Rock Radio 50 Years Ago ~ JANUARY 1976

We Rock to a New Beat & Dream On to a New Retro Year   

Happy 2026 Rock & Roll fans! Are ya ready to Rock around the clock for another year of nostalgic reverence with the iconic Music of 1976?! 

From vintage Radio surveys to a Wolfman Jack birthday tribute, to our perfect-for-the-moment January vintage Song of Note, we’re ready to dream on about the good ol’ days.

Welcome to the New Year at Blast From Your Past as once again we venture into Rock & Roll Radio’s Solid Gold Oldies and the pioneering Rock Radio Jocks who brought them to us, 50 Years Ago this Month …!  

º JANUARY 1976 Radio News & Muse ♪ 

What was your fave DJ playing when you turned on your tinny transistor radio 50 Years Ago? Were
you Rockin’ out in Augusta, Georgia, Great Falls, Montana, or Rochester, New York? You might remember …

This month we’re treated to three storied Rock Radio Stations of the 1970s that, however long or short their fan popularity, helped shape the broadcast landscape of the decade. Were you listening to Wolfman Jack at …

Along with our annual salute to Wolfman Jack’s birthday (January 21^st) he is also featured on the cover of WAUG/Augusta, Rockin’ 105, January 1976. He slips into syndicated weekend duty in the healthy DJ lineup of eight energetic jocks. Do you remember listening to (in order, starting at 6a.m.): Jim Chase, Brian Scott, Jack Dillon, Trashman, Pamela Sweet; and weekenders: Rick Spires, Ed Turner and Rick Shaw? 
       In the beginning of its broadcast life in 1952, WAUG was a daytimer (required to go off-air at night). Both its longer broadcast hours and Rock format flaunted on the January ’76 survey, seems to have been short-lived, as its Christian format power is greatly reduced at night. Everything was more fun back in the ‘70s! 

Join us as we jog west to Great Falls, Montana, where the locals knew KEIN Radio 1310 is pronounced “keen.” It’s the grandaddy of Montana Radio, becoming its oldest Radio station, on the air since 1922.

       Licensing to “dime stores” became a thing, around the time the F. A. Buttery & Company department store set up its transmitter in Havre, Montana, known as KFBB. After several station call letter changes, it settled on KEIN in 1972 and is currently broadcasting a comedy format. What makes it special this month?
       KEIN’s “The Electric Thirty” music chart sports a classic New Year boo-boo … the survey is stamped January 3, 1975, but the tunes are clearly from January 1976. Oops! Their goof makes it that much more valuable in my Rock Radio survey collection 50 Years later.  

Let’s zigzag back to the east for our Featured Radio Survey station’s “Official Copy 1” for their 1976 “new BBF,” best known as WBBF 95/Rochester, New York. Mind you, it had been around since 1947 originally branded as WARC, and WBBF since 1953. But hey, who are we to question its New Year need to refresh?

Ironically, the January 7, 1976, “The New BBF” survey, flaunting flashy 1970s cartoon art, reaches backwards to feature their Top 100 of 1975. They were, though, not inclined to change their standard chart headings, so “The Albums” section begins the Top 100 tunes, the center’s “Better Music” still lists their current Top 30, and “The Words” likely used for featured song lyrics, continues the Top 100 list. Um, are you confused yet?
       Although lauded sports journalist and talk radio host, Chuck Wilson, began his broadcast career at WBBF, cover DJ Mike O’Brian gets the spotlight this month. Mike may have been a popular Rock Radio DJ in 1976, but by 1995 he traded in his studio microphone for a local TV studio to whisk you away on great summer day-trips!
       As of a fairly recent report, Chuck remains active as Mike the Getaway Guy on Facebook and YouTube and still talking travel.

 Enjoy the memories of what and who you were listening to … as we dive into the news of 50 Years Ago this Month! 

January 15^th: Released on this date, Frampton Comes Alive double live album is a coup for Frampton, following four mediocre albums. In a 25^th anniversary salute, a remixed and extended album was released in January 2001, with Frampton and the band performing live at Tower Records in L.A. (Remember them? The online version is a click away.)  

