Top 40 Radios Heyday 1967

June 26, 2024 10:40 AM CDT

The year of 1967 is my favorite year for Top 40 music. Every type of music competed for radio airplay. I was just a ‘wee Nee’ then, and don’t remember hearing those songs on the radio when they first came out. When I began collecting music, it was amazing to find many of the tunes that I liked were released in 1967. In the early 70’s I bought my first cassette tape recorder, and I traveled to Saffell’s music store in Richland Center to find a few prerecorded tapes. Among my purchases that day was a compilation entitled the best of 1967 which eventually I wore out with too many plays. Many of the songs on that set are still favorites of mine including, Little Bit O’ Soul-Music Explosion, Respect-Area Franklin, Windy-Association, I Was Made to Love Her-Stevie Wonder, and A Whiter Shade of Pale-Procol Harum. This Saturday night on Those Were the Days, I will spin a few of the biggest hits from June of 1967. It was the start of the Summer of Love and Top 40 music was changing from sunshine pop to heavier hits. In June of 1967 the Doors were starting to climb the charts with Light My Fire and the Jefferson Airplane had two songs that were getting radio play. It is fun to listen to airchecks from that era featuring disc jockeys with a rapid delivery. It was the only way that listeners could discover new music and the jocks had a captive audience that would hang on every word. They would wait to hear the brand-new record from the Monkees, Beatles, Buckinghams, and the many local regional bands that were still able to take their songs to a radio station and get airplay.

I can’t wait for Saturday night and all the fun we will have. Last weekend got off to a stormy start with all kinds of severe weather announcements, but it calmed down so that the hits of the fifties through the early nineties could take center stage. Join me for Those Were the Days this Saturday night between six and midnight and you could be the winner of a nice prize provided by our sponsors. If you would like you can call me and help program the show or send a text message through the Civic Media app.

Phil