"A-O-R"

         My first long-term job (career?) I had after college was working at a radio station, doing Morning Drive on the air.

That Oak Ridge Boys song discussed here recently, "I Wish You Could Have Turned My Head (And Left My Heart Alone)" had what they call a "cold open" - there was no instrumental at the start of the record, the singing just starts.

        We played the songs from what were called ":45s" - the little records with two songs, one on each side.

        When you were on the air, you could tell how much instrumental was at the start of the song by looking on the label part in the center of the record where it would be written in magic marker.  

:17 if there were 17 seconds of instrumental before the singing began,

:10 if there were 10 seconds,

etc.

That Oak Ridge Boys record said 

:00

on the front, so when you pulled the lever to start the song, you'd better not be talking.

That was something I learned right away when the guy in charge was teaching me how to be on-air.  It was an AM radio station, so you were supposed to keep talking, giving information, just chatting, keep it lively, so to speak, so when there was instrumental leading up to the singing, you could talk over it.

        I was just a year out of college; for the past five years in Boston, I had been listening to WBCN, a rock-and-roll station with offices and studios located near Copley Square.

        That was an FM station, and they didn't talk over any part of any song.

        So, learning to be an AM disc jockey was a bit of a contrast.

The guy training me in the evenings (after my other full-time job I was at during the day) had me go into the studio by myself and play some records and do part of a "show" but I wasn't actually on the air.  I could talk and play records and commercials, and try to do everything right, but it was practice, not on-air.

        We did record it, however. so we could listen to it later.

        That was called an "air-check."

When we listened to it in the next training session, he said to me, "OK, you've been listening to too much A-O-R."

I was thinking, 'Well, I will stop immediately. - Wait, what the heck is A-O-R??'

I asked him what that is, and he said, "Album Oriented Rock."

And yes, that would be the format of WBCN, for sure.

        (Some songs, there's a single version and an album version.  AM stations play the single; album oriented stations play the version off the album.  

        For example, I have a couple of Fleetwood Mac CDs that have first the album; and then after it, the single versions of several of the songs.)

        The DJ who was doing my training said my style of speaking in the air-check was ok, but not right for AM Radio, especially for the Morning Show.  You have to be upbeat and energetic.

        The next air-check I did, he listened and his response was somewhere along the lines of - "Good, but try not to sound like you've been using cocaine."  (In other words, I tried so hard, I sounded too energetic....)

Mark Parenteau, WBCN D.J. we listened to in Boston, late '70s

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