Hi Scott.

Nice job on the old WLS. I have great memories of the days of good radio. I have spent the last 30 years on the air myself. Former PD /MD for WJJD Chicago. Tell J-Bird, at 'LS to keep smiling. And that Denny Farrell said hello. I'm still playing all that great Swing and Jazz on the air. Check it out if you care to.

My Best,
-Denny Farrell

www.bostonpete.com/dennyfarrell/

 

 

   

WOW what a great site!!!!! I teach music in Winfield Illinois. One of our final projects for our General Music class is to research and find a top10 form an important date in their or their parents lives, print the list and make a compilation of the music to give to that person. Will you soon have the surveys available on-line so we can find specific dates for each survey. I know it is a huge task and I am currently building a resource database for my kids. I WILL be directing them to this site for future reference.

Thanks for all of your future help to the students at Winfield School.

-Bob Siemienkowicz, 
Director of Music Winfield School District 34

Bob, you can find all the surveys through an agreement we have set up with Bill Danning and his Oldiesloon. They can be found here in the WLS Survey section. 
 ~Scott

 

 

   

Hello,

I love Eileen Byrne!  Her honesty and straightforwardness.

-Iris E. Jagiello

Eileen Replies: "Thank you for telling me! That's really nice. Sometimes I wonder about how open I should be...but it's great to get some positive feedback!" -- Eileen

 

 

   

Scott-

Great website.  It took me back to the early 70's, sitting in my Dad's pickup, tuning in to WLS to hear all the great music that was coming into "my world" from "out there."

I grew up in a very small town in Western Kansas, and all I listened to religiously, was WLS and AM1520 KOMA out of Oklahoma City.  WLS rocked the most, though, and the music I heard then was my "training" for later becoming a touring musician on the road in the 80's to current.

Until I started playing gigs on New Year's Eve, the absolute THING to do, was sit and talk on the phone with my girlfriend, while we both listened to the Big 89 countdown on New Year's Eve.  I can still hear her radio through the phone, with mine turned down low so Mom & Dad wouldn't hear me up that "late," and so I could hear her talk.  We lived for those times.  For three years, '79, '80, & '81, we would do the same thing, and then, the following year, her dad would let her sit in the car with me in their driveway, while we listened to the year-end show.  My first car...My first girlfriend...and WLS.

She has since passed away, but I will always remember those countdowns.  The thing that we waited for with great anticipation was the countdown medley of songs that would play "bites" from the previous years countdowns, through the current year.

Thanks for your time...I appreciate all you've been doing.  May God bless you and your family in the approaching new year, and all the years to come.

-Terry Wright
Topeka, Kansas

 

 

   

Good Afternoon:

I came across the WLS History site when trying to find out where Bob Lassiter might be these days. I used to listen to him daily and was disappointed when I moved from the area and came back to find Bob was no longer with WLS. Your site brought back so many memories. There's nothing I could say to you in an email that you probably haven't read a million times from others. So, I'll just say thanks for helping me to remember some of the people I spent so much time with on my commutes back and forth to work and on trips from my office in Ft Wayne, IN to Michigan City, IN. I've listened to WLS since the 60's, and it's been a part of the lives of millions. I remember so many of you who made WLS the only station I listened to.

Not too long ago I came across a cassette I made, probably back in 1969 or thereabouts. It's got the song "I'm Into Something Good" by Herman's Hermits, and then the WLS DJ comes on afterward...and for whatever reason, I taped the weather report that came on immediately following that (was a cold night in Chicago...imagine that!).

Have a great holiday season and a safe and prosperous new year, Scott.

Thanks again!

-Larry Dickens
Ft. Wayne, Indiana

 

 

   

Scott, 

A great piece of work, it evoked many memories I believe somewhere in my attic there is a shoe box full of every WLS Silver Dollar Survey from 1963 until whenever you stopped printing them. Art Roberts' "Top Three Phone Requests" at 10 PM, the Weber-Riley feud, Larry Lujack's first show-I grew up here in Chicago with all of that! Made some profound impressions on me, and is probably responsible for my love for music 

-KE
Elmhurst, Illinois

 

 

   

Scott-

A long time ago when I was a child, my mother introduced me to something new; WLS, Rock and Roll, Larry Lujack, 'little Snotnosed' Tommy and John 'records' Landecker, and Bennie and the Jets.  It forever changed my life, and gave me an appreciation for music.  I can still hear the jingle, and the parady of Richard Nixon's "I am not a crook", even though it seems lifetimes away now.  And even when I traveled away from my hometown of Beloit Wisconsin, on a good night I could still faintly make out the station, even though I was hundreds of miles away.  It was still there reminding me that home was never that far away.  When WLS changed formats to Talk Radio, it was truly the end of an era.  Gone were the strains of Chicago's 'Saturday, in the park.'  The magic faded.  Tonight, on a whim, I searched the internet and came across your pages.  It is great to see that someone realizes the importance of that history, and what WLS has meant over the years to so many people, such as myself.  And if you even hear from Larry, John or Tommy, please tell them that they are remembered, and missed.

My deepest thanks !

-Michael Grey 
WLS Listener, 1967 - 1983

 

 

 

 

 

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