Phil Nee

On March eighth 1977, a new album hit the record stores.  The group was a British-American band of music veterans known as Foreigner.  They would become known when the first single "Feels Like The First Time", was released later in the month.  By the end of the year they would have two more hits.  The songs were "Cold As Ice" which came out in July, and "Long, Long Way From Home" which hit radio in November.  When young Phil Nee was able to scrape $6.99 together and go to Ben Franklin and buy the album, it stayed on my Panasonic stereo with a BSR turntable for the entire year.  Other faves included:  "Starrider",  "Headknocker",  "Woman Oh Woman",  and "At War With The World".   On Saturday night I will get my old Foreigner album out and play some of the tracks on WRCO FM 100.9.  Those Were The Days will pay tribute to that great long play forty years after it was released.  We have played tributes to other albums recently and that usually motivates people to request a whole bunch of other songs from other albums that were made famous by that group or artist.  That is fine as the night will be wide open for whatever you want to ask for.  Many times I don't think people grab the concept of one album from a group.  In this day and age music lovers usually just listen to a couple of tracks from a group or artist and they don't pay attention to which album the songs were gleaned from.  Many groups don't release complete albums these days.  They will put out an e.p. (extended play) with four or five songs to please their fans.  And fans will only download songs that they know.  They don't always listen to twelve new songs that they may learn to like after a couple of plays. 

I hope you will request a song from the fifties through the eighties during our Those Were The Days radio show this Saturday night while listening to WRCO FM 100.9.  Perhaps you will win a great prize!  You could win concert tickets, food prizes, and gift certificates.

Phil

Back in 1968 I was playing on the linoleum.  The radio was always on and the hits of the day became forever etched in my brain.  Love Is Blue by Paul Mauriat,  Spooky by the Classics IV,  Walk Away Renee by the Four Tops,  Lemon Pipers singing Green Tamborine, and Simon Says sung by 1910 Fruitgum Company were among the biggest hits from March of 1968.  Although I was very young, I can remember hearing those songs while I set up my play farm with Tru-Scale toy tractors.  The empty cardboard Quaker Oats containers were my silos and dominoes were my bales of hay. The year of 1968 later became a very violent and sad year.  The music was a great escape from all of the trouble in the World.  Escape with the radio again this Saturday night with WRCO FM 100.9.  I will be in the studio taking your requests for old rock and roll from the fifties through the eighties.  We will have our tough trivia questions (one per hour) during our six hour Those Were The Days radio show Saturday night between six and midnight.

Phil

While I was growing up, during the month of February our family would always listen to WRCO and follow the fortunes of the area high school wrestlers.  Whether it was my cousin Mike Nee or my classmates, I would tape the matches off the radio on cassettes and present them to those local heroes when they returned from Madison.  WRCO has broadcast from the WIAA state wrestling tournament since the early seventies.  This year the state finals will be heard on FM 100.9 starting at five Saturday afternoon.  This weeks Those Were The Days will follow at around nine.  I hope you will join us for our weekly fix of old rock and roll songs.  I will reflect back to the hot hits from this week in 1973 this Saturday night.  You can also try the trivia challenge and request a favorite hit from the fifties through the eighties.  Give me a call on your rotary dial phone this weekend!

Phil

This Saturday night we will take a trip back to 1975 during Those Were The Days on WRCO FM 100.9.  Many feel that the 1970s were not a great time for music.  I agree that there was some schlock songs, however,  you can pick out a few clunkers from every era of music.  This week in 1975 there were many good tunes filling the airwaves including: Best Of My Love-Eagles, Some Kind Of Wonderful-Grand Funk, Black Water-Doobie Brothers, Roll On Down The Highway-B.T.O.,  Boogie On Reggae Woman-Stevie Wonder, and Lady-Styx.  My memories of days on the farm include the barn radio.  It was on all the time and the music made the work lighter.  Dad always had WRCO tuned in, however, when he was outside the dial might change to WISM in Madison or WLS- Chicago (on a good night for reception).  WRCO did play Top Forty music after 7 pm on a program called 'Music Scene'.  That is where I heard many songs of 1975 for the first time.  It was fun when they would take requests and I recall calling in a few from the rotary dial phone in the barn.    In 1986, when I was hired by the station, my dad was still milking cows and listening to WRCO on the barn radio.  He retired in 1989 but the radio was left on! It stayed on until a windstorm took down the electric lines to the barn in the mid-90s.

