In the 1920s, Sears, Roebuck and Company was a major retail and mail order company. To get farmers and people in rural communities to buy radio sets from its catalogs, Sears bought time on radio stations, and then decided to form its own station. On April 12, 1924, the station commenced officially, using the call letters WLS (for "World's Largest Store").
On May 2, 1960, WLS Radio changed from it’s 36 year farm and country format to a contemporary top 40 station. Announcers Dick Biondi, Art Roberts, Mort Crowley, Clark Weber, Bob Hale, Ron Riley, Bernie Allen and Gene Taylor brought a fresh, bright new sound to the Chicago airwaves. The sounds of "Alley Oop" by The Hollywood Argyles crackled out of radios tuned to AM 890 that spring morning.
WLS was transformed from the old, creaky Prairie Farmer outlet into a hip, urban-minded contemporary-hit station. Sam Holman and Ralph Beaudin were brought in by ABC to transform the Prairie Farmer into a rocker.
Sam Holman, WLS' first program director of the "rock era" brought a new package of jingles to WLS, sung by the Anita Kerr singers and a band of young disc jockeys ready to take the Windy City by storm.
Bob Hale, Gene Taylor, Mort Crowley, Jim Dunbar and a hotshot named Dick Biondi, whose screaming and singing "On Top Of A Pizza" made him an instant hit in Chicago.
Prior to these five being hired, it was rumored in the Chicago Tribune's "Tower Ticker" column that Howard Miller and John Doremus were being considered, but that they were under contracts elsewhere. A Prairie Farmer holdover, Ed Grennan stayed on as a disk jockey after the format switch, as well as newsmen Jerry Golden, Harvey Wittenberg and Jerry Mitchell.
1961In the coming years, WLS would introduce the Midwest to such musical acts as The Beach Boys, The Rolling Stones, Dave Clark Five as well as local acts it helped make famous such as The Buckinghams and The Cryan Shames.
The other problem was that the station was still housed in the Prairie Farmer Building at 1230 W. Washington Boulevard. Quite a long way from the downtown ad agencies that WLS salespeople needed to visit. In addition, the Prairie Farmer
After early rumors of the station moving in with its TV sister station WBKB-TV into the State-Lake Building (which would eventually happen many years later), WLS moved to their famous digs on the 5th floor at 360 North Michigan Avenue in August of 1960.
Out with the old...In the early days of the rock era, the station was saddled with a great deal of news and required ABC network programming like Don McNeill's Breakfast Club, the early morning WLS Farm Special featuring Chuck Bill and Captain Stubby, Mid-Day, a half-hour news block at noon and the one-hour news block News-Scope at 6:30pm.
Stiff competition from WGN and WIND kept WLS from making it to #1 (they stalled at #3 for some time), yet Beaudin and Holman had the vision of making the station a success. As the years went by, WLS' popularity snowballed and was not handily surpassed for some 26 years after the format switch!
Admiring fans swarm Dick BiondiDick is manning the mic at WLS on May 2, 1962. [ LISTEN ] (55:00)
However, Biondi's stay with WLS only lasted 3 short years. The old story of Biondi being fired because he told an off-color joke was simply not true. Dick was very concerned about the high amount of commercials and news he had to run every hour and he let his displeasure be known to the General Sales Manager.
As a result, a literal fistfight ensued in the hallway of the station! After it was over, Dick was told to go home and cool off. He took this as being fired. Eventually a mutual agreement was reached. Biondi eventually left WLS and went on to work at KRLA in Los Angeles, and then later back to Chicago to WCFL.
By 1965, WLS was leading the ratings for young adults in Chicago. In fact, WLS was number one in midday, afternoon and evening time periods. General manager Gene Taylor remarked "This dominance in the market for so long has given our listeners faith in WLS. They know we are playing the hottest records - not nescessarily the newest records - but records that are well-established."
Competition was engaged when WCFL (1000) dropped its labor programming to take on "Channel 89." It was the beginning of a long and bitter radio war that would last eleven years, with several personalities working on both sides of the river at one time or another.
As the decade progressed, many WLS personalities went on to become household names. Weber held down morning drive before becoming program director. Midday disk jockey Bernie Allen also was a professional singer. Ron "Ringo" Riley, who interviewed The Beatles when they came to town also appeared on the Batman Show and often "feuded" with Clark Weber. Afternoon Silver Dollar Survey Show host Dex Card was known as "the crew cut fellow in the first row."
