My Oldies Rock and Roll Time Machine

It had to come from my parents, especially my mother. I just couldn't grab on to the music of the 70's the way the other kids did. Stations like WABC and WNBC played contemporary top 40 music. It was O.K. but when I listened to it something was missing. From those K-Tel commercials I knew I had to find that sound. Then I found (right under my nose) that a local radio station WCTC was playing oldies during the week at night!

That was it. I started listening to songs that seemed to come from another world. It was a world I had missed but through the glory of tape recordings and records I could now hear. I now see these YouTube videos made by people who really know their oldies. One is down below on this page. I'm sure there are a ton of websites that also have great info .

My mother tells me of when she would go to dances as a teenager that when she would dance (she was born in 39, a teen just at the right time) the other kids would move out of the way. She tells me that her and my father, though he was quite a bit older were both great dancers. That is interesting since I can't dance at all but this music can get me moving.

There are soooo many songs out there that I have still not heard but thanks to the internet and people like the YouTubers I am discovering new songs and songs already done by a popular star sung by someone else! The different versions are really neat to hear.

I won't go into specific acts at least not now but the era of the late 50's and early 60's is definitely the era of music that I have taken for my own. There is other music I enjoy but nothing gets me going like the stuff from this era!

Thanks for listening.

Roy Orbison is definitely one of my favorite oldies artists and that should be a surprise to no one. Not because you all know my exact music taste but because he was an awesome songwriter, musician and singer.

Born in 1936 as Roy Kelton Orbison he would go on to have 22 songs place in the US Billboard Top 40 in the early to mid 60's including the fabulous "Pretty Woman" in 1964.

He had a decline after that though due to personal and physical tragedies including divorcing his wife, then remarrying her and losing her when she was struck by a tracker trailer in 1966. His 2 oldest sons also died in 1968 when his home in Tennessee burned down while he was touring in England.

After that very tough period he seemed to disappear from the music scene in the 70's. He SEEMED TO. Actually his songs were being sung by other artists like Sonny James (Only the Lonely) which went to #1 by the way and Glenn Campbell who had a minor hit with Dream Baby.

He wound up having open heart surgery ( a triple bypass) and though he felt revitalized after it his heart would never fully recover. He had been a chain smoker since he was a teenager and the heart would eventually give in in 1988.

The rebirth of his career came in 1987 when he released an album of his re-recorded hits titled "In Dreams". He and K.D. Lang also released a single of "Crying' which won a Grammy.

Orbison was also inducted into the Nashville Songwriters Hall of Fame and the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 87.

In 1988 he became part of the "Traveling Wilbury's" in which he teamed up with George Harrison, Bob Dylan and Tom Petty. The four recorded an album and used the term Traveling Wilbury's to present themselves a s half brothers with the same father.

The album had such great success that Orbison came back into great demand on the concert tours and with interviews. He was back on track and was happy about it. He started working with artists from the past and some newer ones that he hadn't before.

Mystery Girl was an album that was produced by Jeff Lynne a man that Orbison considered the best he ever worked with. Also working on that album was Bono of U2 fame, Elvis Costello and Roy's own son Wesley. The big hit to come out of the album was "You Got It" a GREAT song that was one of the few I liked from the 80's.

Sadly while he was having a great comeback the end came. On December 6th at his home in Hendersonville, Tennessee the heart that had survived the smoking from adolescence and a triple bypass in the 70's gave out. Orbison suffered a fatal heart attack and at the age of 52. Another instance of someone leaving us too soon.

The hit You Got It wound up climbing to #9 in the U.S. and #3 in the U.K..He also had 2 albums hit the top 5 at the same time in 1989. The first time that had happened since Elvis Presley had done it.

With his customary dark glasses and black outfit Roy Orbison simply is one of the giants of American music and certainly someone who belongs on my oldies blog. He could be described as a country artist, a rockabilly artist or a rock and roll artist. And that is what was so great about him.

Despite all the tragedy he went through in his life, Roy Orbison persevered through work and simple God-given talent to become one of the greats in music history.

If you'd like to know more about this American icon check out this website: The Official Roy Orbison Site.

"MusicRadio WABC!" How many people on the east coast of the United States and quite a ways in grew up listening to that jingle in the 60's, 70's and into the early 80's? I certainly remember it having grown up in New Jersey right next to New York City and now more then remember it I am able to relive it on this very neat website titled simply Musicradio 77 WABC.

Now for someone who grew up with this station in all honesty you've probably all ready found this website through either searching for it or by someone posting something about it on FaceBook or their own website. But for those of you who haven't this really is a neat site to check out.

Oh those airchecks!

On the Musicradio 77 WABC website you will find airchecks from the 60's and 70's as they actually aired and some of them include some really neat commercials from the time. There is an aircheck the includes a Coca-Cola commercial with the jingle sung by Roy Orbison. There is a great Palisades Park jingle in it's entirety on another of the airchecks.

In fact here are 3 of my favorite airchecks. These links will open up in a new window and play (if I did it right). They are in mp3 form.

