Long Lost Oldies

I was asked the other day how do I keep the music fresh on my oldies shows. After all, there is no such thing as a “new” oldie.

For me, the main way to keep it fresh is to have a large playlist. When I sit down to do a show these days, I have 25,000 to 30,000 songs at my beck and call. That is an order of magnitude over the 200 – 250 songs on most radio station’s play lists. And a huge increase over the 60 – 70 songs that were on the playlists of the old top 40 radio stations. This included the “up and coming” tunes but does not include the one solid gold song that we played every half hour.

So how did top 40 work anyway? The secret was that each week between a fifth and a quarter of the songs on the top 40 got replaced with tunes from the “up and coming” collection which in turn were replaced by new tunes added by our program director. That means that there was always something fresh on the playlist.

The other thing that worked for top 40 was that almost no one listened to an entire DJ’s show from beginning to end. So during a five hour air shift the DJ would play 100 songs, 20 or so per hour. That means that he or she would play the same song twice in a shift. It would be highly unlikely that a listener would hear both plays in one listening. He or she would probably hear the same song between three to five times in a week. The average run time on the top 40 was about ten weeks. So a listener would hear the song between 30 and 50 times before it fell off the charts.

For the DJ however, the number of times they heard the same song was considerably more, up to 500 times during it’s time on the playlist. I can tell you that by time most songs were moving out of “heavy rotation” and ready to rotate off the list I was ready to say; “Goodbye Marcia!” I had to fight the temptation to over play the newer songs because I was not tired of them yet.

Left: A typical clock wheel Back in the day I was fortunate to work at stations that allowed the DJ to choose which songs to play instead of having to follow a “clock wheel” which designated which type of song to play at a certain time of the hour. I had only three restrictions. 1) lead out of the news on the hour or half hour with a “kicker, a fast paced rocker. 2) play a “solid gold” oldie after the weather on the quarter hour. 3) never play two instrumental or female songs back to back. Why couldn’t we play two female artists back to back, you ask? The answer was that the ratio of female to male artists back in the day was much lower than today. So we had to spread them out.

I liked having that free hand because it respected my DJ skills and allowed me to build a mix of songs that was unique to the time of day I was on the air and the show I was building. A good example of this was the All Night Satellite. The music in the 1 AM to 2 AM hour was a lot harder and rockier because the late night audience was out cruising or wanting a pick me up after a long day. The 5 – 6 AM hour leaned more towards “light rock” because that audience was just waking up and trying to ease into the new day. So all this had to be taken into consideration when choosing the next song to play. Oh yeah! I almost forgot! You had to be sure to avoid “train wrecks,” that is two songs that sound terrible when played together. For example; you should never play “Abba Zabba” by Captain Beefheart’s Magic Band and “Baby I’m A Want You” by Bread back to back. Ewwww!

But I digress.

Today, oldies are considered a “stagnant” genre by those who don’t know better. So how do you keep an oldies format fresh? Part of the answer is the aforementioned huge playlist along with a DJ’s ear. When I consider playing a song these days, I usually can remember if I have played it recently. If it feels too recent, I skip it, no matter how much I like it. So you may hear the same song on my show every so often but pretty soon it fades into the background and a “new” song takes its place for a couple of weeks.

Well, this is not completely true. My live shows are always request shows, just like back in the day. So sometimes songs get played two shows in a row due to someone making a request because they liked the song the last time it was played.

The other way to keep an oldies format fresh is to add a few “long lost” gems to the playlist each week. This way the playlist keeps growing and the sound never gets stale. I’ll be adding nearly dozen songs never played on the Backbeat show to the mix on WUSC-FM tomorrow. Full disclosure, I get these songs by listening to guys like Dave Hoeffel, Mike Kelly, Phlash Phelps, Pat St. John, Shotgun Tom Kelly and Cousin Bruce Morrow. They never fail to provide new fodder for my playlist. I’m sure I’m not the only oldies DJ that does that.

So tomorrow I’ll be adding songs by Bobby Vinton, Elvis, Frankie Laine, Frankie Valli & the Four Seasons, Johnny Rivers, Nancy Sinatra & Lee Hazelwood, Ronnie Dove and The Newbeats. Some of these I haven’t heard in years. Listen carefully and you may even hear me play two female artists back to back. I’m such a rebel!! Oh MY!