By Terry Barr
Before music streaming, there were CD’s, cassettes, 8-tracks, 33, 45, and 78 records, The Sony Walkman, Apple iPods, and of course, AM and FM radio.
Birmingham has a storied radio history but there was one radio station I heard about while sitting in the back of my church.
It was fall, 1974. I was home from the University of Montevallo for the weekend, and on that Saturday night—still warm for late September or early October—as I was preparing to meet some friends, I heard words that literally stilled my soul:
“This will be my last show,” the voice said. “On Monday, the station is changing formats.”
Of course I knew that radio stations did this occasionally. I remembered when WERC shifted from some banal middle-of-the-road playlist (about as Pop as they got were songs by The Association and The Fifth Dimension) to Pop/Rock. “The Big Switch,” they called it, and on a Sunday at noon, the switch meant that “Ticket to Ride” could be followed by “Hold Your Head Up.”
I also remember my father lamenting that yet another station that played “your music” had infiltrated his car radio, leaving him only WCRT, which played big band and other standards from Dad’s youth, to WAPI, which played, well really, who remembers what they played?
I should have been kinder to Dad. Didn’t he deserve a few stations, since now “we” had WERC, WSGN, WVOK (50,000 watts!), and maybe even WAQY was still around.
But greed affects even the otherwise most considerate of us.
So call what happened with WZZK, which had formerly been WJLN-FM, a karmic payback. And yes, even in my devastation, I realized that the universe does like to play these little tricks on us [In full disclosure, when I lamented this change in life’s circumstances to my father, he actually was sympathetic, even if he had no idea what “Free Form, Underground FM” meant.]
Free Form. Underground. FM. No playlist.
To my memory, WJLN-FM (sister station to WJLD-AM, one of B’ham’s soul stations) began its progressive shows with a DJ named Father Tree, whose time slot was usually the evening—after 6 PM, though I can’t be sure because I listened only once or twice given that I was still a Top 40 junkie. Father Tree was a legend, and that has to be true because I first heard about him in that most scared of spaces, the back row of our church, during service.
FM radio was a novelty even in the early 70s. I remember when WBRC-FM (106.9) decided to play a rock and roll format, with every other hit being “solid gold.” Later, WAPI-FM did something similar, though what I think is that everything they played early on was an oldie. Stunning, too, was the day my father bought a new car with an AM/FM radio, though he continued listening purely to AM.
As good of a memory as I have, however, I cannot for the life of me remember the first time I really tuned into WJLN (104.9), and even more to my sadness, I don’t remember what my motivation was other than I had likely grown tired of not being as cool as my friends who lived for bands like Wishbone Ash, Cactus, Humble Pie, and, of course, Black Sabbath.
I wasn’t against tuning in a progressive station, but I did think doing so would mark me, would put me in danger, would make me want to…
smoke pot.
At some point WJLN started programming Free Form Progressive basically all day—from 9AM till at least 10 PM. I think on this now and understand that they either thought they had enough support in the Birmingham community to do so, or they understood that their FM frequency was only simulcasting the AM to a lot of dead listener air.
So it was a summer, and let’s call it 1972. I worked for my father at the wholesale jewelry store he managed, my job being to box up and price new merchandise or reprice older stock. That I made $1.65 an hour doing this still amazes me, though in the moment, my weekly wage afforded me a rash of new 45s and then, real 33 and 1/3 LPs. Sure, I saved for college, too, which even in 1972 seemed a distant forever.
I sat in a back office, away from the other clerks and billers. I didn’t mind, because in that office was an old-fashioned tube radio that took its time warming up, but then allowed me to tune in to whatever program I wanted. So in that summer, I decided to try WJLN, which was relatively commercial free, given that most of the ads were for head shops, record stores, and a place called The Angry Revolt.
Radio with no set format, no robotic playlist, felt like floating, except that I had never heard of half the bands making it on air: The Michael Quatro Jam Band, for one. Manfred Mann’s Earth Band, for another, though I figured this had to be the same Manfred who hit with “The Mighty Quinn” back in the mid-60s. Maybe their song “Buddha” did have a kinship to Quinn. I always wondered.
