Late Night FM Radio 60's 70's

[Island Drive]

Back in the daze, traveling around playing at rooms, if I found a town I liked, I'd stay/work/tend bar and blend in, Louisiana was one of the best of the 7.
During allot of late night road time there was this radio station that I heard of, back when FM radio started kickin' it, and this show came on Only Late and generally 1 am depended on which time zone/zone you were in. It was when rock and roll started rolling, and the roadies were making their names.
They called it Beaker Street....

 

[Biloxi Boy]

AM: 50kW Clear Channel: like a laser beam: Little Rock >>>>> High on the Ship Island Lighthouse. Anyone who ran the late night highways back in the day looked for them: WSL, WWL, WSM , , ,

 

[GoldCrown]

Phila had the greatest stations.

 

[DJKeys]

I remember listening to Vin Scelsa out of Upsala college in East Orange, NJ. I lived in a friend's bus in his dad's backyard for a summer.

-dj

 

[Island Drive]

Phila had the greatest stations.

Any bites we can rehear?

 

[GoldCrown]

Any bites we can rehear?

Not really as the music changed.

 

[Biloxi Boy]

"The strong nighttime signal of 50,000 watt, clear channel KAAY meant that it was possible to regularly listen to the station's nighttime programming in a wide area of the midwest and south. KAAY's late-night 'footprint' gained fans as far west as Wyoming and Montana, north to the Dakotas and Manitoba and south as far as New Orleans and into Florida. This strong broadcast signal enabled Beaker Street to deliver the music of the late 1960s counterculture to many smaller cities and towns in America, where such music could not otherwise be heard over the air waves. Beaker Street attracted a legion of fans across the Midwest with its pioneering format, which featured long album cuts from rock artists who otherwise would not get commercial radio airplay outside of large cities with freeform or progressive rock stations.
* * *
The KAAY nighttime signal was so strong that young people in Havana City and in other places in Cuba were able to receive it clearly. In the late 1970s, music sung in English was restricted by the Communist Government. Cuban radio stations were allowed to devote only about 20% of their time broadcasting music sung in English, so many young people used to listen to American radio stations as a response to that limitation, and the KAAY was one of the most popular. Today young people from those years still remember the DJ announcing 'Beaker Street... an underground music service from KAAY, Little Rock, Arkansas...' "

Beaker Street - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

 

[L.S. Dennis]

Here in the Bay Area the first underground rock FM station was KMPX started sometime in late 66 or early 67. It was unique in the fact that it asked listeners to come on up to the studio and watch them broadcast. Dem were the days...

 

[garczar]

Back in the daze, traveling around playing at rooms, if I found a town I liked, I'd stay/work/tend bar and blend in, Louisiana was one of the best of the 7.
During allot of late night road time there was this radio station that I heard of, back when FM radio started kickin' it, and this show came on Only Late and generally 1 am depended on which time zone/zone you were in. It was when rock and roll started rolling, and the roadies were making their names.
They called it Beaker Street....

No offense bro but this is kinda in the NPR category. I list music stuff all the time there as it really has nada to do with pool. KingBiscuit and Rockline were always good to listen to btw. Or Art Bell for your dose of lunacy.

 

[ShootingArts]

AM: 50kW Clear Channel: like a laser beam: Little Rock >>>>> High on the Ship Island Lighthouse. Anyone who ran the late night highways back in the day looked for them: WSL, WWL, WSM , , ,

Late night trucking always tuned into Little Rock or a blaster out of Mexico with no restrictions. Little Rock was sometimes the only US based station I could get in those long stretches between Resume Speed and Nowhere. If I couldn't get Little Rock or the country station out of Mexico I knew I was in the serious boonies!

Hu

 

[Biloxi Boy]

If running America's late night roads when only other traffic was big rigs running wide open as you desperately twisted the AM knob searching for a voice you knew to get you through another hundred miles ain't pool related, then I do not know what is. Playing pool is not just a game -- it is a state of mind.

And a way of life. No FM. No CD's. No scan, seek or search. Just a knob to turn and tweak while you also tried to keep it on the road.

 

[Biloxi Boy]

Late night trucking always tuned into Little Rock or a blaster out of Mexico with no restrictions. Little Rock was sometimes the only US based station I could get in those long stretches between Resume Speed and Nowhere. If I couldn't get Little Rock or the country station out of Mexico I knew I was in the serious boonies!

