When we were cruis'n back in the '60's/'70's I would tune the AM radio to WLS Chicago till 11 o'clock, then AM 1090 Beaker Sreet. How many remember Beaker Street???
Wow. Used to listen to it also. Middle of the night. Very heavy stuff. "Cindy went north to take the cure, this time she's quit for sure"
The mighty 1090 in Little Rock Arkansas!. That was definitely GREAT stuff and I wish that I could hear it again. I think that Clyde Clifford was the DJ for that show. Yup, pretty heavy stuff! Max
I believe Clyde Clifford still does that show,sunday nights on 94.1 out of LittleRock.Check their website.
Here in milwaukee we used to pick up beaker street down by the lakefront, we would tune in while watching the submarine races. man that brings back memories.
KAAY was THE station for after-hours listening! KAAY was founded as KTHS in 1924 in Hot Springs; it moved to Little Rock in 1953. After the TV station KTHV was created from it in 1955, KTHS was sold to LIN Broadcasting, who turned it into a Top 40 station in 1962 under its present call sign. It has been a stalwart of Christian radio since 1985, and has been owned by Citadel Broadcasting since 1998. KAAY's cult status was forged in the late 1960s, when, after 11:00 each evening, the station abandoned the standard Top 40 format for three hours of underground music with the program Beaker Street hosted by Clyde Clifford.[1] During the station's heyday, KAAY featured a full-service Top-40 format, and was the dominant station for most of the state of Arkansas. During the 1960s and 1970s, on-air personalities included Mike McCormick, Doc Holiday, Jonnie King, Buddy Karr,Ken Knight, Sonny Martin, newsman George J. Jennings,Wayne Moss,Phil North, and Ray Lincoln of the "Ray and Ram Program." Its nighttime signal extended well beyond Little Rock and Arkansas, covering much of the Great Plains, North Central, and mid-south regions of the United States, leading to its sobriquet "The Mighty Ten Ninety." KAAY could be heard clearly at night in Key West, Florida, and as far to the northwest as Jamestown, North Dakota. This radio station was a big inspiration to Cuban rock musicians and rock fans who listened Beaker Street every night to keep informed about American music and underground music in the 70's. They listened undercover with Soviet made transistor radios. In the late 1960s the jingle started out with roaring thunder followed by a deep voice...FIFTY THOUSAND WATTS OF MUSIC POWER K>>DOUBLE-A Y Little Rock. The station abandoned the music format, and underwent several changes in ownership during the mid-1980s. Religious broadcasters have utilized KAAY's signal to spread messages nationwide. It was mainly a Southern gospel station when it entered Christian radio in 1985, but it switched to contemporary Christian music in 2000. KAAY is the most powerful AM Christian station in the United States, with 50,000 watts of day and night power. After dark, its nighttime signal reaches over 12 states. KAAY currently is a Christian Talk and Teaching Radio station.
I was listening to sirius deep cuts, and thinking this is like the old beaker street. well its been almost 40 years ago. trying to remember some of the best..legend of the USS ***anic by jamie brockett.. maybe the ballad of dewight fry by alice cooper
Yep.....listened to it a lot up here in northern Minnesota in the early '60's. I remember the commercials for Stan's Record Shop in Shreveport, LA.
So much of the good radio programming has faded into the past. I've taken to listening to online radio instead, though yeah, that's largely useless in the car. One worth looking at if you want something to listen to while working around the house or out in the garage is Planet Pootwaddle. Talk about an eclectic play list!
Exactly. I used to listen to Beaker Street on the Little Rock station up in central Missouri. They must have been pushing the limit on the power thing. Under Ground music at its best.
Wow! I was thinking just yesterday I wished I had my own radio station to compete with the bay area junk we have. My programming would be like KAAY's. King Crimson and Groundhogs, anyone?
The best late night station.Who can forget the trippy background music? Sounded like a weird waterfall but it was a song called Cannibis Sativa by a band named Head.Nothing like it for this Minnesota kid and it was the reason I went to broadcasting school.
