The 93 KHJ-LA Complete Boss 30 - 1965

After a five-month break, AYBCS has returned to continue this series of Los Angeles Top-30 tracks. In the beginning, I thought of this as the story of LA Pop music, but I've reconsidered and realized this is the story of KHJ's Top-30. So our story begins with the first survey from July 9th, 1965. Also, I scoured all the sources I could find and was able to insert airchecks between every second song. As this series continues, I'll try to keep this standard, but getting quality airchecks is very difficult.

So we have every song that appeared in a KHJ Boss-30  in 1965.  The vast majority are original mono 45 single versions. Also, each track is tagged with the survey where the song first appeared. Airchecks are on the other side of the survey for that week. This has been a labor of love and, I gotta admit, a very difficult series to compile. But with this you'll have the most complete view of what LA radio was like at the beginning of KHJ's reign. @320, essay, tracklist, and surveys included. Thanks to everyone who shared their time and collections to help make this project even better than I could have hoped.

Introduction Kwai Chang: 1965:
It must have been strange to watch television render radio obsolete. Radio had been good to the world. It's just that regarding the context of demographics, there is no loyalty to be found within American Consumerism. Gimmicks rule supreme and ANY gimmick is a good gimmick! So how long was radio ever supposed to compete with television when TV had the gimmick of moving images? 

Luckily, no one held their breath waiting for an answer. 

Perhaps, the real lesson of radio was to show us just how ANY advance in technology is really DOOM for all that came before it. Or, is there something much less obvious-- FAR more mysterious to be learned by the hastily available legacy with a bad case of eulogy-itis? Because, as RADIO lay deceased for the proceedings of February 9, 1964...the horizon unfolded itself into an omni-directional money grab led by anything sounding British along with a sublime sense of timing that was beyond the realm of human strategy. 

Depending on when you were born, and where you lived...RADIO was about to transform itself into many things...most of them unforeseen...and many of them inevitable. But, in 1964, Radio wanted to hold my hand. It is a situation that was culturally confusing that had assembled itself(or crumbled into) from the most simple events, chronologies, voids, supplies, demands, industry protocol, and some non-protocol innocence that slipped in at the very beginning. All of these things woke up CHANGED on the morning of February 10, 1964. The Beatles' would sell many 8-Crystal Transistor Radios while Capitol Records did the honors of giving the group structural support(manufactured retail units) and the rest of the world tried to hang on for the ride. For the next year, American boredom became overwhelming...it doesn't matter what breaks the spell. By 1965, it seemed like all music came from England...and, American radio found itself in a most bemusing position. 

Thanks to television, pop music was left with an orphan known as Top-40 radio. The bonus of this situation was much the same as Los Angeles' musical identity dilemma before The Doors became its pride. Radio would now be standing on a wide-open potential that could have gone in any number of directions. And since it was happening in Los Angeles, AM radio was about to turn from B&W to COLOR. 

At the end of the really great year of 1964...American radio found itself standing over a new commodity. A parallel to Hollywood's Tinsel-Town and all that goes with the silver screen was now a wide-open horizon...to be played out on the airwaves of Southern California. Just as Los Angeles had been a musical identity void prior to The Doors...this was, even more, the case in 1965 Los Angeles radio. But, childhood must end.

So, in that, it must follow that those of the right age and in the proper locations would be able to escape into a very real magic. No fictitious realities would impose themselves upon format radio...at least, not yet. But, that's because there was a very real need to chart the territory...and decide on a navigational course to start mapping. But, for the moment, a Boy-Scout compass would suffice. 

Modern music media, Los Angeles' Musical Identity, Industry Headquarters, Trend-Setting, Fast Lane Life, The Wrecking Crew, Radio Community Function, et cetera...AND KHJ BOSS Radio were ALL being born and learning to walk, talk, to dance and...to sing...

(Well, 2-out-of-4 ain't bad)

So, what? Quidnunc? How do the lyrics really go??? And did those feet, in ancient times, walk up on....Los Angeles in 1965?

Yandex

Zippy Part 1

Zippy Part 2

Zippy Part 3