I had a wonderful long conversation with Dennis Elsas last night, reminiscing about WNEW-FM, which hit the airwaves for the first time as a progressive (underground, meaningful music, free form, call it what you will) radio station fifty years ago tonight.
I wrote a book about it 18 years ago, FM, the Rise and Fall of Rock Radio, which describes all the ins and outs of the free form movement, the good times and the bad. Viewed through the prism of 2017, things take on a slightly different tint.
Dennis, Pete Fornatale, Micheal Harrison, Vin Scelsa and I were kids, trying to make a living doing what we loved, playing music for others and turning them on to the “good stuff.” We were paired with veteran entertainers like Scott Muni, Alison Steele, Dave Herman, John Zacherle and others, who knew how the business worked. Dennis, Pete, Michael and I were idealistic and naive. Strangely, the combination of our youthful ideals and the radio veterans’ savvy melded into a whole that was greater than its parts. We learned from each other. Muni knew music, but Steele, Jonathan Schwartz, and Rosko were not rock fans or experts. They learned from us. And from them, we learned the show biz aspects that made it entertaining as well as informative.
It was government intervention that gave birth to a medium that was intrinsically anti-government in the 60s and 70s. The FCC simulcast dictum in 1964 opened up the FM airwaves to new ideas and formats that didn’t need to be profitable at first, just to carry their own weight. It was a “what the hell, try this” attitude that shaped what we did until we found our compass. We eventually learned what worked and what didn’t. I hope we batted at least .500.
In the end, though, the money men prevailed. They distilled our creativity into what they saw as a “can’t miss” formula, taking away the experimental side and sticking with the tried and true, the opposite of what it was when we started.
When you did a show on WNEW-FM in those heady early days, you had no idea where it would take you. It was organic. Sometimes it took you to places you wished it hadn’t. Sometimes it transported you to heights you couldn’t imagine. And going in, you rarely knew which it would be. I imagine most of the listeners felt the same way.
So today is a great day to celebrate the artistic license that was accidentally gifted upon the lucky few of us who happened to be there at the right place at the right time. I never would have thought that fifty years later, the station would have been more than an asterisk in media history. The fact that it is much more than that is something that those of us who survive will treasure forever and we’ll thank whatever power that bestowed this amazing journey on us..
I’ll write more about it as time goes on. I doubt it will be another full book, but forgotten stories newly remembered will surface in my novels. The names will be changed, but you guys will figure it out.