They would also play entire album sides and/or fifteen minute songs like Yes’s “Close to the Edge.” What I particularly loved, though, was that they took requests, and I don’t mean that, like AM, someone would call in and request “Down on the Corner,” a song that was already in rotation and so would have to be played anyway, request or not.
No.
I called in often, requesting Neil Young and Buffalo Springfield tunes. It felt so personal to request “Bluebird” and then hear it come through the radio maybe five minutes later.
One of my best memories, though, was the day after I watched an ABC Tuesday Movie of the Week, a script adapted from a book about a teenaged girl who got heavily into drugs. The film was titled Go Ask Alice, and during it “Alice” listened to a haunting song that I vaguely knew, or at least I knew it was by Jefferson Airplane, a band I thought, again, was too out there and scary. Did I think they were they too hippieish? Too “revolutionary?” Too into drugs? Or was it Grace Slick’s voice, which certainly did haunt my dreams?
So the following day, I called in to WJLN and requested the title I thought was correct: “Go Ask Alice.” The DJ, Bob Gilmore, was his usual friendly self. In fact, whenever he introduced himself, he added, “Your friend” to the “Bob Gilmore.”
“Sure man, I’ll get that on soon.”
And when he played it, by request, he didn’t add that the kid who requested it didn’t know that the song was really called “White Rabbit.”
A kid would remember such a gesture, for sure.
And, of course, that song was about drugs, and Alice in Wonderland.
The other main DJ, the morning guy, was “Brother Bill Levy.” Bill was nice enough though always a bit distant. I loved his voice, and sure, I wanted to be as cool as he was. My memory says that he had the hippie banter down well, but loved nothing more than to get on air and treat the rest of us to a deeper cut from Vanilla Fudge or New Riders of the Purple Sage.
I listened faithfully to the station in those years. It eventually changed its call letters to WZZK, and sometimes the DJs even referred to it as Z-104. They never formatted anything regular, though, and up until the very end, they were playing The Band, or Jethro Tull, and even The Moody Blues.
I know. This sounds like a Classic rock station, except classic rock stations now won’t play the ten-minute version of “Cowgirl in the Sand,’ will they?
So it was Bob Gilmore I called after he announced the end.
It was Bob Gilmore who informed me, with utter distaste, that the station was going “country” (in hindsight, a very shrewd business decision).
And it was Bob Gilmore who played the very last song I ever heard on the only progressive free form FM station I ever heard in the Birmingham of the early 1970s, or ever.
The song was by The Moody Blues, from their LP To Our Children’s Children’s Children.
A song called, “Watching and Waiting.”
And for many years after, that’s what I did.
If anyone knows what happened to Bob or Bill or where they are, please tell them I think of them often, with love.
Other columns by Terry Barr you might enjoy:
- Celebrate Birmingham authors who tell the truth
- Man sheds tears over old Birmingham restaurant
- Did you know Birmingham had a counterculture?
- My heart aches for Birmingham’s old music scene
- My heart aches for all those old Birmingham restaurants
- South Carolinian aches for a trip back to Birmingham
Terry Barr is a native of Bessemer. He has been a Professor of English at Presbyterian College in upstate South Carolina since 1987. His most recent essay collection, The American Crisis Playlist (Redhawk Publications 2021) is available at Amazon.com, and you can find his work at medium.com/@terrybarr.
David Sher is the founder and publisher of ComebackTown. He’s past Chairman of the Birmingham Regional Chamber of Commerce (BBA), Operation New Birmingham (REV Birmingham), and the City Action Partnership (CAP).
Click here to sign up for our newsletter.
