Growing up in southwest Michigan in the 70's, I vividly remember living and dying by Chicago's "50,000 watt blowtorch" of an AM radio station, WLS 890 AM. They've since gone to a talk-format, but back in the seventies and up until the early eighties, they were THE rock station. They had the best songs (or so we thought at the time), the funniest/coolest jocks like John "Records" Landecker who did the nightly "Boogie Check", and Larry Lujack in the morning with "Animal Stories" and "Cheap, Trashy Showbiz Report"...
The above clips came from ReelAudio.com, which is a huge archive of old radio shows. If WLS doesn't ring your bell, do a search for your favorite radio station or jock. You might be surprised to find some fun memories you thought you'd never hear again.
Speaking of radio, you know those radio ID jingles you hear all the time? Chances are good that some of the ones you've heard and loved (or hated) are from jingle behemoth JAM Productions. Feel free to take a listen to some of their jingle demos for radio stations of all formats. It's interesting to hear commonalities in all of them.
In 1978, JAM made a demo for WLS called "Class Action" that featured that crazy John "Records" Landecker guy again. They went on to do more jingles for WLS than any other American radio station over the following years.
A promotional item from JAM simply called "The JAM Song" was put together in 1985 and distributed to US radio stations. It wasn't intended for airplay, but some stations started playing it anyway.
Less radio and more TV-based, Score Productions has produced jingles you have heard for the past 40 years, including jingles for The Price Is Right, Matchgame, the agony-of-defeat-music from ABC's Wide World of Sports and "The Itchy and Scratchy Theme" from The Simpsons.
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