Art Roberts, who also interviewed the Fab Four, racked up with an incredible 62% audience share at night and released an album entitled "Hip Fables." He also featured a radio serial entitled "The Wild Adventures of Peter Fugitive" featuring WLS Production Director Ray Van Steen. Like Clark Weber, Don Phillips, who hosted the East of Midnight show was also a licensed pilot. He would often fly to several record hops in the course of an evening. In 1967 Gene Taylor, now WLS' station manager, brought over a young go-getter, recently in from Boston who was doing the all-night show at Super CFL...Larry Lujack.
Dex Card - whose WLS show was naturally called the "Card Party" - replaced Bob Hale in WLS's 2-6 p.m. shift in May 1964. Card, who as a youngster used to practice being a DJ by using a hair brush as a microphone, started in Portland, Maine when a fellow announcer failed to show up for a shift. He was later drafted into the U.S. military during the Korean conflict. He served in Germany and wound up with the Armed Forces network. Card later worked at several major market stations, including WHIM in Providence, Rhode Island, WADA New York, WCOP Boston and WERE Cleveland.
One of Card's duties at WLS was to play the "Silver Dollar Survey", a ranking of the station's top hits of the week. As an added bonus, he would play the Silver Dollar Survey's #1 song from a year ago, and he was always adding tidbits about the songs and the artists, Casey Kasem style. On April 16th 1967 Dex Card could be heard dealing on WLS. [ LISTEN ] (43:21).
Card left WLS in 1967 (his replacement was Larry Lujack). The veteran jock did some fill-in work at rival WCFL and later owned stations in Wisconsin before selling them in 1989.
Card left WLS in 1967 (his replacement was Larry Lujack). The veteran jock did some fill-in work at rival WCFL and later owned stations in Wisconsin before selling them in 1989.
DJ lineup in 1969.As the 60's came to an end, the sound of WLS began to shift to an even more frenetic pace. The music changed from the happy 3 minute ditties to a harder, more psychedelic sound.
The sounds of Donovan, Strawberry Alarm Clock and The Doors began to dominate the WLS Survey. Records broke the 4 and 5 minute mark and WLS did what it could to sound contemporary. As a result, some of the personalities changed. Most of the original "Swinging Seven" had gone on to other places and a younger generation began to take hold.
WLS and Chicago welcomed new jocks Chuck Buell, Jerry Kay and Kris Erik Stevens under the direction of new PD John Rook, who arrived in 1967 and radically changed the on-air sound of WLS.
The time on WLS radio is between 1970 to 1974. Here is a composite recording of happenings, kicking off with Larry Lujack behind the mic. [ LISTEN ] (44:43) In between records Uncle Lar says to send in 50 cents for a poster of the lovely "Susan" drinking milk!
Sarcastic, grumpy, seemingly always on edge, Larry Lujack was the antithesis of the cheerful Top 40 jock. But he was also one of the most popular. Here he is on September 23, 1971. [ LISTEN ] (56:17)
WLS had been in a ratings war with rival WCFL since they signed on in 1965 and the Big 89 had "Super 'CFL" right on their tail. Rook tightened up the playlist and the on-air presentation.
Things began to head upward again. "I always insisted WLS was not a teeny bopper top forty station. Not only was the on-air disc jockey talent, the news men, but the jingles also had to sound BIG...after all WLS was "The Big 89." WLS was named "Radio Station Of The Year" by Bill Gavin of "The Gavin Report," a radio industry magazine in 1968. According to Rook, "During this period of time, no Chicago radio station out-rated WLS.
The station was number one in all Pulse and Arbitron books with a total audience of 4.2 million listeners each week". WIP Radio Philadelphia Operations Manager Tom Bigby commented, "When WGN had a 12 share, WLS had an 18." As the seventies loomed ahead, how would "The Bright Sound of Chicago" continue to balance personality and music?
In the early seventies, WLS began to lose its way. The jocks were instructed to talk less and play more music. In 1972, Larry Lujack left to return to host the afternoon shift at WCFL.
WLS DJ Frisbee promotion, 1972. Bill Bailey, Chuck Knapp, Charlie Van Dyke, Fred Winston and John Records Landecker.