Invite David to speak for free to your group about how we can have a more prosperous metro Birmingham. dsher@comebacktown.com
Gosh, I first thought you were talking about my old station, K-99. But no, we weren’t quite as free-form as WJLN, But we did play a wide array of music, from Springsteen–before he had pop hits–to the Dixie Dregs, from AC/DC to Emmylou Harris, from the Moody Blues and Led Zeppelin to Willie Nelson. “One letter, two numbers. K-99. Pass it on.”
“We don’t talk while the record’s playing”
Of course!!!
Hey Don! I listened to you guys too, and to the AM wonder, WVOK. You guys were cool, too, though by then, I was smoking a bit more.
I listened to Father Tree as much as I could. I was a young high schooler who loved music that was left of the dial and late at night, this was my station. Father Tree was my late night hero. I needed to sleep to go to school the next day, but I‘d just stayed up listening and writing down the bands and albums I had heard.
So many nights, I laid in bed with headphones on so the rest of the house wouldn’t know I was still awake at 2am on a school night, expanding my musical horizon that’s still with me today. Hmm, what shall I spin next, Coil or The Asteroid No. 4?
I love this–should have had headphones myself!
Wednesday, July 16, 2025
Terry Barr,
Quote :
“This Birmingham radio station put me in danger of smoking pot”…
You are joking (I hope)…
It’s a good teaser, I guess.
Back in the Golden 70s, when there was real music around, I was in Huntsville with my friends listening to the same music, and always eager to opt for commercial free FM.
I say “the same music”, but not really…I do question
your friends’ taste if “Black Sabbath” was their musical godhead; we were more into the Led Zep/Grand Funk Railroad/Dylan/Joni Mitchell/Joan Baez/ and yes, Moody Blues class.
But I’m here to tell you that Grace Slick’s phenomenal “White Rabbit” was not just some psychedelic propaganda piece, as Grace Slick herself looks back upon it.
And we never thought of it as Grace Slick trying to convince us to take LSD…That’s not really what the song is about.
“Feed your head” literally meant to us, then and now, to keep your eyes open, think critically, and challenge the commonly accepted “norms” of the day.
“One pill makes you larger
And one pill makes you small
And the ones that mother gives you
Don’t do anything at all”…
The lyrics are loaded with metaphor. We knew that back then.
For once, Google’s “AI” is reasonably accurate in describing Grace Slick’s original intent…I say it’s reasonably accurate because I’ve heard Grace Slick affirming most of what the search engines tell us.
I’m going to quote the AI blip here :
“Grace Slick’s ‘White Rabbit’ is a psychedelic anthem that critiques the hypocrisy of adults who, while reading children’s stories with drug-related imagery, simultaneously warn their children against drug use. According to American Songwriter, Slick used the imagery of Alice in Wonderland to highlight this hypocrisy, suggesting that stories like Alice’s adventures down the rabbit hole encourage curiosity and exploration, even with substances that cause altered states. The song is also a call for education and critical thinking, urging listeners to ‘feed your head’ by paying attention and seeking knowledge. ”
To my hooligan gang from Huntsville, “feed your head” never meant pile on the drugs…Grace Slick ain’t gonna make you or anyone “smoke pot”…
That’s all your own responsibility; don’t blame it on the radio !
Of course, you were only kidding, right ?
Right.
~ Ballard from Huntsville
Of course. I got stoned the old-fashioned way: peer pressure!
Hey Terry great article. I sent this to Bobby Gilmore. Yes he is still around and doing well.
Don’t listen to those comments, we all think the title was fitting for the times. Sorry not everyone got the sentiment.
Thanks Earl. And thank you for telling me about Bobby. He really boosted my life, especially my music life.
Mon., 7/21/25
Terry Barr
Right. They made you do it.
I guess yer “friends” were not my friends…We dint pressure anyone.
But we did kick them out of the club !…Their music was not ours !…
~ Ballard from Huntsville
No, they didn’t make me. I was ready–it all happened on the way to a Beck, Bogart, and Appice show. We had gotten our tix earlier in the day, and then got wasted, my first time. When we got to the show, and I’m talking a space of about three hours, the band had cancelled. That led to a night i’ll never forget. It was my one an only chance to hear Jeff Beck. But maybe this is beyond what you want from me.
I grew up during this era, too. 😉 From a forever ’70s girl. BTW, Happy belated birthday, Buddy.
Thanks Vicki I hope you’re doing well. I heard “You’re So Vain” this morning and thought of our high school days. You loved that song, didn’t you?
This may be a bit of a non sequitur, but I was saddened to hear that Cumulus shut down this spring WAPI AM – which I understand traced its history to the very first station in Alabama, WSY. I grew up in the New York area in the 70s and dreamed of becoming an FM DJ “demigod” like Allison “the night bird” Steele, Scott Muni and Vin Scelsa at the legendary WNEW-FM. Suffice to say it didn’t happen, but I still search for cool radio stations whenever I’m cruising through a new town.
I didn’t know about WAPI’s being shut down, but I suppose that’s the way things are today. As a kid, I sometimes listened to dave Campbell at night. I didn’t know much about what the talk was but I liked his smooth voice.
Question for radio listeners in Birmingham: What’s your assessment of FM radio in the city today? Recommendations? We don’t live in the Magic City anymore but we usually hit the car radio when we roll into town.
Bob, don’t bother with the FM dial in Birmingham…or most other cities. Hook up something that allows you to stream The Vault from…or all places…Montgomery, 92ZEW from Mobile, KLPX in Tucson, KINK in Portland, OR or the like. Not knocking Magic City radio but, as in most places, it’s mostly talk, sports, auto-tune pop, or the same 300 classic rock songs over and over.
Thanks for the suggestions. We have four classic rock stations here in Nashville. They mostly play the same songs, but on the margins each has to play a few obscure cuts just to differentiate themselves slightly. We enjoy streaming WNXAfm.org. It’s an all-volunteer station here that resurrected an old Vanderbilt college station. DJs play whatever they like, including jazz, blues—even big band swing. We especially like a few shows—Rock and Roll High School, Goin’ Down South, and Eighties Schmighties. We’ll check out your suggestions.
Bob, I probably need to check out 100.1 Lightning 100 there in Nashville. They were once a pretty good station. I have a special affinity for them since I put that signal on the air way back in the early ’80s as Music City’s first FM country station. Well, WSIX played instrumental versions of country songs. We did great for a while until both WSIX and WSM-FM changed to a country format and blew our little low-power signal off the mountain. Lightning 100, which came along after KZ Country…our station…sold to a new owner who had the same signal issues we did, but it appears they’re still there. The trouble with having deejays who play what they want to is that you may discover some great new music and artists but you also have to sit through some really, really weird stuff. There is a real art to curating music so you introduce music that a reasonably large audience will listen to…large enough to sell enough advertising to keep the lights on…without chasing away those who are perfectly content to hear their favorites over and over again. And I am convinced you also need some “glue” to hold it all together, a human personality who provides the right mix of music, entertains, informs, and provides companionship. Hard to find somebody who can do all that stuff! And most station operators are not inclined to try.
Lightning 100 is very much still on the air. It’s my wife 2nd favorite radio station after WPLN, the NPR affiliate. WPLN recently launched a new station to play new music by local artists. Don’t know how well it’s doing.
Speaking of nonprofit radio, WXNA, the all-volunteer station is that. We support it with a small annual membership. They play no commercials, news, weather, etc. Just music. And you’re right, the music the DJs play sometimes gets pretty weird. One female DJ (don’t know if she’s still on the air) had a show with only French contemporary music! Yesterday while out running chores I was listening to a DJ playing all movie theme music, some barely listenable, in honor of a deceased local film critic. Yep, there’s no one really helming the ship at WXNA.
Still, not to be too harsh on my wife’s home town where we lived for 27 years, but the Birmingham radio dial today sounds heavily weighted toward religious, political, and hip hop. Wish I was a bigger fan of the latter.
Need to find that Moody Blues track. Thanks for sharing.
Sure!