This one has Cousin Brucie's great "Movin and a Grovin" jingle from October 29,1963. It is 11 minutes long:

Cousin Brucie jingle

This is basically the Coca-Cola jingles aircheck. Jingles by Roy Orbison, Freddie and the Dreamers,Sue Thompson and Jan and Dean! Yeah Coke was a BIG sponsor back then on WABC. This one is from September 7, 1965 and features Cousin Brucie started by a Brucie jingle done by the Four Seasons. Runs about 10 minutes.

Coca-Cola jingles aircheck.

This one is from August, 1969 and features the Palisades Park jingle in full. As a child of about 7 or 8 I remember loving to hear this jingle because it meant Summer was either here or on it's way! The Charlie Greer Show is airing here. Runs about 11 minutes.

Palisades Amusement Park jingle aircheck.

A note about these airchecks is that the songs that the DJ's play are cut out. You will hear the beginnings and the endings of the songs but not the whole song. There are airchecks on the page though that do play entire songs. A few are an hour long and uninterrupted!

In fact so that you can pick and choose which airchecks you may wish to listen to here is the link to the aircheck page.

Musicradio 77 WABC airchecks page

You'll see some really great stuff on there including an aircheck that featured Chuck Leonard on the night Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. was killed. Chuck Leonard was the only African American DJ on the station at the time and really showed great professionalism that night. Heck it is such a great aircheck here it is:

WABC with Chuck Leonard on the night of Dr.Martin Luther King Jr's death.

So much more!

There is so much more on this website that features the heyday of this gigantic top 40 radio station from a time gone by. There are the "This Week's WABC Music Surveys for 30, 35, 40, 45 and 50 Years Ago" where the top songs of that year and date are listed in order. There are clips from different DJ's after they moved on from WABC once they went all talk and onto WCBS-FM also in New York.

There are also interviews with some of the DJ"s like Dan Ingram and Ron Lundy done after they had retired. To be honest there is so much on the site I would probably have to take up a few Squidoos to mention it all.

If you decide to check the site out you will find links all the way down the page leading to all different sections of interest but the greatest part of this website are the saved memories put into capsules called airchecks where you can actually hear radio as it was broadcast in the 60's and 70's from the most popular and successful top 40 radio station of all time.

So check out WABC Musicradio 77 but make sure you have lots of time on your hands.

You may get lost in the memories.

Being an oldies music fan is great but in this day and age it can also be a bit lonesome. Most people in my age bracket either don't go for the music or have not really paid attention enough to it to care about it. I post songs on FaceBook all the time from YouTube but almost never get a response.

However one person who did notice my musical taste was one of my aunts and she pointed me to a website I had never seen. It is called Playa Cofi Jukebox and what a "Playa" it is!

This jukebox of a website lets you pick a year or range of years click on them and be led to a page with a jukebox that will start playing the top songs from that particular year or period. But the musical choices don't stop with oldies music. There is a jukebox for Disco, Jazz, Latin, Country and many more. There are also channels for TV and movie themes.

They even have a "tune of the day" contest.

The years span from 1950-1989 individually for rock music. There is a country music channel that goes back to 1946. But the main reason I'm writing this is to let the oldies and doo-wop crowd know that this neat site is out there. We don't always find our music easily and in reality I wouldn't have found this one if it weren't for my aunt.

There is a Paypal "donate" button on the site also for those interested in helping fund the site. i don't get a thing out of that I'm just helping spread the word about a really cool music site.

There is also a FaceBook "like" button on it which states the site all ready has over 15000 likes! Gee I really am late to this party.

So check out Playa Cofi Jukebox if you haven't all ready. You'll find a ton of music not only from the oldies genre but from an array of others as well.

Ever wish you could remember the words to a song you loved years ago? You know the harmony but the exact words escape you. Well I found a page that has all the top 40 song lyrics from 1930 to 1999! That's right 1930! Now we're really talking oldies.

The site is called LYRICS WORLD and you can have some fun finding the lyrics to songs you may have forgotten. The songs and artists listed there are based on the top positions they reached according to Billboard, USA.

You'll see that there are songs that became popular in the late 50's and early 60's are actually songs from an even earlier time. For instance the song "A" YOUR ADORABLE that was a hit for the Tokens was actually a hit for Perry Como back in 1949. Here though I found that Dean Martin also sung it! I also found that Fats Domino's BLUEBERRY HILL was a hit in 1940 for........Glenn Miller!

Finding the lyrics to these songs is neat but it is also neat to see the changes in lyrics as time has gone by. The language has certainly gotten worse especially when you get to the 90's. I don't even want to try and look for anything in the 2000's. Yikes!

But without getting too down on the later stuff there are a few songs from the 90's that I do like. A few. In fact to be fair I'll probably post 1 or 2 of them.

The page is still a work in progress so if you have lyrics from some of the songs on there they have listed that don't have the lyrics you may be able to help them out.

So if your looking for lyrics from a top 40 song anywhere from 1930 to 1999 check out LYRICS WORLD and give it a look. Then you can really sing-along to your favorite oldies. That is if unlike me you can actually sing.