You can request a song from any of the four decades we feature on Saturday night.  Perhaps you will take a trivia challenge during the program.  I hope to talk with you during this weekends show.

Phil

This Saturday night on WRCO FM 100.9 we will be twisting our way back to the second weekend of February 1962.  There were no less that three records in the Top Twenty  with 'twist'  in the title.  The Twist by Chubby Checker was making its second stop on the charts after going to number one in 1960.  Gary (U.S.) Bonds was having a hit with Dear Lady Twist.  The number one song belonged to Joey Dee And the Starliters.  It was called the Peppermint Twist and it was ahead of Gene Chandler's Duke Of Earl, and an Elvis song from the movie Blue Hawaii (Can't Help Falling In Love).  A song that often is still requested by the Tokens (The Lion Sleeps Tonight) was a new song.  The question by Wolfman Jack during the trailer for the film American Graffitti asked "Where Were You In '62?"  We will have some fun with that countdown from all of those years ago.  You can join the party and request a song during Those Were The Days.  We play popular music from the fifties through the eighties.  You can try to answer one of the six trivia questions during the show this Saturday night. 

Each week we get requests for songs from the nineties and two thousands.  In the early days of our program,  a new year  was added each year and I tried to stay twenty years behind the current year.   This stopped in 2009 when we added songs from 1989 to our playlist.  I might play a song released in early 1990 from time to time, but we try to keep it to songs recorded in the first four decades of rock and roll.  There are so many songs that never get requested from that earlier era, that it seems we don't need to add more years and decades.  I would never say that the decade of the nineties will never be included, but for now I will be a stickler trying to persuade younger callers to request something older!   Thanks for joining us each Saturday night.

Philip James Nee

Fleetwood Mac released one of the best albums ever on February fourth 1977.   This Saturday night on WRCO FM 100.9 we will pay tribute to this classic disc.  Forty years ago the 1977 airwaves were filled with the sounds of Fleetwood Mac.  They began the year with Go Your Own Way which hit number ten, Dreams (the groups only number one ever), Don't Stop which went to number three, and they closed the year with You Make Loving Fun which topped out at number nine.  Four hits were released from the album during one year.  Radio gave airplay to Rumours' album tracks including: The Chain, Never Going Back,  Second Hand News, and Songbird.  We will pay tribute to Fleetwood Macs'  spectacular set during Those Were The Days this Saturday night.  I will also be taking your requests.  Perhaps you can try and stump me this weekend.  Anyone can trip me with an album track.  I love it when someone calls in a song that actually made the charts and it has not been out of the dust bunnies for many years.  Get ready for trivia and all kinds of free fun and the best of the fifties through the eighties on WRCO FM 100.9 Saturday night.

Phil

This Saturday night on WRCO FM 100.9 we will flash back to this weekend in 1982.  Our Those Were The Days radio program will spotlight top songs from the likes of The Cars, J. Geils Band, Rick Springfield, and Joan Jett to name a few.  I was just wrapping up my high school basketball career in which I led the Ridge and Valley conference in scoring during warm-ups.  Uncle Rico got it right in the movie Napoleon Dynamite as he attempted to direct his time machine back to '82!  If the coach would have put me in the fourth quarter, we would have won state. 

I will be in the studio and I hope to talk with many of you as we discuss the past and play some of the coolest hits from the fifties through the eighties.  We had some great requests from more than a sixty mile radius around Richland Center this past Saturday night.  Hello to our new listeners in Elroy!  Get ready for trivia Saturday night everytime we give you more cowbell. 

