TOP STREAM 32.0Kbps (14.5KHz)
Cousin Bruce Morrow, WABC New York, January 29, 1969 (54:23)

. . . maybe I oughta tighten that up, I guess, yeah, don't worry about it . . .

WABC Logo from The Top 100 of 1968

[Description by Famous Amos]

The first of our Vietnam tapes is a bit less specific for Vietnam, but no less historical in value. For here we have Cousin Brucie, pre-recording his regular nighttime show on New York's WABC, and then sending it off to Vietnam. Unlike the WMCA feature, this show actually aired on WABC, from 8 to 9 p.m. on January 29, 1969. The station ran news at :25 and :55, so Bruce and his engineer taped in production, in "real time", using time checks, jingles, and stopsets..

Cousin Brucie, from a couple of years after this aircheck.

Each of the two 25-minute segments here was meant to roll from reel-to-reel, after both the legal I.D. and the top- (or bottom-) of-the-hour jingles were played live on cart. So each segment starts cold with a song, is followed with the body of a real "show" in format, and ends with one of WABC's famous collection of fill-to-newstime instrumental rockers.

TOP STREAM 20.7Kbps (14.5KHz) Cousin Bruce WABC Jan 29 1969 (scoped) (19:59) A special bonus! If you don't feel like sitting through the music, yet want that feeling of cruising in your Mustang or GTO and hearing that Mighty Wurlitzer of an audio chain with its heavy-bottomed EMT Plate reverb resounding through your dashboard... here is a scoped version of that January 29, 1969 Cousin Brucie show, complete with a virtual restoration of WABC's audio processing!

The audio quality is near hi-fi... portions sound like they were recorded yesterday. And because it came straight out of WABC's production room, there is no compression or the phamous phat WABC reverb. What's notable about this show is how little of it contains The Cuz! Dunno what else he had to do that day, but there are sure a lot of segues. Of particular note: listen carefully for when a certain spot ends, a record begins, and Brucie talks up the ramp. There was actually an edit there, before the song... how do we know this? The Cuz TELEGRAPHS it in reverse! A broadcasting first!

[* Uncle Ricky Tech Note: Like all REELRADIO exhibits, this exhibit was processed for acceptable performance on the Internet.]

TOP STREAM 20.7Kbps (14.5KHz)
Jack Spector, WMCA New York, February 19, 1969 (30:36)

[Description by Famous Amos]

. . . Everyday People, that's who we hire . . .

Tape #2 was a special ongoing feature, recorded in production at WMCA, the formerly Fabulous 57. The jocks we'll hear are Jack Spector and "Dandy" Dan Daniel — they are doing a half-hour Top 10 countdown show especially for the armed forces in Vietnam, based on the WMCA surveys from the weeks of February 19, 1969 and April 1, 1969 (listen for the reference to how they could no longer refer to themselves as "The Good Guys"... that odd period after their heyday, and before they brought the slogan back, captured for posterity!). The sincerity and warmth of Spector and Daniel are quite apparent.

It's sponsored by Coca-Cola, and the company gets one commercial in the middle of each program: those now-legendary Coke jingles, sung by the pop artists of the time, fashioned after the production of their actual hits. It was from this series that you'll remember the breakout recording by The Fortunes, "It's The Real Thing", which became an Advertising legend.

TOP STREAM 20.7Kbps (14.5KHz)
Dan Daniel, WMCA New York, April 1, 1969 (29:19)

. . . This is Dan Daniel, transcribed from New York . . .

Dan does an unreal job of communicating to the individual soldier, reminding him like an old buddy from the neighborhood that man, it's really wonderful back here, and the job and the girl are all waiting for you when you get back home, which hopefully will be soon. It's absolutely gut-wrenching to listen to, given the prism of history and the vantage point of 33 years in the future.

But what's especially mind-blowing about the content of Dan's show, is the ease and frequency with which he urges the soldiers to visualize a world where war has been banished, where peace would reign, and they'd never have to go off and fight in a foreign land again.