In Minneapolis we had the Tony Glover show, on after midnight Saturdays on KQRS, or the mumbles show as we called it, because he always sounded like he was stoned (probably was). He would play the same type of stuff that Beeker Street played, really stoney music and Firesign theater bits. I believe he got fired when he fell a sleep one night and had over an hour of dead air before someone got to the station and woke him up.
I was thinking of the might 1090 last week with the anniversary of the Iran hostage crisis. To me, ( and I guess) many my age that was "the day the music died". At that time if we wanted rock radio, we had nothing, till dark, then it was a few AM stations that would fade in and out. KAAY and WLS usualy came it, but KAAY was the ROCK station. On Sunday nights, they would play blues, this was before it was popular again. One night, shortly after the crisis began the DJ asked listeners to call in. You still heard Nazareth's Whiskey drinking woman, and Black Betty, but in between songs, the callers and the DJ talked about the crisis, before I fell asleep, it was more talk than music, the next night, almost no music. I have no idea of that DJ's name, but for many things wrong in this world, I blame him. David your four star dealer in Conway...............
I remember getting home late, tried to explain we were listening to beaker street. the o'l man is like "If your gona lie think up some thing better than that" slave laber next few days.........
Yep, listened to it every night in bed on a little POS transistor in a little POS Mississippi town. During the day when my parents were gone, I could pick up WABB FM in Mobile AL and WZZQ in Jackson MS on the console unit for maybe a couple of hours. As you might imagine, my daddy did not condone that damn hippie music and would have pulled an Elvis on the stereo if he'd had any idea what it was playing during the day. Tried to listen to Beaker Street on the computer a couple of years ago-it just wasn't the same.
WLS Chicago or WHB Kansas City all day, KAAY Little Rock all night. Kept me going through elementary and high school in Northeast Missouri. Lots of good memories involving Beaker Street. Beaker Theater followed with old radio shows for a time. AM radio was great back then.
Here in the southwest corner of Missouri, I used to listen late at night to WLAC in Nashville. They played a lot of blues and soul music. Had shows selling record "packages" sponsored by such as Stan's Record Shop, Randy's Record Shop, and Buckley's record shop. One DJ was "The Hossman, Bill Allen" as I recall. One shop was located in Gallatin, Tenn -- a few miles from Nashville. I was in Gallatin this summer, asked an older gentleman I met if he recalled that shop. He said he did, but it's been gone for many years. Said it was actually a pretty small "hole in the wall" place. Then, of course, there was Wolfman Jack on XERF in Mexico. An article about him: http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0413125/bio I also listened some to Beaker Street. The son of the station manager at a small area radio station tried to emulate Clyde Clifford's style and show......playing mainly blues type music. I liked it, but evidently it didn't go over very well with sponsors and the general public.
I can recall sittin' on a riverbank on the Mississippi coast, listening to Spirit's "Mr. Skin" from the 12 Dreams of Dr. Sardonicus album. Heavy duty! Good times, great station!
For this east coaster it was WBZ Boston late at night when the signal would "skip" down to the mid-Atlantic states. They were one of the first to push the Beatles and the British invasion. Some of our local R&R stations went off the air at sunset. Isn't that how Wolf Man Jack got famous on the west coast?
Could be wrong (happens a lot now days) but I thought if the stars were in alignment and you tuned into 1090 late at night, you could hear Wolfman Jack advertising autographed pictures of Jesus Christ on The X (XERB) in the late 60's. Larry T http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DXKGTU6iYR8 http://www.xerbradio.com/
Yup. WBZ used to skip all the way to the thumb of Michigan! Used to catch Cuzin Brucie too. Detroit had some good stations as well. Unkle Russ at WKNR, Robin Seymour at CKLW, Lee Alan (and his horn) at WXYZ to name a few.
In Southern Minnesota we listened to WLS in the early evening and KAAY late at night. WLS was okay for rock and roll but great for drag racing commercials. Mr. Norm's Grand Spaulding Dodge commercials ruled and Rockford (?) Dragway's were good. KAAY was great for late night psychedelic music. I spent a lotta nights cruising around in the country where there were no cops, listening to Blue Cheer, Strawberry Alarm Clark and San Francisco underground music while smoking whatever happened to be available. Great days, no regrets....
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