Phil Nee-Class of '82 President

On this Saturday nights Those Were The Days, I will dig up some old records from January of 1977.  My dad surpised me on Christmas day 1976 with the gift of a new stereo record changer. He told me to pick one out and he would buy it. I had a difficult time finding a stereo with a cassette player/recorder.  All of the consoles still featured an 8 track player.  I had already collected many cassette tapes and wanted to drop the 8 tracks in the waste basket.  The only stereo in Richland Center that had the cassette technology was at a store in the Richland Square called 'Capps'.  It was a console model made by Panasonic.  By January of 1977 I was the mix tape making king!  There were so many good songs on the radio from such groups as; Aerosmith,  Fleetwood Mac, Steve Miller Band, Bob Seger, Boston, and many others.   My new speakers rattled the windows in the old farm house.   I will be playing some of the best 1977 January tunes this Saturday night on WRCO FM 100.9.   Your requests will be welcomed and perhaps you can win a trivia prize.  We will feature one question per hour during the six hour show.  Perhaps you can stump the dj!  I will look foward to talking with you between 6 PM and Midnight Saturday night.

Phil

We will play more hits from the fifties through the eighties on this Saturday nights Those Were The Days.  It is all part of a 'retro-Saturday' on  WRCO FM 100.9.  This weekend the request line will be open for the six hour show and we will ask you a few trivia questions.  Rare Earth will be the featured group.  They cranked out five Top Twenty hits from 1970 through early 1972.  Hear memories from original drummer and lead singer Pete Rivera during Saturday nights radio show.  The songs of Rare Earth are better known now than when they were new.  I Just Want To Celebrate has been used in several television and radio commercials during the past few years. 

I am still amazed at the long distance calls that we have getting lately.  A first time caller from Mount Sterling checked in last weekend and it was great to chat with them.  The top request of the night was for the song 'I Love You' by the Volumes which was a number twenty-two hit on the Billboard chart back in 1962.  That is a cool song that we had never played in the thirty plus years of the program!  There is still so much great music that we have not yet featured.  Maybe you can try to stump the old d.j. this Saturday night during Those Were The Days on WRCO FM 100.9.

Phil

This Saturday night on WRCO FM 100.9 we will be back to play some rock and roll from the fifties through the eighties during our Those Were The Days radio show.  We will have a lot of fun features including a look back 50 years to early January of 1967 when the Doors released a debut album.  Courtesy of Kent Kotal and forgottenhits.com we will begin a year long salute to 1967.  It is a year that I feel is the best ever for popular music and during 2017 I will attempt to show you why.   We will also say happy birthday to Elvis Presley.  Elvis would have been (will be???) 82 on Sunday January 8th.  He  has been our most requested artist through the years.  Even though his movies have been shot down by the critics, soundtrack songs from Elvis seem to be popular requests lately.  Perhaps you can request your favorite Elvis movie song this Saturday night.  I will be in the studio and will be trying to talk with as many listeners as I can.  The 'trivia cowbell'  will be ringing and you can try to win a prize.  This Saturday night between 6 and Midnight you can hear 'live and local' radio the way it use to be with Those Were The Days.

Phil

Two of my favorite things are music and trivia.  The two will come together on Saturday night.  It will be a rare evening when Those Were The Days (now in its 31st year) will combine with Triviathon (the 29th annual).    Hear our usual variety of songs featuring the best of the fifties through the eighties pop radio memories.  We will be looking at some of the top year end songs during that era.  Triviathon will feature questions with  local, regional, national, and international topics.  If you do not register to be an official team on the WRCO website by noon Friday (30th), you can still play along with your friends and family during your New Years Eve celebration and see how your answers compare. 

I want to take this time to thank you for listening to Those Were The Days during 2016.  It was another rewarding year with new listeners joining our solid gold family.  Please support our sponsors of the program.  Those Were The Days would not be possible if it was not supported by area businesses.  The year of 2017 will bring more old time rock and roll fun.  We are planning new features including a year long salute to 1967 which I consider the best year ever in popular music.  Our friend Kent Kotal and his Forgotten Hits website will be dedicated to all things '67 through the entire year.  Check out Forgotten Hits and hear some of the songs and tidbits during our six hour music and request show on Saturday nights.  Happy New Year!  

Phil

I hope you will tune the radio to WRCO FM 100.9 on Christmas Eve.  It is a rare chance for Those Were The Days to be heard during this most special night.  Through the years I have collected a load of Christmas music from the forties through the eighties and this weekend will be a chance to put some of it on the air.  I have been collecting music for forty-five years and I still discover new- old versions of Christmas classics after all of these years.  You will hear songs that you have heard every year and some that you may hear for the first time during Those Were The Days Saturday night.  Our Solid Gold Dancer Christmas party will continue from six until Midnight.  We will try to recreate those Christmas Eves of all those years ago when the family was all together and the radio was playing.  