Hu

Not to overlook running shrimp boats or supply boats in the offshore oil patch. Radio sure helped pass the hours and miles away.

 

[ShootingArts]

Not to overlook running shrimp boats or supply boats in the offshore oil patch. Radio sure helped pass the hours and miles away.

Oddly enough, I never did the offshore thing. I did a lot of late night in usually a pick-up truck. Almost all I ever owned for a few decades. Your other post brought back memories. I would be towing a race car at just below a hundred and eighteen wheelers loaded down with overwidth and overweight loads would blow by me like I was hung in second gear at two or three in the morning. Those big Cats and Detroits would start winding up coming out of Houston and were belly to the ground by the time they blew through Lafayette LA. Clocked some above one-twenty loaded down with oilfield equipment.

Hu

 

[Island Drive]

No offense bro but this is kinda in the NPR category. I list music stuff all the time there as it really has nada to do with pool. KingBiscuit and Rockline were always good to listen to btw. Or Art Bell for your dose of lunacy.

None intended Zar your just being yourself...
As a young/traveling pool player it seemed to have relevance.
I remember in 1971 when I moved from the Midwest to Colorado Springs area.
Downtown on Nevada Ave/Old State Highway... we could listen to WLS Dick Biondi on radio, I had no clue what 50,000 watts was able to do late night till that moment.

 

[Biloxi Boy]

Oddly enough, I never did the offshore thing. I did a lot of late night in usually a pick-up truck. Almost all I ever owned for a few decades. Your other post brought back memories. I would be towing a race car at just below a hundred and eighteen wheelers loaded down with overwidth and overweight loads would blow by me like I was hung in second gear at two or three in the morning. Those big Cats and Detroits would start winding up coming out of Houston and were belly to the ground by the time they blew through Lafayette LA. Clocked some above one-twenty loaded down with oilfield equipment.

Hu

I am thinking that today most, maybe all, semis have governors, so the old wide open power displays we used to see are no more. And you are correct -- nothing like being passed by a string of hell bound trucks, especially in the rain -- made you feel like you were sitting still.

 

[ShootingArts]

None intended Zar your just being yourself...
As a young/traveling pool player it seemed to have relevance.
I remember in 1971 when I moved from the Midwest to Colorado Springs area.
Downtown on Nevada Ave/Old State Highway... we could listen to WLS Dick Biondi on radio, I had no clue what 50,000 watts was able to do late night till that moment.

I am thinking that today most, maybe all, semis have governors, so the old wide open power displays we used to see are no more. And you are correct -- nothing like being passed by a string of hell bound trucks, especially in the rain -- made you feel like you were sitting still.

Somehow live radio seemed to keep me awake when canned music put me to sleep, even hard rock. In all fairness, many of those late night trips were pool related. If I made a decent score on the road I was going to try to put a hundred miles or so between me and sore losers. Too, needed a start towards the next score!

The computer based GPS and I assume governors no doubt have done a lot to slow things down. The old mechanical governors were simply backed way off or bypassed. Back in the early seventies I worked about six months driving a truck or a little warehouse work out of prairieville. One trucker in particular I remember asked if I minded post dated paperwork. He said he was still in Virginia on the log. He had been three months without seeing his family and he was going home to Houston come hell or high water! The biggest lie in trucking, "home every weekend."

You are right, those big boys would be rolling late night rain or shine. Headed back east crossing the twenty mile or so bridge over Whiskey Bay I hung on the steering wheel with both hands if the road was wet or it was still raining. Pulling a race car on an open trailer some of those rigs would suck the trailer right over and it was time for a little high speed Hootchie-Coo!

My tractor was originally a gulf coast rig and just had a 318 Detroit in it. I could still hit 85, could have went faster if it wasn't my truck! When I got into just foothills I envied the big Cats and Detroits. They passed me at little more than off idle. I felt a little better at the pumps though. I could get eight or ten miles to the gallon with most loads. Some of them were getting gallons to the mile. My 871 Jimmy supercharger sung a sweet song and made me feel better too.

The good old days when times were rotten. It's been ten years or so since I even heard about anyone road tripping gambling and Scotty Townsend was the last I knew that made a life of it.

Hu

 

[pt109]

Canuck point of view….Trans Canada north of Lake Superior
Some station out of Chicago coming across the lake like it was coming from inside my truck….Paul Harvey

 

[Island Drive]

Somehow live radio seemed to keep me awake when canned music put me to sleep, even hard rock. In all fairness, many of those late night trips were pool related. If I made a decent score on the road I was going to try to put a hundred miles or so between me and sore losers. Too, needed a start towards the next score!

