Get Your Kicks in ’66 (Again)

September 4, 2024 10:50 AM CDT

On Those Were the Days Saturday night, we will again fly back to Top Forty radios golden era. Nineteen Hundred Sixty-Six was one of the last great years for fast talking disc jockeys, songs that were between two and three minutes, and local bands with records that got local airplay. In Chicago groups like the Cryan Shames, New Colony Six, and the Shadows of Knight, got as much radio time as the Beatles. I was just a ‘wee nee’ at this point in history but collecting music from that era has been a real passion of mine. The first time I found a scratchy 45 of 96 Tears by Question Mark and the Mysterians, I was in heaven. Some of my other favorites from the September chart in 1966 include, Bus Stop-Hollies, Cherry Cherry-Neil Diamond, Reach Out I’ll Be There-Four Tops, Wouldn’t It Be Nice-Beach Boys (from the classic Pet Sounds album), Black is Black-Los Bravos, Sweet Pea-Tommy Roe, and Sunshine Superman-Donovan.

I will be spinning a few from September of 1966 between six and midnight Saturday night. Request a song if you’d like. You say it, and we will play it. Hats off to our trivia winners and callers last week. We had an amazing number of requests and songs that have not hit the mighty airwaves in a long time. Kudos to a backyard patio party in Rockford, Illinois for finding us on the Civic Media app. Listeners checked in as young as seventh grade and we heard from youngsters in their seventies! I will keep digging in the back room at Mastodon Records in downtown Richland Center for long lost gems and you never know what you might hear this week during Those Were the Days on WRCO Saturday night (if Craig gives me a good deal). Tell your friends outside of the 608 to find us at WRCO.com or on the Civic Media app.

Phil