I hope you have a very special holiday season.  We will not be taking your requests Saturday night, however, I will talk to you real soon.  Remember on New Years Eve Those Were The Days will be heard during the annual WRCO Triviathon!  It will be a bash.

Phil

This week on Those Were The Days from WRCO FM 100.9 I will be spinning your favorite requests.  The solid gold line will be open for you to help program the show with hits of the fifties through the eighties and holiday hits. The special feature Saturday night will be a look back at the last Billboard Top 100 chart of the 1970s.  A look back at the last weeks of 1979 will take me back to my sophomore year in high school.  Some of the fellows and me organized a big New Years Eve party that Winter.  Many of these songs were playing as we got together for a wild (alcohol free) bash!  We were drunk on being young and very foolish.  I was curious though about what a Pina Coloda tasted like.  The hit from Rupert Holmes called Escape (The Pina Coloda song) was the last number one of the seventies.  Other favorite hits of some of Ithacas' finest included:  Jane-Jefferson Starship,  Heartache Tonight-The Eagles, Head Games-Foreigner, Take The Long Way Home-Supertramp, Please Don't Go-KC & The Sunshine Band, Voices-Cheap Trick, Train, Train-Blackfoot and Romeo's Tune-Steve Forbert.  The song that was playing the first time I legally drove the parents' car was Cruisin' by Smokey Robinson.  At the time I thought it was a car song, but I think Smokey was singing about something else I did not know much about.  We will return to those young and foolish days again on this Saturday nights edition of WRCOs' Those Were The Days.

Phil

Hey Rock n' Rollers!  This Saturday night during Those Were The Days, we will go back to December of 1964.  There were some incredible songs on the radio.  American and British artists were battling for airplay and it was pretty even.  The British were striking with songs from The Beatles, Rolling Stones, Hermans Hermits and The Kinks.  America was countering with The Shangri-Las,  4 Seasons,  Jan & Dean,  Supremes, and Johnny Rivers.  The year of 1967 has long been my favorite musical year of the 1960s, however, 1964 had pretty cool tunes as well.  This Saturday night during Those Were The Days we will pay tribute to the fifties through the eighties.  Please request a song from any of our favorite decades and stay tuned for the hourly trivia.  There may be snow falling over Southwest Wisconsin.  It could be a good night to stay home and listen to the radio.  We lost a few listeners last week because they were tuned into the Wisconsin Badgers big loss in the Big Ten title game.  The Badger football team won't be ripping your heart out this weekend.  That means no distractions and a great night of great rock n' roll to cheer for.   We continue to talk with new listeners after all of these years.  We are getting good revues in Woodman,  North Freedom, and even Tomah!  

Phil                                                                                                                 

Our year long tribute to 1981 continues on Saturday night with Those Were The Days on WRCO FM 100.9.  We will go back thirty-five years with songs that take me back to playing basketball for the might Bulldogs. I remember fun times riding to the games on buses with windows frosted over.   Many songs were playing in my head as I continued to lead the league in scoring during warmups.  The Stones album (Tatoo You) was number one in our locker room.  Queen, Pat Benatar, Bob Seger, and Cheap Trick were among the crowd pleasers at the record hops (remember those?).  Join me for six hours of your requests, trivia questions, bad jokes, and 1981 this Saturday night during Those Were The Days.

Phil

The year of 1970 was a fantastic year for rock and roll music. There w  some great albums from such groups as the Guess Who, Beatles, CCR, and solo artists including: Jimi Hendrix, Joe Cocker, George Harrison, Linda Ronstadt.  This Saturday night on WRCO I will be spinning some hot hits from 1970 and I will be taking your old record requests.   Please give me a call on the hot hits hotline and we will recall the great times. As I write this, my family is celebrating Thanksgiving weekend.  I hope as you read this you are spending time with loved ones.   Request a song for your favorite relative or win them a prize Saturday night when you are listening to Those Were The Days.

