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1970s, Page 2

Announcing WPRB’s Public Exhibit!

We’re thrilled to announce the long-planned second phase of WPRB’s 75th anniversary celebrations (the first being the launch of this website): a physical exhibit of station history and esoterica, which will be on display at Princeton University’s Mudd Library through May of 2016, and which is open to the public!

Titled “WPRB: A Haven for the Creative Impulse”, and curated by WPRB’s Mike Lupica and Princeton University Archivist Dan Linke, the exhibit is a meatspace version of the kind of materials we’ve been highlighting on this website. On display are vintage photographs, playlists, documents, selections from WPRB’s vinyl record library, vintage broadcast equipment, and much more. There is also an interactive content station that allows visitors to browse audio selections and WPRB-related news clippings from the last 75 years.

“WPRB: A Haven for the Creative Impulse” is a free exhibit which is open to the public. The exhibit is housed in the Wiess Lounge at the Seeley G. Mudd Manuscript Library, 65 Olden Street, in Princeton, New Jersey. (Right around the corner from Hoagie Haven!) Viewing hours are Monday – Friday, 9 AM – 4:45 PM.

More info.

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Saturday Soul with JB and the Soul Gang

[By “JB”, aka James E. Butler, Esq. ’74]

My experience at Princeton was defined by my participation at WPRB-FM. Quite simply, my radio show meant everything to me. My social life and “spare” time revolved around my show. It was an exciting experience to be part of the growing movement offering “soul” music on FM radio during the early seventies. I remember being one of the very first to prominently play soul albums by persons and groups who would become major acts in the 70’s, such as Roberta Flack, Valerie Simpson, Ashford and Simpson, Barry White, and Earth Wind and Fire. My three year show at WPRB kept growing until it occupied the air waves from 1:00 – 7:30 p.m. on Saturdays. I believe it was the longest show at that time. I would have gladly hosted a show every day of the week if allowed.

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“Disco Duck” Rampages Across Princeton

WPRB’s John Shyer ’78 says: I produced the “Disco Duck” promo in the old Holder Hall production studio late one night. I was trying to find a way to express my contempt for mindless disco, which was everywhere in [the late 70s]. The DJs found the cart in the studio (labeled “Dead Duck Promo,” I believe), loved it, and played it constantly. We finally had to retire it for excessive airplay. 

Listen below:

 

 

Stanley Jordan, and the Battle Against “Your Music”

By Kenneth McCarthy ’81

I first got involved with PRB in the spring of my freshman year (1978). It was an interesting time for the station. Though there were a lot of talented individuals in areas like engineering and programming, other area like sales, training, and scheduling were a bit shaky to say the least.

As best as I can remember, the station had only one sponsor, the University Store and one ad, the “These Are My Favorite Things” spot. Thank God it was a good spot because we played it twice an hour, every hour. And we didn’t log that many hours. It wasn’t unusual for the station to sign off after Morning Classical at 10 AM due to a lack of DJ’s.

The details of what happened the next year when the new management group took over could fill a book. It was a complex situation. As an organization, PRB had to be rebuilt from scratch. We had very few members and new people had to be attracted, brought in, and trained fast. There was also a major ideological split among the managers. You had one group that wanted the station to have a top 40 sound and another group that wanted the station to be an alternative to what was available on commercial radio.

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The Razor Sharp Mind of WPRB’s Jeff Meyers

Photo: Jeff Meyers (aka Rod St. John) with Jean Shepherd
Text: Gregg Lange

The late 1960s was a highly active and diverse era for WPRB. News staffers aggressively covered coeducation, plus anti-war and civil rights demonstrations; the sports department traveled with Ivy champion football and nationally-ranked basketball teams; classical music was beginning to assert itself seriously; and the earlier preponderance of middle-of-the-road music was blown away by underground rock and a fabulous jazz department that appeared almost overnight, experimental specialty programs and even a highly popular Top-40 show, all by students. Meanwhile, the station sponsored concerts of all sorts, and its annual presentation of raconteur Jean Shepherd at Alexander Hall became the stuff of radio legend.

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LISTEN: Late 70s Interview with George Gallup Jr.

Here’s an excellent interview with George Gallup Jr. conducted by WPRB’s John Shyer at some point in 1977 or 1978. Gallup graduated from Princeton University in 1953, and along with his brother Alec, became an executive for their father’s well-known polling company, The Gallup Organization. The interview is a fascinating window into the evolution of polling as a component of the American political process. Here’s a remarkable exchange, especially given recent developments in campaign finance law:

Shyer: [Regarding] any of the election reform bills that are taking effect now and have been passed in the last few years, do you think they’re improving the situation?

