Rock & Roll

Rock & Roll music. Whether you were a jock or a geek, a brainiac or a nerd, this was the common language we all spoke and the one thing we all related to while we were in high school at Father Ryan from the fall of 1965 to the spring of 1969.

If you grew up in Nashville in the late 50s through the 1960s, you must remember the keen competition for listeners between 1300 AM WMAK and 1240 AM WKDA. The Good Guys versus the All-Americans. Now some people might have been so loyal they only listened to one of the stations, largely because they liked one or more of the D.J. (disc jockeys) there.

But I think most of us just switched back and forth, largely based on whether we liked the song was playing at that instant. Either way, the competition was a great boon for local listeners, and made listening to the radio one of the main things we did at nights and on the weekends as well as to and from school each day( although we likely needed our parents'permission to control the radio when one of them did the driving).



So what are your memories of listening to Scott Shannon or Noel Ball? How about Captain Midnight or Allen Dennis? Please feel free to leave your thoughts and memories below or send them to me at pat.nolan@dvl.com.

If you need some help to prod your memory check out this website that is promoting a new book now available about the history of radio and TV broadcasting in Nashville.

http://www.nashvillebroadcastinghistory.com/

I can highly reccomend the book which is written by Lee Dorman, who himself once worked for WKDA (look very closely at the WKDA Hits List above.That's Lee's picture at the very bottom. You will also find lots of memories of long ago days in Nashville TV looking through the website as well.