Growing up in N.Y. you either listened to WABC or WMCA for the latest rock n’ roll /Top 40 hits (these two stations were in a duel to the death for the pre-teen/teenaged audience). I listened exclusively to WABC on my white Bakelite Motorola radio, to their star DJ lineup which included Herb Oscar Anderson, Cousin Brucie, Dan Ingram (my favorite), Scott Muni and Charlie Greer (I was hardly ever allowed up late enough for the late night jock, Bobalou).
There was crap no station would be allowed to get away with today. For instance, WABC got ahold of a new Monkees’ release first, and the initial bunch of times they played it, they kept breaking into the song with an announcement (“a WABC exclusive!!!”) to prevent their archrivals at WMCA from taping the song and playing it themselves.
Alas, both stations have long since switched from Top 40 formats to Talk. News/Talk, Talk/News or whatever purgatory AM stations have generally assigned themselves.
On tunein, if you like Classic rock album oriented music, try Okemos Brewing Company. There is also She’s Only Rock N Roll, which is a recreation of WSHE.
WHLO AM - Akron, for the top 40 hits
3WE AM - Cleveland, for sports and the notorious Pete Franklin
WLS AM - Chicago, because it was cool to pull in a station from some distance away at night
WMMS FM - Cleveland, didn’t listen to much progressive rock as a kid but liked their “Home of the Buzzard” station ID/logo
WWST FM - Wooster, easy listening (when my parents had it on)
Top 40
WMEX 1510 (gone through many call letter and format changes since then)
WRKO 680 (now right wing talk)
WVBF 105.7 (call signal, frequency and format dissipated long ago)
It’s interesting to listen to air checks from the early 70’s Top 40, you’d have Led Zeppelin going into Cher, for example
AOR
WBCN 104.1 (recently demised to HD-only)
Sunday nights:
WEEI 590 (was an all-news station then, but had a sports talk show called “Sports Huddle” from 6 - 10pm or 7 - 11pm, I forget which).
WGBH 87.9 Jean Shepherd 11pm - midnight
WUNR 1600 Kenny Mayer midnight - 2am (Mayer was an entertainment reporter for a Boston newspaper; I think he probably bought time on the station and then sold his own ads for restaurants and clubs. He played extended comedy album cuts from a “studio” in his basement, and took calls from listeners, but you could only hear his side of the conversation, lol).
I remember WBCN as a big alt rock station from when I was living in Boston. Although I was in my late 20s and not a “kid”.
Growing up in southern CT, we listened to a lot of the NYC stations:
92.3 (K-Rock) had rock Howard Stern.
95.5 WPLJ also had hard rock
100.3 (Z-100) was sort of a mix of rock and top 40.
103.5 (KTU) was the hip hop and dance station. We used to blast that in the car when we were going clubbing.
locally
101.3 (KC-101) was the big top 40 channel.
99.1 (99 Rock) WPLR was the classic rock / hard rock station. It used to be pretty awesome because the DJs would just play whatever they want. Every other commercial was a plug for Toad’s Place in New Haven.
I wasn’t cool enough for WMMS, so I listened to John Lannigan on WGAR-AM. He was a bit of a shock-jock, but the music was mostly 70’s soft rock - the Spinners, the Carpenters, Hall & Oates. Loved the music then, love it now.
I am still trying to trace the circa 1980 Midwest radio station that ran serial episodes of “Huckleberry Raskolnikov, the All-American Boy with the Marxist Orientation”.