Gallup Jr. : No, it’s just hogwash. To unseat a Congressman today, an incumbent, requires… probably in the neighborhood of one hundred to one hundred and fifty thousand dollars. Who has that kind of money?

Right-click to download, or listen to the full interview using the player below.

 

 

1977 Blackout Coverage from the Top of Holder Tower

By Rob Forman ’78

Just past 9:00 on the evening of July 13th, 1977 (or maybe it was 10:00), the phone rang as [Edgar Winter’s] “Frankenstein” blared from the Control A speakers. It was a listener asking whether I knew about a blackout that supposedly hit New York.

I checked the UPI machine, and returned to tell the caller that the wire had nothing about a blackout. Of course I soon figured out WHY the machine said nothing. At :15 past  the hour, the ABC network scrambled onto the air from Washington. Its New York operation, and who knew how much else, were in the dark. The fun at WPRB  was underway. So was what may have been the greatest audience coverage in the station’s history. Without power, New York stations that neighbored us on the FM dial  were off the air. Station members David Kurman in Mineola, Long Island, and Chris Fine near the Connecticut border in Harrison, New York, called to say I was booming in. I put Chris on the air with a report on his blacked-out but very peaceful neighborhood. John Shyer reported from the top of Holder Tower, “to the southwest, there is a glow in the sky. It is Philadelphia. But in the direction of New York, the sky is black…”

LISTEN: John Shyer reports on the NYC blackout from the top of Holder Tower. (Includes off-air technical strategizing between Rob and John.)

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LISTEN: “Music You Can’t Hear on the Radio” promos, 1977

[WPRB’s John Weingart — “Radio With Feet”]

WPRB’s John Shyer ’78 recently unloaded a box of archival airchecks on us which he claimed had been stashed in the back of his closet for decades. Dating from the mid-late 1970s, these airchecks were on both 1/4″ reel as well as cassette, and unlike most of PRB’s native collection, were all in perfect condition (no creeping black mold!)

As such, we were pretty excited to dig in and see what treasures lurked within. Here are the first fruits from the cassette pictured below: a trio of 1977-era promos for John Weingart’s “Music You Can’t Hear on the Radio” — a longtime staple of WPRB’s schedule, which is still heard on a weekly basis every Sunday night from 7-10 PM.

 

 

Stay tuned for more from John Shyer’s incredible archives in the coming months!



WPRB DJs Arrested in Washington, 1970

[Jeff Weiser (left) and Bruce Snyder help cover the 1972 election live on the air.]

By Douglas B. Quine

I joined WPRB in my freshman year of 1969-1970 and trained on WPRB-AM before serving as a newsman at the May Day protest demonstration in Washington (1970) and the election night headquarters of Nixon and McGovern (1972). In Princeton, I took on the folk & blues shows on WPRB-FM, served as Traffic Director and assistant business manager, and finally served on the Ivy Network Board of Directors.

I have many memories of WPRB, including lighting fluorescent lamps by the radiated antenna power on Holder Tower, talking with stoned listeners who called into the studios, organizing the Beach Boys, Fish, Jean Shepherd, Weather Report, & Poco concerts, and the first WPRB Tee Shirts (blue shirts with a yellow smudge at the bottom which was supposed to represent a voice print). The stories that I’ve retold the most times, however, must be the “WPRB arrests in Washington” and “The Do Me Bird”.

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WPRB at the DNC, Sting from the Police, and Freeform vs. Format

By Jordan Becker

I started at WPRB during the second semester of my freshman year in 1979. The ability to have the entire record library—and it was still all vinyl—at my disposal was intoxicating. Unless that was the fumes from the records.

At the time, the station’s rock programming was still very much beholden to the freeform model of the late 1960s-early 1970s. In fact, to my memory, the only requirement that we had was the obligation to play a certain amount of jazz during a rock show. That all changed, though, when Ashley Ellott became station manager, and Jason Meyer became program director. They attempted to turn the rock programming into something more consistent and more rock oriented. To me, there is something to be said for listeners having a general sense of what they might hear when they turn on the radio, and having some consistency from day to day and time slot to time slot theoretically results in listeners staying with the station for longer periods. On the other hand, they also insisted that we use the slogan “Your Music,” which was generally reviled—it might have worked at a professional commercial station, but was a bad idea for a college radio station.

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