Wake up in 1974 this New Year’s Day
December 27, 2013Wake up this New Year’s Day and tie a yellow ribbon around your old oak tree, cue your funky bass line and wear your widest collar. WRCT-FM (88.3) will once again celebrate the new year by returning to the golden age of glorious AM radio when it flashes back to the 1970s.
In a sickening radio tradition that’s now in its 11th stultifying year, WRCT’s resident oldies guru, Jay Thurber, will roll back the clock 40 years on Wednesday, Jan. 1, to count down the top tunes of 1973.
This year’s broadcast will air from 9 a.m. to 12 noon and also will be available online at www.wrct.org.
On Jan. 1, 2014, Jay will fire up the six-cylinder flux capacitor in WRCT’s time-traveling AMC Hornet, speed down Forbes Avenue at 88.3 MPH, and head for Carnegie Mellon’s old student union, Skibo Hall, in 1974, when the station was still at 900 kHz AM.
Kindly Uncle Jay, Your Radio Pal™, who hosts an oldies program on WRCT on Saturday afternoons (www.jaythurbershow.com), will count down the top songs of 1973, interspersed with news reports, commercials and other announcements.
The “number one song of 1973” — as calculated by Jay from a completely scientific (ha! ha!) formula — will be unveiled just before 12 noon.
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Owned by the students of Carnegie Mellon, WRCT-FM is staffed entirely by campus and community volunteers. Broadcasting 24 hours per day at 1,750-watts on the FM dial, WRCT’s signal reaches all of Allegheny County and parts of three adjoining counties.
Its programming includes all types of music, Carnegie Mellon sports, public-service and educational shows such as “The Saturday Light Brigade,” as well as news from the Pacifica Network. The station signed on at 900 AM in 1949 and moved to the FM dial in March 1974.
