Saturday Night Oldies on WABC

Something else I discovered on the big Zenith radio, besides coded messages to secret agents, the BBC, and spoken foreign languages, was New York City top-40 station WABC. And I know the exact date and approximate time: November 9, 1965 -- the night the power went off in New York and most of the Northeast -- between eight and nine in the evening.

It was a kick, at age twelve, to be in on something big via the radio. So much so that WABC became my night-time music station of choice.

If it appeared through the static before five in the evening, from 500 miles away, the rest of that night's listening was sure to be interference-free. I would wait for more "Ingram-isms" from afternoon deejay Dan Ingram ("I'm a Soul Man, said the shoemaker . . . ") listen through the Cousin Brucie and Chuck Leonard shows, and stay up if I could for Charlie Greer, to hear if there were any new commercials for Dennison's, the mysterious clothing store that stayed open until five in the morning, where money talked and no one walked, and where the till was always nil and in need of a fill.

Home was not always a nice safe place to be. Sometimes it was downright scary. But I had radio to get me through until I could leave.

In 1973, something got into the water. "Boogie Woogie Bugle Boy" by Bette Midler. A thirty year old song revived by a cartoon character. This was not a sign of good things to come. 1974 brought with it "The Night Chicago Died" and warnings of approaching disco. I was gone. After all, you couldn't listen to the same music, or the same radio station, all your life, could you?

WABC dropped music for talk on May 10, 1982. National Public Radio's "All Things Considered" aired a tribute. New York City oldies lovers went through a second "day the music died" on June 3, 2005, when WCBS-FM switched to the automated JACK adult hits format. The number one US radio market now had no oldies station.

The hi-JACKing of CBS-FM amounted to a declaration of war. The New York Radio Message Board's webmaster had to open a separate board to accommodate the anti-JACK postings.