).

Hee Haw's misfortune, of course, turned into a blessing as it followed the example of The Lawrence Welk Show by reviving itself through syndication, and the show became an American TV institution, running all the way into the early '90s. CBS's "de-ruralization," it turns out, contributed to a multi-decade ruralization trend (Bruce J. Schulman called it "the reddening of America").

Probably the most appropriate account of the entire situation came from Hee Haw co-host Roy Clark, whose "The Lawrence Welk-Hee Haw Counter-Revolution Polka" reached #9 on the Billboard country singles chart in 1972.

Roy Clark - "The Lawrence Welk-Hee Haw Counter-Revolution Polka" (Billboard #9, 1972). Written by Vaughn Horton. Produced by Joe Allison. 45: ""The Lawrence Welk-Hee Haw Counter Revolution Polka"/"When the Wind Blows" (ABC Dot 1972). LP: Roy Clark's Greatest Hits Vol. 1 (ABC Dot 1975).

LZ-'75 and the Boston Garden Riot

Stephen Davis, who wrote the Led Zeppelin bio Hammer of the Gods (1985), has now published LZ-'75: The Lost Chronicles of Led Zeppelin's 1975 American Tour, which is based on some of his recently unearthed notebooks. Of particular interest to me is his snapshot, at the very beginning of the book, of the suburban teenagers who lined up for tickets at Boston Garden one morning in January 1975:

By ten o'clock, it was ten degrees outside, and someone made the decision to let the kids in line spend the night in Boston Garden so they wouldn't freeze to death before the box office opened the next morning. A cheer went up as the kids, most of them wearing blue denim, were let into the building.

Soon they were passing joints and swigging from bottles of cheap Ripple and Boone's Farm apple wine. When that ran out, some kids broke into the beer concessions during a shift change of the security guards. Someone opened an exit door and let in a few hundred more kids who had lined up for tickets. The kids turned on the fire hoses and flooded the arena's hockey rink. The police arrived as Led Zeppelin's fans were looting merchandise stands and lighting bonfires composed of the Garden's old wooden seats. Drunken kids then turned the high-pressure fire hoses on the cops and their dogs. It took the riot squad three hours to chase the kids out of the building. The Zeppelin fans then fought the police in the streets until they were dispersed sometime after midnight . . . Led Zeppelin would be forced to bypass Boston on their 1975 American tour.

By the latter part of the demographic-obsessed seventies, scenes like this naturally reinforced the image of the white male teenager as a hopeless reprobate, liable to cause all sorts of trouble at the mere mention of the term "rock 'n' roll." Ultimately, the radio industry's efforts to "tame" this loose-cannon listenership, which kicked in in the early '70s, had to do with formatting strategies as opposed to any successful efforts in effecting behavioral change. Anyone, actually, at Chicago station WLUP involved in - and taken off guard by - the disco demolition mayhem of '79 really had no excuse. They should have seen it coming.

P.S. Billboard's account of the affair has numerological connotations. It lists the number of rioters at 3,000, total tickets sold for the entire LZ tour at 330,000, damage caused by rioters at $30,000, a total of 12 concession stands having been broken into (1+2=3), and 300 cases of beer removed. Also note, from the Davis account, the number of hours it took riot police to clear the place: 3.

Early '70s Transistor Radios

Michael Jack, who's a recording engineer and producer in Toronto, has a world class transistor radio collection including plenty of vintage early '70s specimens. Although I don't talk much about the technology of radio in my book, I couldn't resist getting in touch with him about some of the models I remember, such as the Panasonic "Toot-A-Loop" (that's what the first two in this gallery are), and he was kind enough to send me some photos. You can sample the full enormity of the Michael Jack collection through his Flickr page.

(all photos courtesy of Michael Jack)