{"id":8668,"date":"2014-02-05T08:32:50","date_gmt":"2014-02-05T13:32:50","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blogs.northcountrypublicradio.org\/allin\/?p=8668"},"modified":"2014-02-05T09:22:11","modified_gmt":"2014-02-05T14:22:11","slug":"the-beatles-save-america-and-radio-bob","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.northcountrypublicradio.org\/allin\/2014\/02\/05\/the-beatles-save-america-and-radio-bob\/","title":{"rendered":"The Beatles Save America (and Radio Bob?)"},"content":{"rendered":"

It was just about 50 years ago today (Feburary 7, 1964) that the Beatles flew into JFK and helped take the US through the tragedy of the\u00a0 Kennedy assassination which had occurred back in late November, 1963.\u00a0 They brought back fun, enthusiasm and life on a grand scale… plus their music was extremely “fab” as they used to say!<\/p>\n

I was 13 back then and a total nerdo… but I liked music, I liked listening to the radio, and my dad had bought a used Voice of Music, tape-o-matic reel-to-reel tape deck on which I recorded every song that I heard. This old tape deck (at the time!) required constant tinkering to keep it running.\u00a0 I even had to make my own drive belts out of string.<\/p>\n

I listened to those New York City powerhouse AM stations WABC, WMCA and WINS.\u00a0 I liked all the WMCA “good guys” and the WABC “All Americans” .\u00a0 My favorite was “Big” Dan Ingram… I wanted to be just like him when I grew up!<\/p>\n

I was even somewhat organized at the time and made 3 X 5 index cards showing the details of each recording.\u00a0\u00a0 I was also a pack rat (and unfortunately still am) and saved the file cards and the tapes!\u00a0 So yesterday, I dug out them to try to find evidence of the very first Beatles song that I recorded … here’s the card:<\/p>\n

\"My<\/a>

My first Beatles recording<\/p><\/div>\n

Taking a photo of a card was easy (thanks to Nora Flaherty’s cellphone) but playing back the recording was not.\u00a0 I had to find a functioning tape recorder (the station gave up on those 15 years ago) and get it into a state fit to play a 50 year old tape!\u00a0 Cleaning the tape guides, aligning the heads, lubricating the pinch rollers, etc.\u00a0 (These are the activities that kept me in beer an pizza for years working at the station!)\u00a0 Finally, I threaded the fragile tape (I bought nothing but the cheapest tape back in 1964) and found this recording:<\/p>\n

tape5 side2<\/a><\/p>\n

It’s WABC DJ Scott Muni during his “Scotland’s Yard” airshift introducing the Number 1 Hit in New York!\u00a0 Listening to this really brought back memories.\u00a0 From holing up in my parent’s cellar with my radios and tape deck…. all the way to the present, when I’m holed up in my office with my radios and\u00a0 tape deck.<\/p>\n

The Beatles really shook up the music scene in the US.\u00a0 “Beatlemania” was a real thing and somehow the “fab four” gave us teens a real shot of adrenalin, steering us boomers far away from our parent’s paths.\u00a0 It was a fresh, liberating and fun experience.\u00a0 We love you Beatles, oh yes, we do!<\/p>\n

Plus Radio Bob got a 30 year career (so far) out of the whole experience… so thanks John, Paul, George and Ringo.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

It was just about 50 years ago today (Feburary 7, 1964) that the Beatles flew […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":25,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[1],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.northcountrypublicradio.org\/allin\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8668"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.northcountrypublicradio.org\/allin\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.northcountrypublicradio.org\/allin\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.northcountrypublicradio.org\/allin\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/25"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.northcountrypublicradio.org\/allin\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=8668"}],"version-history":[{"count":15,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.northcountrypublicradio.org\/allin\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8668\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":8690,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.northcountrypublicradio.org\/allin\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8668\/revisions\/8690"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.northcountrypublicradio.org\/allin\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=8668"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.northcountrypublicradio.org\/allin\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=8668"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.northcountrypublicradio.org\/allin\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=8668"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}