Living with digital devices seems normal these days, but I can remember when nothing was digitized at all! I have an Sirius-XM tuner in my car, as well as an HD Radio receiver, and I must say I can't drive without either. Unless I plug in my portable music player, and a thumb drive in the USB slot that is.
Lately though, I have been rocking out like I did when I was 16 and got my first car. That 1967 Turquoise Chevy four door Bel Air my Dad gave me. It was an awesome ride with an under-dash air conditioner and a bass thumping Delco AM radio. In my later teen years, I upgraded to an under-dash FM converter, but I still have fond memories of searching for music on that old AM radio.
Yeah, they used to play music with hosts like Cousin Brucie and Wolfman Jack. And even though that is available on satellite radio, there's just something about analog AM radio that seems so cool now, although back then, it was a curse.
During the day, you had plenty of stations to listen to; Ahoskie's WRCS-AM played Rock and Roll favorites, but Windsor's WBTE-AM and Williamston's WIAM-AM played country and Gospel, which wasn't the best way to impress a girl in the early seventies and they all signed off at sunset.
Then we had to tune in weaker signals from Raleigh, Norfolk, and beyond, like the occasionally "We are 1220 WGAR!" in Cleveland, Ohio. One late night I remember a buddy and I scrolled through the dial and ended up hearing Carly Simon's "You're So Vain" on every station in a period of a few minutes. It became our currency for bets. I betcha' a Pepsi you can't find that song on the radio, and surely it would be playing, no matter how weak and scratchy, she was always there.
I've been reliving those days a bit lately since local station WKIX-AM 850 has returned to that era of songs for their play list. Oh, you thought AM radio was dead after most stations converted to talk news and sports news, and just plain talk babbling? Well, guess again.
WKIX-AM 850 has targeted my generation with exactly the same experience we had back in the late 60's to early 70's. I'll argue with anyone that not much great music came from the 70's, but I have been enjoying the diverse play list on WKIX. There's not many commercial breaks right now, which makes you wonder if this is a short lived thing and they will go back to some talk format at some point in time, but for now I encourage you to experience what we all went through in the 50's to 70's with AM radio as our primary source for music.
Will I abandon my Sirius-XM in the car? Oh hell no. Nor my portable media player or USB port, but for a chance to hear classics that you never hear on the new-fangled techno-channels, give WKIX- AM 850 a test drive. I guarantee you'll be in a better mood and happy to hear some oldies the way we used to enjoy them, with electrical interference, buzzing, and all kinds of artifacts we take for granted!
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