Warren Lee – Star Revue & Sir Mack Rice – I Gotta Have My Baby’s Love (Northern Soul) Here’s a partial air check from August 3, 1967 at WKAP – AM 1320, Allentown, PA. It’s just a little bit of reel to reel tape that was salvaged decades ago, and instead of throwing it away, I just held on to it because of the great Northern Soul music I was playing on the air check.
Funny part is I remember the night I recorded it, the night before the first scheduled day of the “Great Allentown Fair”. A tradition for WKAP was to have their “Kappy Fun Mobile” at the fair for live broadcasts. Their mobile studio was an amazing retro-fitted RV, and every night that I broadcast my show from the Allentown Fair, we had a half dozen or so “Go Go Girls” dancing in front of the Fun Mobile, and even on the roof! Is it any wonder why I can vividly remember that Summer?
This tiny piece of 1967 Lehigh Valley Rock and Soul radio was from the last hour of my show the night before the Fair…. and I was into what I used to call “The Fastest Hour On Radio” to remind listeners that for the next week, my show would be live for a week… and we were going to rock the Fair.
The original air check tape ran from around 9:10 PM to approximately 9:40 at which time the tape ran out, and I was not there in time to rack a new one. Thirty or so years later, when I tried to listen to the tape, it was in such bad condition that it just kept tearing at the many splices, so I just kept throwing more and more away. The tape had many splices in it already, which was the case with most radio station tapes back then. Reel to reel tapes would get spliced many times by DJs doing production work for commercials. Once a tape had too many splices, it was thrown away. This tape was probably a splice or two away from the trash can when I grabbed it that night to record an hour of my show.
Anyway, right before I completely trashed the tape, the splices stopped, and finally the air check got to the half hour and the end of the Headline News. That was followed by Warren Lee, Sir Mack Rice and Music Explosion… then the tape ran out!
As far as Allentown radio back then, here’s the Long Story, Short Version:
My first radio DJ job was June 1966 to January 1967 at WAEB-AM 790, Allentown, Pa.
Then from January 1967 to January 1968 I moved across town to WKAP-AM 1320.
Those two stations battled each other for decades. WAEB was usually the # 1 rated “Rock” station.
WKAP was usually the # 1 rated “Easy Listening” station. HOWEVER, every night WKAP rocked with the best of them.
I hope you enjoy listening to what Allentown area rock radio sounded like back in Summer time of 1967!
(Music in this video, which I produced, features my original radio broadcast on August 3, 1967, from WKAP 1320 AM, Allentown, Pa. I was an employee of WKAP: writing, producing and hosting a nightly radio and soul music show. The tape this video was produced from, has been in my possession since the night it was recorded)
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