Phil

During our 30th anniversary this Fall, Those Were The Days has been featuring some of our favorite groups.  This Saturday night Carl Giammarese will talk about that great rock and roll year of 1967 when his group The Buckinghams enjoyed five top twenty hits.  Several of our listeners recently enjoyed Carl, Nick Fortune, and the Buckinghams at the Crystal Grand in Wisconsin Dells!  They are still touring after all of these years.  My favorite songs of the Bucks include: Hey Baby (They're Playing Our Song), Kind Of A Drag, I'll Go Crazy, and Back In Love Again.  We will take you back with some of those radio gems during Those Were The Days on WRCO FM 100.9 this weekend. 

I will be back in the studio and hope to talk with many listeners that still enjoy the great music of the fifties through the eighties this Saturday night.  Last weekend we featured a classic countdown from 1971.  That was fun putting together.  I heard from a few that graduated from high school that year and they had a great time going back to that year in music.  Give me a call and request a song and maybe you can win a prize playing trivia.  Those Were The Days, my friend.

Phil

On this weeks Those Were The Days we will reunite the songs that made up the 1971 year end countdown.  It was a great time in Top 40 radio with all kinds of genres of music hitting it big.  These were songs such as ' Me And You And A Dog Named Boo'-Lobo,  Joy To The World-Three Dog Night, Draggin The Line-Tommy James,  Proud Mary-Ike & Tina,  and Take Me Home Country Roads-John Denver that we sang on the country school bus.  Tune in WRCO FM 100.9 for this rock and roll special this Saturday night courtesy of our Those Were The Days sponsor family.  I will not be taking your requests this time.  That feature will return next weekend on the big program.  We are getting ready for some great shows coming up at the end the year.  If you ever have an idea for one of our old rock and roll theme shows,  drop me a comment, or email me at This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it..  Perhaps it is a year you would like to see us remember, or an artist you'd like to hear more of.  Maybe a theme such as: songs about money, cars, trains, etc.   Listener suggestions have resulted in some of our most memorable Saturday night shows.  Thanks for reading and I hope you listen to the best of 1971 on this Saturday nights Those Were The Days.

Phil

Saturday night on WRCO FM 100.9 you can request a pop radio hit from the fifties through the eighties.  Those Were The Days is the radio show that you can help program.  Please contact me Saturday night with a request and I will do my best to get in on the airwaves for you.  During the week I dumpster dive looking for old goodies.  That means there is something each week that you have not heard on our show before.  On this weeks six hour blast, I will play some of the  highlights from this weekend in 1974.  It is a chart I can remember like it was yesterday.  My once per week visit to Saffells music store in Richland Center was a highlight for a young farm boy.  I could actually see the records I was hearing on the radio and the colors of the record labels were absorbed by my young brain.  Today when I play Can't Get Enough by Bad Company, I can picture the Atlantic record label gong round and round.  When Sweet Home Alabama is on the air, I remember seeing it in the record store and the MCA label on the 45.  November of 1974 had many hits that we still play today.  You Aint Seen Nothing Yet by Bachman-Turner Overdrive,  I Can Help-Billy Swan,  and When Will I See You Again- Three Degrees could be heard up and down the dial in November of 1974.  We will remember that time with music and trivia during this Saturday nights Those Were The Days radio program.  I hope you will tune in 100.9 and join the party like all of the cool kids!

Phil

One of the first recording artists that I had a chance to interview on the program was Bobby Vee.  Over the years he joined us a few times by phone.  He performed in Richland Center in 2006 with the Crickets and Tommy Roe.  Those that were there that night saw rock and roll history.  Bobby announced in 2012 that he was in the early stages of Alzheimers disease and he passed away on Monday of this week. Bobby was always a great interview for me on Those Were The Days.  He could talk first hand about other artists such as Bob Dylan or Paul McCartney.  The Beatles recorded 'Take Good Care Of My Baby'.  A young Bob Dylan played in Bobby Vee's band back in 1959.  Elvis told him that he had a couple of Bobby Vee records on his jukebox. He never forgot us here in the Badger State.     A few of his records were first given a boost with airplay in Wisconsin including his 1967 hit 'Come Back When Your Grow Up'.  We will remember Bobby Vee during our Those Were The Days get together Saturday night.  I will be in the studio to take your old time rock and roll requests.  We will play a few of our favorite Halloween records on this weekends show.  Join me between 6 pm and Midnight on WRCO FM 100.9 for Those Were The Days Saturday night.

Phil