Radio This Week Back Then #27: July 21-27
KPLX "the Wolf" D/FW, KBUD "Smokin' 94-1" Denver, WAQQ "95 Double Q" and WCKZ-FM "Kiss 102" Charlotte, WZRH "Zephyr" New Orleans, KZYR "Zephyr" Vail, WHAJ "J104" Bluefield WV
What was on the radio this week…back then. This is a weekly visit back to radio audio from this week in past years for those that enjoy radio history, those working in radio looking for promotional ideas, or stations looking to re-find lost audio of their heritage. If you enjoy these weekly audio rewinds, they take a lot of time to put together, so please do me a favor, subscribe, and share and pass it on. Thank you!
This week is a potpourri of airchecks…including the rebrand of country KPLX Dallas/Fort Worth to “99-5 the Wolf” that inspired a lot of future “Wolf” outlets to come, a marijuana-themed classic rock station, and a couple of Zephyrs. As well, I threw in another small market outlet — from a market that is no longer a market.
Dallas/Fort Worth | KPLX “99-5 the Wolf” (1998 rebrand)
Denver | KBUD “Smokin’ 94-1” (2015)
Charlotte | WAQQ “95 Double Q” (1992), WCKZ-FM “Kiss 102” (1991)
New Orleans | WZRH “106.1 the Zephyr” (1993)
Vail | KZYR “the Zephyr” (2015)
Bluefield WV | WHAJ “J104” (1991)
For the station profile charts, this week, I also broke out the call letter history into its own section showing the previous call letters dates…and also graphically summarized it in a timeline bar.
Back on 27 January 1992, the former hot AC KRSR 105.3 “Star 105” Dallas flipped to “the first Young Country station in America,” and its success spawned “Young Country” branded stations across the US. This week back in 1998, format rival KPLX 99.5 “K-Plex” relaunched as “99-5 the Wolf, Texas Country.” Although not the first station to ever use “the Wolf” name, it also ended up being a trendsetter that inspired many “Wolf”s to launch in the years that followed … and help dispatch KYNG out of the format in Dallas/Fort Worth in 2000.
There are actual “Texas Country” stations in some markets around Texas that do play Texas, red dirt, Americana, and outlaw country full time as a format. KPLX did not go that route…rather, it added a dose of newer Texas country and red dirt acts to the playlist — Pat Green, Jack Ingram, Cross Canadian Ragweed, Shooter Jennings — along with the likes of “Waylon, Willie, and the boys…” Along with the library adjustment came some pretty awesome imaging with the Wolf howl, actor Barry Corbin doing the voiceover work, and the “Wolf credo”…
“Respect the elders
Teach the young
Cooperate with the pack
Play when you can
Hunt when you must
Rest in between
Share your affections
Voice your feelings
Leave your mark
The new 99-5 the Wolf”
The aircheck is from the first evening under the new “99-5 the Wolf” brand. The tape is not in great shape — which is the motivation for this Substack project to get my old 20, 30, 40 year old tapes digitized). I tried to fix the audio as best I could…
Today, KPLX is still running country as “99-5 the Wolf.”
I flew into Denver this week nine years ago for a quick trip into the mountains. While there, I recorded a couple of stations, including KBUD since they made headlines the month before when they signed on the air. It sounds like a bit, but KBUD really did have a format of classic rock and, with the passage of recreational Marijuana use in Colorado, news and lifestyle content about pot. They went all in — the slogan was “4:20 News & Big Hits,” DJs had names like “Stoney Bo Reynolds,” “Mary Jane,” and “Ed Blaze.”
I recorded this via the FM translator. As part of “revitalizing” the AM band, the FCC, several years prior, allowed AM stations to be paired with a FM translator to relay the AM station’s programming to FM. KBUD 1550 is technically the originating station, but the branding is around the FM translator’s 94.1 spot on the dial. The format ended by year-end. The FM translator went iHeartMedia to be paired with news/talk KOA 850 to use. KBUD was sold and returned to the air in 2016, paired with a different translator, with a AAA format as KKCL “the Cloud.”
Back to Smokin’ 94-1, the aircheck below is from the afternoon on Thursday, 23 July 2015. Musically, the classic rock format is mostly the usual suspects found on most classic rock stations, but it also is spiced with some lesser played, obscure tracks. Overall, the concept is a bit over the top, but they are committed to it, and it is executed pretty well…so, thumbs up as radio could use more stations that are fun and color outside the lines…
Today, the station is still AAA KKCL.
