WABC Rewound
Rewound is Something Special on 77 WABC this Memorial Day!
WABC Rewound, 6am to 6pm
Rewound Talk Show with Mark Simone…6pm to 8pm
Bob Grant live Memorial Day Special, 8pm to 10pm
And the ABC Country Memorial Day special with Kix Brooks, 10pm to 1am.
Join us this Monday, Memorial Day and listen to the sounds of WABC Rewound! Mitch Dolan’s idea was started in 1997. We commemorated when WABC brought the Beatles to New York City, 30 years before and played a lot of the old air checks. In putting that together we learned that many people had saved hours and hours of old airchecks of the old WABC when we were rocking…not talking!
That gave us the idea for WABC Rewound, which we started in 1998. So this is the 10th year and a lot of the credit goes to Johnny Donovan. Johnny took on the task of producing the entire event. We decided to make it as close to how the old WABC sounded as possible with a lot of great tapes from the 60’s and 70’s, including some of the commercials.
We worked with Allan Sniffen on the website…www.musicradio77.com. Allen had devoted his entire website to the history of WABC. In fact it was because of this website that we realized that there was still so much interest and love out there for the old WABC. Allan worked with us to create a message board, where listeners could share stories leading up to and during the historic first broadcast. He has been with us ever since and now works with us on the Saturday Night Oldies show, which grew out of rewound.
Hearing the greats like Dan Ingraham, Cousin Brucie, Harry Harrison, and Ron Lundy coming out of the speaker will send chills down your spine! For me, I started in AM rock radio years ago, but never got a chance to hear the real WABC. So it is a thrill for me and I did not grow up here. For listeners that did grow up here, it is a true religious experience.
This year we have a special treat. We uncovered several old Don Imus reels from his days jocking at the great WNBC in the early 70’s. He is a great talk host now, but people forget how good he was as a jock. You will get to hear it this year during the 9am hour. The fact that he is now our morning man is something special. It is the first time we have added any content NOT from the old WABC days.
WABC has a rich and historic past. It was once the most listened to radio station in North America. Today it is the most listened to NEWS TALK radio station in North America. So we have come full circle. But today we try to capture the same energy, excitement and passion that the old WABC was able to generate. We have a great heritage, and many of our listeners today were also listeners back then, so it is a great tie in with something magical.
I am lucky to work at a radio station that can still pull this kind of thing off.
Phil Boyce,
VP, Programming
