I have been doing radio since fall of 1968. The Beatles were still together. Jimi, Janis, and Jim were still alive. Led Zeppelin was months away from their first album. The Who were working on Tommy. I could go on with this much further, but you get the idea. I had the wonderful experience of playing most of the Classic Rock repertoire on the radio when it was all new!

We all had big mail slots at the radio station and almost every week we would come into work and there would be albums, sometimes as many as 10 or 15.  This means that at any time I could come in and there might be a new Led Zeppelin, Rolling Stones, Allman Brothers, Eagles, Moody Blues, or Who album. 

This means that one day I came in and found a grayish folding album with a picture of an old man with a bunch of sticks on his back. There were some strange symbols on it.  Pull out the disc to find out… “Oh, It’s Led Zeppelin, I wonder why they didn’t put their name on the cover. Let’s see the names of the tunes…Black Dog, Rock and Roll, Going To California, and what’s this one…Stairway to Heaven.”

You would go into the studio to do your show and there would be the radio station’s copy.  When an album by major group came out, you didn’t want to wait until you could take it home and listen to it. You would do what we called a “needle drop.”  You put the record on the turntable and listen to it over the cue speaker in the studio. (While another record was playing on the air.)  This could take as little as 5 or 10 seconds. A lot of the best songs grab your attention almost immediately.  You would pick up the needle and move it from cut to cut.

“Let’s try this one. It starts out with this great drum riff. Besides, any song simply named Rock and Roll should be pretty good.” 

You cued it up and waited for the current song to end.

You cracked the mic and said. “We got the new Led Zeppelin album. I don’t know what it is called. There is no writing on the cover.  I guess it’s “Four. Here is a track called Rock and Roll on Real Rock Radio, KSHE95.”

Then you and most of the people listening heard a rock classic for the very first time!

The program director would tape a piece of paper to the cover. He would write the names of the songs on the album and leave some space for the jocks to put comments if they wanted. They would also write down the time and date that they played a song.  On Led Zepp 4 we gravitated towards Rock and Roll and Black Dog at first.  I will always remember that someone wrote under Stairway to Heaven; “Check this one out! It starts slow but builds. It grows on you!”    He was right!

Many times you would get an album by a group that you had never heard of before. You would take it home. Many times the record company would provide a little bio sheet that they would put inside the sleeve. Sometimes they glued it directly to the album.

“Let’s see, this is a group called Steely Dan. Oh they’re kinda’ jazzy!”  “Here’s a new group called “The Eagles”. 

In those days we didn’t realize what an incredible amount of fantastic music was being released. We thought that it would last forever.  There were many times when you would be listening to a new album at home and be really blown away.  You couldn’t wait to be on the air the next day and play those tunes. Imaging sitting at home and putting “Who’s Next” on the turntable for the very first time!