590 MIGHTY MEMORY #482

PHOTO INDEX: WARM'S NORM HILL.

A WARM CHRISTMAS MEMORY

First off, I have been fortunate to have never had a bad Christmas. Through pain, personal loss, chemo therapy, crazy things that happened to me, I can honestly say I never had a bad Christmas. But there was one year in the early 1990s when I was having one of those holiday seasons where everything was going wrong. No matter how hard I tried, there was no way I could please anyone. It was Christmas Eve and I was down. Naturally I had my radio on after having to work on Christmas Eve. Driving home my car stopped. Electrical failure. . Christmas Eve, 4:45Pm, a few miles away from my house. Thank goodness I was near a pay phone. I hoofed it to the phone and called Triple A. I had one quarter left. Earlier in the radio, before the car fiasco I was listening to Norm Hill on WARM. Norm hosted “The WARM Hall Of Fame Show” from 7 to midnight for a while. Later he worked in traffic, did mid morning and was also a swing man. Norm was saying on the air how much he missed being home on Christmas Eve. (WARM then went with pretaped Christmas music after the 6PM newscast) So with the change I had left, I called Norm. We had been familiar with each other because of my appearances on WARM for public relations projects I had been working on. Norm had also done some voice overs for me too. I explained to Norm my situation and after he asked if he could help, I told him I had the car situation under control but that if he wanted he could play something for me, hell for us, two guys stranded on Christmas Eve. When I got back to the car, Norm was still in commercial break but when he came back on the air he said, “This song goes out to a good friend of WARM Radio, Dave Yonki who will, sooner or later like me, be home for Christmas”. The auto club came and I did get to my destination but the great thing was WARM played a song that made me laugh out loud, made me smile and think that “Hey this is still Christmas Eve!” My problems were minor compared to the stuff other people were trying to handle. And WARM Radio, whether it was Norm Hill or any of the talented jocks who commanded the airwaves was there to fill the void in whatever Christmas spirit was missing. After all these years, I remember Norm Hill, this incident and especially this song that came on WARM, the Mighty 590 during that challenging Christmas Eve trek home.

590 MIGHTY MEMORY #483

PHOTO INDEX: LOIS KOMENSKY AND DAVID LISCOV AT THE ST. JOHN'S FORMAL. CLASS OF 1970 BOYS CHORUS AT ST. JOHN'S CHRISTMAS CONCERT. (PHOTOS COURTESY CHARLES DAVENPORT, ST. JOHN'S CLASS OF 1970).

WARM, CHRISTMAS & THE KIDS

This weekend WARM Radio “True Oldies Channel” will feature the most spectacular Christmas songs of all time. Listening to the promos, I thought about those holidays past and how WARM played a major role in them. WARM had Christmas promotions and shopping sprees. (Mrs. 590 Forever won a trip in the 90s). WARM also promoted incessantly Christmas high school concerts. Now they did not rebroadcast them, that would be breaking format but they would promote the dickens (no pun intended) out of them on the PSBB. Another thing WARM did, way before it was fashionable and on everyone’s radar screen was the pleas to teen drivers to be cautious while going to those Christmas proms. Most likely you heard this Public Service Ad during every Prom Season but WARM made a special effort to promote safe driving in these and all other high traffic times for teeners.

And most likely you heard this song on WARM Radio every Christmas. Our pictures are courtesy of Charles Davenport an avid WARM listener. The year Charles graduated St. John’s (Class of 1970) Jose Feliciano debuted this Christmas classic.

590 MIGHTY MEMORY #484

PHOTO INDEX: JOEY SHAVER CIRCA 1966.

GREAT GOOD NIGHTS

We got a question from a reader of the WARM blog. Shirley Marquez asks:
For years, back in the days when radio stations actually went off the air late at night, Joey Shaver always played a recording of "Goodnight My Love" as his last song. I haven't been able to identify whose version he played; can you or somebody out there help?
Back in the mid 60s, WARM personalities not only had a sign on theme, they also had an end theme. George Gilbert had the Lettermen I believe doing an outro, and up until maybe 1968 Joey Shaver ended each nightly broadcast with the classic hit from 1954 called "Goodnight My Love" Shaver played it at the end of his shift making way for the all night deejay. Here's Jesse Belvin and "Goodnight My Love".

590 MIGHTY MEMORY #485

PHOTO INDEX: JOEY SHAVER AT THE KINGSTON ARMORY, CIRCA 1967.

WAR AND WARM

WARM Radio did its part for the troops during the Vietnam War. As our nation fights an unadvertised war in Afghanistan in this century, in the 60s WARMland's young men and women wound up in Vietnam. There are countless stories about parents and brothers and sisters and cousins sending reel tapes of the WARM personalities to their loved ones overseas. In the fall of 1967 WARM Radio was at a business event at the Kingston Armory (it was the annual Wilkes Barre Chamber of Commerce trade show). WARM's Joey Shaver manned a booth asking people if they wanted to send a taped message to one of the overseas patriots. As with everything WARM did back then, it was wildly successful. And it didn't cost much to set up some equipments and garner the good will of listeners far and wide/. No matter what your political persuasion, what your opinion about the war, WARM reached out to those families who had someone fighting and sometimes dying in that long ago conflict.

Here are two of the songs WARM played, two different philosophies if you will during this time period in American history: