| IT'S ALL
ABOUT THE MUSIC
K-99's target audience was the serious
music fan, the listener who considered his music as something more than
just three-minute wallpaper. K-99 truly was "the hippest guy in the
room", and was a trusted friend on the radio. "The new Kansas
album? It just hit the stores, and you'll hear it tracked in its
entirety tonight ... on Your Album Station, K-99."
Dan Brennan - K-99's Station Manager
- was quoted in the December 1976 News article as saying, "Typically
a listener who is 'into' music calls, tells how much he likes the large
amount of music played and appreciates the elimination of 'cute' comments
by the DJs."
As a matter of fact, K-99 was the first
station in Birmingham to use a technology in widespread use (and misuse)
today: voice-tracking! That's right, the announcers
of K-99 prerecorded most of their breaks and programmed the music, which
was all recorded to 10-inch reels of tape and sequenced with the commercials,
which played from cartridges ("carts" as they were known in the radio biz)
stored into slots which loaded into the automation system's player as needed.
So K-99 was canned. It was artificial.
Everything we shake our fist at and curse about radio today. Then
why do we all remember the station so fondly, and, nearly a quarter-century
since its demise, miss it terribly?
Easy. Few at the time even knew K-99
was automated. And the way the format was set up (did you ever notice
the jocks never talked over the intros or endings of songs? Yup,
that was intentional!), being pre-recorded took nothing away from the presentation!
You see, FM rock stations of the '70s didn't have a whole lot of personality.
And that was the nature of the beast; the music took center stage.
Besides, FM positioned itself as an alternative to the loud, in-your-face
jocks and constant patter and chatter of AM top-40
There was a reason one of K-99's slogans
was "The Alternative."
More importantly, K-99 was the spark which
launched a tidal wave of change in Birmingham radio. Immediately,
its two parttime competitors felt the heat. Birmingham's original
progressive outlet, WJLN, soon changed its call letters to WZZK
(curiously, just one letter removed from legendary Jackson, Miss. FM rock
station WZZQ). Then, the rock 'n' roll ended at 104.7 on the
dial, and WZZK became Birmingham's first FM country music station.
The rest is history.
And "Stereo Rock 'ERC-FM"? Its AM
station unable to completely dominate over WSGN, the boys on Second Avenue
retooled the FM to have a go at it. WERC-FM had a new transmitter
installed, power raised to match K-99's 100,000 watts, and in August 1977
changed its callsign to WKXX. The Magic City was introduced
to a high energy top-40 station called KICKS 106.
"Birmingham's FM", as they called themselves,
was 100% live, with strong personalities, all the hits and - at the beginning
- some album cuts, too. The album cuts wouldn't last, and by 1978,
KICKS not only would be an FM hit music giant ... it would go on to blow
both AM rivals out of the water (yes, even their own sibling WERC-AM across
the hall!).
And KICKS 106 would present a formidable
opponent for K-99. While both stations had their own different styles,
playlists and target audiences, they battled it out for dominance over
Birmingham. That competition -- slightly reminiscent of the old 'SGN/'ERC
wars -- made for two fantastic stations.
In the middle of all this renaissance,
WAPI-FM made a change of its own. Unable to compete against two high-profile
rock stations with its automated Bill Drake-consulted "light rock", 94.5
made a kneejerk change to 'beautiful music', giving Birmingham two stations
to choose from when riding in elevators (WQEZ 96.5, FM sister to
"good music" station WCRT-AM, was the city's 'heritage' easy listening
outlet).
Oh, and what about "The Mighty 690"?
The same day K-99 was launched, WVOK had played its last top-40 record.
WVOK "went country." Birmingham would go from having one major country
station to three: WYDE, WVOK and WZZK(FM). Joe Rumore, at
last, was in his musical element. WVOK did very well over the next
several years in the country column.
In less than two years, FM dethroned AM
in Birmingham. And K-99 started it all.
NEW CALL
LETTERS, NEW COMPETITION, NEW OWNERS, NEW ... FORMAT
In 1979, the Brennan family sold WVOK-AM
690 to Mack Sanders. The WVOK call letters remained with the
AM (largely because of what we'd today call "brand familiarity"), but due
to the now separate ownership, new call letters were required for K-99.
WVOK-FM became WRKK. But nothing changed except for those letters
heard at the top of every hour. K-99 continued to rock and roll,
bringing us Jazz Night each week, the nightly Side
Show - an album tracked in its entirety, the daily commercial-free
music hour known as Avondale Park, the hip news segments
called News Blimp, and recordings of rock's best concerts.
And Dan Brennan and company now had just
one station on which to concentrate their energies. 1980 was a landmark
year for K-99, as the station became nationally recognized because of the
Rolling
Stone magazine annual Readers' Poll. There's a category
called "Best Radio Station", and that year, K-99 came into the top
ten. And that was competing with all the great album rock stations
around the country, such as KSHE/St. Louis, WNEW/New York,
KMET/Los
Angeles, and others. K-99 in Birmingham was now regarded as one of
the nation's best rock stations.
But things weren't destined to last.
Cashing in on K-99's incredible popularity and acclaim, sudden competition
came from an unexpected corner: WAPI-FM! The station made yet another
kneejerk change, and in 1981, 94.5 whiplashed itself from 'Muzak' to become
Birmingham's second AOR station, calling itself 95-ROCK.
95-ROCK was more or less a clone of Atlanta
station 96-ROCK. The new WAPI-FM had live personalities, a
harder-edged playlist, and had the "rock attitude." It's hard to
put ones' finger on what exactly that 'attitude' is, but you knew it when
you heard it. K-99, meanwhile, was staying the course as a broad-based
album rock station, with laid-back announcers and little in the way of
personality. Sadly, to the average AOR listener in the 1980s, the
sound of K-99 was no longer in vogue. Birmingham rock listeners appeared
to be dazzled by the bling of 95-ROCK, forgetting that K-99's music mix
was locally created ... as opposed to WAPI-FM's consultant-driven sound.
And it didn't take long for K-99 to blink,
either. In 1982, the Brennan family sold K-99 to a company whose
stations were all country. And on August 23, 1982, K-99 bowed out
of the rock race to take on WZZK as Birmingham's second FM country station,
soon changing its call letters to WQUS, and its nickname to "US-99."
Such a change was hardly unexpected, as
a city the size of Birmingham could not support two album rock stations
for a long period of time.
EPILOGUE
Today, many baby-boomers reminisce about
K-99 with a wistful fondness. Sometimes this writer wonders what
might've happened had K-99 changed its presentation to take on 95-ROCK
and reasserted itself as Birmingham #1 rock station (although I imagine
it might've been viewed by many as 'selling out'). K-99 let
the music speak, while retaining enough personality to keep listeners attuned
to what was going on. (After all, without the jocks and personality,
all you have is an iPod with commercials!)
Maybe this was all for the better.
We remember K-99 for what it was, and -- just as importantly -- what it
wasn't.
But what did 95-ROCK do after unseating
K-99? Less than 18 months later, 94.5 would begin edging out of AOR,
going toward top-40 to compete with KICKS-106. Soon WAPI-FM would
be calling itself I-95. And Birmingham would be without an
album rock station for several years.
Today, what's left of album rock are stations
playing "Free Bird" and "Stairway to Heaven" 39 times a day, and subjecting
listeners to syndicated dreck like John Boy & Billy.
Listening to 99.5 today makes me long for
what used to be there (kinda like punching up AM 610, but that's another
feature!). To those reading this who are too young to remember, who post
on radio-related message boards about how terrible Birmingham radio is
(I've read many of these rants), I can't help but want to holler back at
my monitor, "IT DIDN'T USE'TA BE THIS WAY!" 30 years ago, Birmingham
had one of the hottest and most exciting radio landscapes in the country.
And K-99 was right out front of it.
To my young whippersnappers, I say this:
"K-99 was a cool station. You had to have been there."
Text by Russell Wells
K-99 MAIN
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