Do you remember CKLW Detroit I DO!
 

This radio station rock back in the day Rock and Roll. Music and Cars anyone that listen to that station it was #1. Just like Detriot. I wish it was that way today! Detroit #1,
As Born In the USA We need do bring it back HOME!

CKLW eTc
 

<BOOMING BASS voice> CKLW 20 20 News! </BOOMING BASS voice>

If there was ever a venue and voice to broadcast the end of the world, CKLW was there and always ready.

Just another part of my environment

like "Sunday! Sunday! See the top fuel eliminators........." Another Detroit radio voice

:usa2:

I listened to CKLW every day of my life back then. I can still hear the jingle in my head: CKLW....The MOTOR CITY.

50 kw power
 

CKLW used to be a clear channel station and packed quite a whallop both in power and content which made it big all over the midwest (on a good evening)
It was tamed down and toned down years ago and the clear channel right to broadcast with 50kw went elsewhere in its network

Radio used to be very big in Detroit. But now there seems to be one station left that can carry the load (50KW and everything else) WJR

LOL, I hear that jingle in my head whenever I think of those call letters.
When I was in grade school in the 60's and early 70's that was THE station to listen to.
The school bus driver had it on all the time, and they played the same top 40 songs in the same order every morning. Thats how us kids could tell if the bus was running late or early.
I can still remember a few of the songs we'd hear, like "Tie a yellow ribbon", "Have you ever been mellow", "Uncle Albert", "Cracklin' Rosie",and "Band of gold".
CKLW is still 800 AM, isn't it?

Memories of CKLW
 

All through the 60's, growing up near Toledo, I used up a whole bunch of those 9 volt batteries listening to Rock 'n Roll and "Soul" hits on CKLW played through a little Coronado "6 Transistor" radio that I bought at the Western Auto Store. I usually listened in bed at night. About half the time I would wake up the next morning with a nearly dead radio battery.
Two things are kinda funny about all that time I spent listening to CKLW......

1) I was nearly 40 years old before I learned to spell GRATIOT.

2) Little Richard, The Supremes, The Temptations, Marvin Gaye, ....I listened to all of them, and all the while I imagined them as "white folks". Wow did I have a surprise when I finally saw some photos of them. ( I was dead-on with imagining Elvis though. )

Only our grandparents listened to WJR...."The Great Voice of the Great Lakes" !!!

:o

I grew up with them too. http://www.smilieshq.com/smilies/happy0001.gif

Well, get ready to unlock those memories, and hear those famous call letters again.....

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9uJ83...om=PL&index=27

http://www.smilieshq.com/smilies/happy0180.gif

WJR: Not your grandparents station anymore, it's yours.
 

I found that as my career with GM continued, WJR was my primary source for "business news" and for most of those years it was pretty good news. In the light of recent events, I think most of that news was self serving propaganda from the dealers, executives and politicians who were constantly heard on WJR. "The great voice of the auto industry" Do the math

CKLW:
 

Just wondering if you all realize that CKLW is actually a Canadian station? Just my .02 cents worth.

As a youngster growing up in the Lansing area, the big boomers were CKLW and WLS from Chitown. When my family moved to the thumb area of MI in '68, CKLW became my AM rock 'n roll provider of choice. Wasn't Byron McGregor the newscaster on CKLW during the '60s and '70s?

As the '70s progressed, AM fell out of favor and FM album-rock stations came into vogue. WHNN out of Bay City/Saginaw was one of my faves.

The only times I listened to WJR at that time was to hear how the Tigers were doing. We could pull WJR in from as far away as the eastern UP of MI. I expecially remember listening to WJR a lot during the summer of '68 as the Tigers were making their run for the pennant and the World Championship. Now I listen to WJR about 75% of the time I have the radio on.

CKLW was revived in the late 90s as a oldies station, however it didn't last very long. I lived in Erie Pa in the time frame 60s-70s and remember that CKLW was the only station to listen to. When you heard the 20/20 news with the tickertape in the backround, you knew there was late breaking headlines coming.

There are quite a few CKLW video bites on Youtube as well as some interviews with the people that made CKLW what it was back then. And some of the commercials and jingles from back in the day. FRIDAY SATURDAY SUNDAY at Motor City Dragway........... Good stuff.

Yes! I remember that, too (lol).

Yep, amazing times. That, and again when they won in 1984.

K

Heh, heh - as you know, we live in one of the few places where you have to drive south to go to Canada...

:D

Other Day I found a great chart of the Commercial radio for 1977
Republished here as a gift to the Detroiters and those who have escaped.


Detroit Radio Spectrum Wed May 18th 1977

AM
55
560 WHNE Golden Oldies
580 CKWW MOR
60
65
75
760 WJR Variety
800 CKLW Top 40
85
950 WWJ News
100
1090 WIID Ethic
1130 WCAR News
120
1270 WXYZ MOR
1310 WNIC MOR
1340 WEXL Inspirational
140 1400 WJLB Black
1430 WBRB Variety
1440 WCHB Black
1460 WPON MOR,Black CW
1500 WDEE Mod Country
1550 CBE Variety


FM listing will be later.
Enjoy, My friends

Here's a link to a pretty good website devoted to "Big 8" CKLW.

http://www.thebig8.net/

This is a forzen (non-maintained) site, so some of the links on the stie are dead. However, there is a great deal of information regarding the station's history and personnel.

I was just a little bit too far south...If it was late at night and atmospheric conditions were just right though, I'd be listening.
http://www.detroitradioflashbacks.ne...lay/am800.html

Yep. I sure do. I grew up listening to CKLW.
In my area the two top 40 stations on the AM dial were CKLW and WTAC, a much smaller station, out of Flint Michigan.
As a kid, I never figured out that CKLW was really a Canadian station since they were so interwoven into our local culture at the time.
A few years ago, I bought a DVD about CKLW:
Radio Revolution. The rise and fall of the big 8.
I saw it when it was aired on Public Television and I had to have a copy.
Anyway, watching the DVD triggered a whole bunch of fragment memories and tibits that have been bouncing around in my wee little brain for all these years since the demise of CKLW.

I loved their jingle....."CKLW, the motor city"..............

Yes, CKLW was actually in Windsor Ontario, it could be picked up in almost all of Ontario, so strong was their signal. Remember Dick Purtan on the air; remember "..Sibly at Dix..."I think that was the location of a race track in Detroit, I remember their 'buy a car ' campaign when a recession hit Detroit in the early 70's. Most Canadian radio stations' call letters began with C vs American ones that began with W..as in WKRP or K in the western states. They also had an advertiser who said"...sell a lot of cars at a little loss and make a profit on volume..." don't recall who or what make. We can still pick them up from here...about 200 miles north...but they sure are different. I do wonder though, how they perceived themselves as "..the motor city..!" since at the time I don't think there were many engines being built in Windsor. Seems they wanted the listener to believe they were in Detoit. Was a catchy jingle though. Now, where is my Sony pocket transistor..! Ben.

At night, I used to listen to CKLW-Windsor, WBZ-Boston, WKBW-Buffalo, WLS-Chicago, WABC-NY and, occasionally WWVA from Wheeling WVA when I was growing up in NE PA. They were all clear channel, 50kw R&R stations except for WWVA. They came in better than the 5000 watt station in Scranton, 20 miles away. I listened to WABC in basic in Ft Jackson, SC on a pocket radio. That's got to be close to 800 miles. I've also picked up CKLW in the Mississippi River in LA.

In the early days of the Sony transistor, you would ask a nearby classmate if you could get a better look at it and then wait for a certain agravation indicator from the teacher,
On the signal, the radio is turned on, to highest volume and returned to the original owner, who panicked and tried to figure out how the turn it off and avoid the teacher's searching eye as she tried to determine the identity of her tormentor.