Outside a short stint running oldies for much of 1991, the present day WNKS has been in the format now four decades. It’s on its fifth brand — WROQ, “Z95.1” WZZG, “95 Double Q” WAQQ, “95-1 the Edge” WEDJ, and its most successful one in its current brand “Kiss 95.1” WNKS. The “Kiss” brand previously belonged to crosstown WCKZ-FM 101.9, which is featured in the next section below.
WAQQ lasted for about two and a half years before it became WEDJ.
Today, the station is still top 40 WNKS “Kiss 95.1.”
As noted above, before the present day WNKS 95.1 “Kiss 95.1” debuted in 1996, the “Kiss” brand was used in the market from 1988-1994 on WCKZ-FM 101.9. Kiss 102 was between R&B and top 40 — at the time, the trades classified those stations as either “churban” (CHR/urban radio hybrid) or “crossover” formatted outlets. When it launched in 1988, it musically fit between CHRs WROQ and WBCY 107.9 and R&B WPEG 97.9. WBCY would be the first casualty, leaving the format in 1989 and WROQ would try a rebrand as Z95.1 before flipping to oldies in 1990 and then returning to CHR in 1991 as WAQQ.
This aircheck from this week back in 1991 is from the evening. All the songs are dance or remixed version of R&B and pop tracks.
Today, the station is running adult R&B as WBAV-FM “V101.9.”
Originally a class A FM on 106.3, WZRH moved to 106.1 and upgraded to a class C2 and began targeting New Orleans in 1991. However, the tower site was restricted well north of the city, so the primary signal contour really only encompassed the “North Shore” of Lake Pontchartrain. Given the lack of a competitive signal, it has gone through more than a dozen formats since then (see profile chart below).
Probably, it’s most remembered — and had the most ratings — from its modern rock days between 1992-1997 as “106.1 the Zephyr.” The Zephyr’s run ended in 1997 after KKND 106.7 came on the air in 1996 as modern rock “the End,” on a better signal that splintered the modern rock audience.
I have never seen any article on why the Zephyr name was picked. Purely speculation on my part, but I always assumed it was named after the old locally beloved Zephyr wooden roller coaster at the old Pontchartrain Beach amusement. It wasn’t the only Zephyr in town back then as the new local minor league baseball team, the New Orleans Zephyrs, began play in 1993. However, they had relocated from Denver and came with the name, as the Denver Zephyrs were named after the passenger train that ran between Denver and Chicago.
Presently, the station is WRKN and it flipped to sports “the Ticket” earlier this year.
Colorado radio is certainly friendly to the AAA format. On the July 2015 trip to Colorado, the Vail area had competing AAA outlets in KYSL 93.9, KZYR 97.7 “the Zephyr” and KKVM 104.7 “104-7 the Mile.” Not too far away in the ski resort of Aspen, KSPN-FM 103.1 was also running AAA back then as well. Of course, Denver is home to a couple of AAA outlets.
This aircheck is from KZYR, which has been in some variant of rock or alternative since its sign on 40 years ago. In 1991, it and several other stations combined to from the Rocky Mountain Network to what was described back then as either hot AC or something between AAA and modern AC. In 1994, they became the base for a new satellite alternative format called Format One. It would later shift back to local AAA and restoring the “Zephyr” name.
Today, KZYR is still AAA “the Zephyr.”
Bluefield WV is part of the Bluefield-Beckley-Oak Hill TV market. As a radio market, it was once rated by Arbitron and then by ratings company Eastland from 2017-2020. It is no longer a rated radio market today. When this was recorded, it was rated by Arbitron — though ranked outside the top 250 radio markets. The city has lost 50% of its population since 1960. So, this is pretty much the definition of small market radio. Given all that going against them, J104 sounded better than a lot of other stations in similar situations.
WHAJ has a big booming signal that covers southern West Virginia and southwestern Virginia. This aircheck was recorded on the same evening as the WCKZ-FM Charlotte one above; I have it on the flip side of that cassette. Aside from the differences in the size of markets at the time, J104 is musically on the other end of the CHR spectrum from WCKZ-FM.
As always, the logos and other intellectual property belong to the stations. The recordings were made from over the air broadcasts.