1973 Charlie Van Dyke, Bill Bailey, Ted Anthony, Tommy Edwards
St. Patrick's Day 1976. Bob Sirott and John Landecker
John Landecker January 29, 1972
[ LISTEN ] (14:11)
Mike McCormick Program Director
WLS News: Paul Clark and Roy Wood ABC News: Bob Scott
PAMS Studio C Singers
[ LISTEN ] (14:11)
Mike McCormick Program Director
WLS News: Paul Clark and Roy Wood ABC News: Bob Scott
PAMS Studio C Singers
WLS Charlie Van Dyke January 2, 1973 [ LISTEN ] (19:49)
Charlie's spinning records and he's trying to name some area newborn triplets. Then he pitches a $354 Sony stereo system (with a Garrard record changer) at Pacific Music Stores.
A station composite from March 1973. [ LISTEN ] (1:00:20)
A day in the life of WLS. Includes the following, Charlie Van Dyke Morning Show, Fred Winston Afternoon Drive, JJ Jeffrey Evening Drive, John Records Landecker Evening Nights.
In the summer of 1973, 'CFL beat WLS (the only time it happened) and changes were in the air. With the ratings in jeopardy, WLS General Manager Paul Abrams promoted Production Director Tommy Edwards to Program Director, replacing Mike McCormick. He told Billboard Magazine at the time that "We've come up with, for lack of a better term, a format or a plan that I think will be successful."
Working quickly to reverse the downturn, Edwards revised and dayparted the playlist, slimmed down on the number of jingles that aired and instituted the popular Musicradio Game. He shifted afternoon jock Fred Winston to morning drive and hired future stars Bob Sirott, Steve King and Yvonne Daniels, the stations first female disc jockey. Their mission...relate more to the audience by being personalities. Jim Smith was also brought in to tighten up the playlist as Music Director.
By the fall Arbitron book, WLS had regained its crown, boasting its highest cume audience in station history. Tommy Edwards longed to return to the air and new General Manager Marty Greenberg brought in John Gehron as Program Director. Together the three helped topple WCFL's short dominance and promoted its eventual demise. The "big" had returned to The Big 89.
In the early 1970's, a music set that consisted of "A-B-C" by The Jackson 5, "Fox On The Run" by Sweet and "Handyman" by James Taylor may not have been uncommon on any Top 40 radio station in the country, but in Chicago, those songs were followed by John Records Landecker's Boogie Check and Americana Panorama. Bob Sirott's B-S Love Counselor and B-S Horoscopes as well as The Tooth Fairy and the WLS High School Team Of The Week.
"Superjock" Larry Lujack, who worked here at both ends of the seventies, began it with The Klunk Letter of The Day and ended the decade with his Cheap Trashy Showbiz Report and Animal Stories (with 'Lil Tommy Edwards) after returning from rival WCFL, who threw in the Top 40 towel in 1976. The music may have not been the greatest then, but the personalities more than made up for it!
The seventies were a time for many "firsts" at WLS Musicradio. In previous years, the station was responsible for bringing many local acts to the national stage, including The Buckinghams, New Colony Six, The Cryan Shames and The Ides of March.
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By the mid-1970s, WLS became conservative about introducing new songs, and many record promoters called it the "World's Last Station" to add new releases for airplay, usually only after the songs had reached the top 10 on Billboard's Hot 100.
The 1970s saw WLS run a Sunday night interview program called "Music People," and a new jingle package was purchased from PAMS of Dallas, "Solid Rock". The Studio C singers were used instead of the original vocal group.
As the seventies came to a close, WLS was not everybody's favorite station. Bob Sirott left for a career in television, although he briefly returned to radio at WRCK-FM. Morning news anchor Kathy McFarland also left for TV on Channel 32.
Fred Winston was let go when Larry Lujack returned, and went on to enjoy a successful run as morning guy at WFYR-FM with his former WLS cohort, newsman Lyle Dean. Steve King had left to join WIND, then jumped over to the FM side (only to return to AM a few years later with his wife Johnnie Putnam, over on WGN) and J.J. Jeffrey (like Dex Card) plunged into the world of station ownership. FM radio was slowly creeping up on WLS, but the salad days would definitely last into the mid 1980's.
Into the 1980s, WLS continued as a Top 40 formatted station. By 1985, the station evolved into more of a Hot AC format. In 1986, WLS began airing evening talk programming as its ratings were on a steady decline.