The computer based GPS and I assume governors no doubt have done a lot to slow things down. The old mechanical governors were simply backed way off or bypassed. Back in the early seventies I worked about six months driving a truck or a little warehouse work out of prairieville. One trucker in particular I remember asked if I minded post dated paperwork. He said he was still in Virginia on the log. He had been three months without seeing his family and he was going home to Houston come hell or high water! The biggest lie in trucking, "home every weekend."

You are right, those big boys would be rolling late night rain or shine. Headed back east crossing the twenty mile or so bridge over Whiskey Bay I hung on the steering wheel with both hands if the road was wet or it was still raining. Pulling a race car on an open trailer some of those rigs would suck the trailer right over and it was time for a little high speed Hootchie-Coo!

My tractor was originally a gulf coast rig and just had a 318 Detroit in it. I could still hit 85, could have went faster if it wasn't my truck! When I got into just foothills I envied the big Cats and Detroits. They passed me at little more than off idle. I felt a little better at the pumps though. I could get eight or ten miles to the gallon with most loads. Some of them were getting gallons to the mile. My 871 Jimmy supercharger sung a sweet song and made me feel better too.

The good old days when times were rotten. It's been ten years or so since I even heard about anyone road tripping gambling and Scotty Townsend was the last I knew that made a life of it.

Hu

 

[fastone371]

Somehow live radio seemed to keep me awake when canned music put me to sleep, even hard rock. In all fairness, many of those late night trips were pool related. If I made a decent score on the road I was going to try to put a hundred miles or so between me and sore losers. Too, needed a start towards the next score!

The computer based GPS and I assume governors no doubt have done a lot to slow things down. The old mechanical governors were simply backed way off or bypassed. Back in the early seventies I worked about six months driving a truck or a little warehouse work out of prairieville. One trucker in particular I remember asked if I minded post dated paperwork. He said he was still in Virginia on the log. He had been three months without seeing his family and he was going home to Houston come hell or high water! The biggest lie in trucking, "home every weekend."

You are right, those big boys would be rolling late night rain or shine. Headed back east crossing the twenty mile or so bridge over Whiskey Bay I hung on the steering wheel with both hands if the road was wet or it was still raining. Pulling a race car on an open trailer some of those rigs would suck the trailer right over and it was time for a little high speed Hootchie-Coo!

My tractor was originally a gulf coast rig and just had a 318 Detroit in it. I could still hit 85, could have went faster if it wasn't my truck! When I got into just foothills I envied the big Cats and Detroits. They passed me at little more than off idle. I felt a little better at the pumps though. I could get eight or ten miles to the gallon with most loads. Some of them were getting gallons to the mile. My 871 Jimmy supercharger sung a sweet song and made me feel better too.

The good old days when times were rotten. It's been ten years or so since I even heard about anyone road tripping gambling and Scotty Townsend was the last I knew that made a life of it.

Hu

Aint the semis great??!! Hauling the 32' tag with the racecar in it behind a pick-up or motorhome you always had to be ready for semis. When you pass them first they suck you in towards them (low pressure right behind and alongside of trailer) then they shove you away when you get to the front high pressure area. Just the opposite when they pass you, first they shove you away so you are steering towards them, by the time you get that figured out they start sucking you in so now you have to steer away from them. We weren't doing a lot of late night driving till the 80's but always looked forward to the rock stations out of Chicago. One Sunday morning on the way to an out of state track we heard a DJ from a station in southern Ohio tell a joke. It was along the lines of "how do hillbilly folks circumsize their boys, they kick his sister in the chin", we couldn't believe that that was allowed on the local airwaves. Maybe the DJ got fired, we don't know but were stunned to hear that on the radio.

 

[CLAUD]

Back in the daze, traveling around playing at rooms, if I found a town I liked, I'd stay/work/tend bar and blend in, Louisiana was one of the best of the 7.
During allot of late night road time there was this radio station that I heard of, back when FM radio started kickin' it, and this show came on Only Late and generally 1 am depended on which time zone/zone you were in. It was when rock and roll started rolling, and the roadies were making their names.
They called it Beaker Street....

I worked on a shrimp boat for awhile in the early 70's. Being the youngest and with less tenure I had the late night wheel watch while the rest of the crew slept. I would always listen to this. Clear as a bell even way offshore in the gulf.