Monday, April 20, 2009

They Took A Radio Station Away From Us

It was called KIDD, on the AM dial, and it played the standards, swing music, you know like Sinatra, Nat King, Tony B., etc. It also threw in 70's style singers like Karen Carpenter. But it stood out. Here where I live, I could go up the AM dial and not find another station like it. The nearest one was 90 miles away, but its signal faded. It seemed like it would be on my presets forever. I can't say I listened to it all the time, but occasionally dialed it in to see what they were playing.
Two weeks ago they dumped the format for an oldies station. 50's-70's, billing itself as playing the Top 500 hits of the Rock era. Like the station it replaced, it too was a hard format to find on the AM dial. But the standards format was better. It played songs that you haven't heard a million times.
Of course, the change got a lot of anti-Rock letters in the paper. But at least its listeners were outraged.
You can go online or listen to a standards station on Sirius. But its not the same. For many of us, KIDD was right there, a click away in our car radio. On the AM dial. The great voices of the past coming at us as if it were the swing era all over again.
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