Disco began to fade away in the 80s. New wave artists such as The Human League, Devo and Thomas Dolby (as well as the reign of popsters Michael Jackson and Prince) were still a few years away from becoming mainstream. With this void, corporate rock found a resurgence in the early eighties.
Groups like Styx, Rush and REO Speedwagon were all over the radio and all over WLS. By 1981, the rock and roll product was so concentrated that several trade publications referred to WLS' format as "Rock 40." Other stations in Chicago and around the country began to (prematurely) refer to themselves as "Classic Rockers." With a heavy dosage of artists such as .38 Special, Billy Squier, Triumph, Journey and others, WLS dusted off an old moniker from the early seventies which really stuck, "The Rock of Chicago."
The station began the decade pretty much the way it had finished off the end of the seventies. Jeff Davis rang in the new year by counting down "The Big 89 of 1979" live from Old Chicago Amusement Park. The show was heavily laden with disco hits (as was the "WLS Rock Hall of Fame" earlier in the year), but for most of them, this would be the last time they would be heard on the station. Disco was just about dead, the bell began to toll for another victim - AM music radio.
By Spring 1980, disco had indeed died and the station was reformatted as an adult Top 40/Oldies mix under the calls WRCK. Bob Sirott was hired as morning man, but was unable to start for several months, due to his contractual obligations that still remained after he had left WLS at the end of 1979.
When he finally did start, he only lasted a few months before working his way out of that contract to head to television. As a result, WRCK merged again to become WLS-FM.
The music was adjusted to sound like the AM programming and morning and evening drives were simulcast. In addition to Danae Alexander, Tom Graye, Rich McMillian and Chuck Evans, Superjock Larry Lujack began the day and Brant Miller ended it from the WLS-AM studios. Steve Dahl (along with Garry Meier) returned to the station in 1981 for afternoon duty after being fired from The Loop for "assaulting community standards." They were moved to AM by 1985.
In 1986 the station changed again. This time to WYTZ (Z-95) to compete more solidly with WBBM-FM (B96). The WLS-AM airstaff vanished with the exception of Brant Miller, Susan Platt and (for a time) Jeff Davis, replaced by morning man Paul Barsky and his "Z Morning Zoo," Peter Bucalo and Greg Thunder among others.
WHO WORKED AT WLS? Here is the list: Bernie Allen, Bill Bailey, Bob Bateman, Bob Bengston, Bob Benson, Chuck Bill, Dick Biondi, Scotty Brink, Chuck Britton, Maggie Brock, Chuck Buell, Allan Burns, Dex Card, Harley Carnes, Steve Casey, Paul Clark, Bob Considine, Bob Conway, Chuck Crane, Martha Crane, Mort Crowley, Steve Dahl, Yvonne Daniels, Jeff Davis, Lyle Dean, Alex Drier, Jim Dunbar, Phil Duncan, Lon Dyson, Tommy Edwards, Bill Garcia, Paul Gardner, Gary Gears, Don Geronimo, Jerry Golden, Tom Graye, Ed Grennan, Les Grobstein, Gil Gross, Ann Marie Gulley, Bob Hale, Jim Hampton, Karen Hand, Tom Harmon, Phil Hayes, ReGina Hayes, Jeffrey Hendrix, Sam Holman, Don Hoover, J.J. Jeffrey, Catherine Johns, Jim Johnson, Jerry Kay, Brian Kelly, Joe Kelly, Mike Kelly, Tom Kent, Jim Kerr, Steve King, Chuck Knapp, John Landecker, Tom Lee, Phyllis Levy, Larry Lujack, Steve Lundy, Linda Marshall, Mike McDonald, Kathy McFarland, Rich McMillan, Garry Meier, Brant Miller, Bud Miller, Jerry Mitchell, Edward P Morgan, Don Nelson, Laurel Ornish, Don Phillips, Susan Platt, Bill Price, Ron Riley, Art Roberts, Janice Runice, Turi Ryder, Dick Sainte, Chuck Scott, Chris Shebel, Joel Sebastian, Bob Sirott, Kris Erik Stevens, Captain Stubby, Jack Swanson, Gene Taylor, Ben Tipton, Charlie Van Dyke, Don Wade, Roma Wade, Art Wallis, Clark Weber, Chuck Williams, Fred Winston, Harvey Wittenberg, Mike Wolfe, Roy Wood and Jim Wynne.
Some materials found on this page were originally published at the following: The 60s Official Site, Rock Radio Scrapbook, Airchexx, WLS History.