January 16^th: Pop icons, Donny & Marie (Osmond) have been in the public eye since the early 1960s. But it was January 1976 when they became the darlings of the TV musical variety shows. In addition to records, the siblings made TV their home in the studio until 1979. She’s a li’l bit Country and he’s a li’l bit Rock & Roll—well, siblings don’t always get along, ya know.  

January 19^th: It was on this date in 1976 that for the second time, promoter, Bill Sargent, offered The Beatles big bucks to reunite for a concert. And for the second time, they turned him down. It was 1974 when he first waived $10 million in front of them. Not impressed, he tried again today in 1976, tripling his offer to $30 million and escalated it again to $50 million in February. The Beatles considered it, but ultimately said they were not interested in reuniting just for money and the altruistic or creative reasons were just not there. Their millions of adoring fans were the real losers.

January 21^st: The illustrious pioneering Radio DJ, Wolfman Jack (1938-1995), to whom our Blast From Your Past books are dedicated, is again in our thoughts as we celebrate what would have been his 38^th birthday in 1976. One can only imagine the eyebrows he would have raised as he aged through various decades of the past 50 Years of societal upheavals. Hmmmm, I wonder how he and President Trump would have gotten along … 
       Consider Wolfman’s comments from his book Have Mercy! Confessions of the Original Rock ‘n’ Roll Animal (1995) about changes and challenges in Radio and music industry … nowadays a new artist has to practically go through a computer bank just to get on the air. They’ve gotta have a perfect video, and have sex appeal written on their face in big letters. They’ve got to be a whole lot like what’s already popular, so program directors won’t be scared to play their records. Sound familiar? And that was 31 years ago!

January 23^rd: David Bowie’s 10^th studio album, Station to Station, was released today, just a couple of weeks after the single “Golden Years” from it, hit the bottom of Radio charts, on its way to #1. WAUG/Augusta, Georgia, listed the song at #33 the first week of January, eventually climbing to Top Ten status. The album is considered in the industry, to be one of Bowie’s most noteworthy projects.

January 31^st: Although this date is Billboard’s “official” #1 hit date for the Ohio Players’ “Love Rollercoaster,” the energetic tune hit the top of both WBBF/Rochester, New York, and WAUG/Augusta, Georgia, charts the first week of January. The song took its time getting there, though, as its album, Honey was released six months earlier. Check out the YouTube link to Wolfman Jack’s Midnight Special show. It’s classic Wolfman introducing a future classic funk and Disco song  ♪ … Your love is like a rollercoaster baby, baby | All you do is ride (I like to ride, I like to ride, high) … ♪   

♪ January 1976 Song of Note ♪  
The beginning of a New Year is all about looking forward and dreaming big. What can you accomplish this year? Inspiration comes in music form from our monthly Song of Note. Steven Tyler of Aerosmith learned what can happen when you don’t give up and “Dream On.”* 
       Eventually becoming one of Aerosmith’s most played tunes, when “Dream On” hit the lower rungs of January 1976 music charts, it was on its second trip around the Radio dial. Its first release June 27, 1973, was less than stellar, but Tyler, who completed the lyrics at fourteen years old, knew the song had legs … he just needed to stretch ‘em.
       On December 27, 1975, Aerosmith released a longer version of “Dream On”—and more of what young Tyler had dreamt of. It pleased a larger audience than the first release and by first week of January, was well on its way to helping us all Dream On.
       At KEIN/Rochester, New York, “Dream On” was still hanging on its chart at the end of March, grasping for a star ♪ … Sing with me, sing for the year | Sing for the laughter and sing for the tear … Dream on, dream on, dream on | Dream until your dreams come true … ♪   
       * Steven Tyler lives a life making musical dreams come true, and while still “making music,” his trademark screams have been largely silenced since 2024. In September 2025, Tyler performed a tribute to Ozzy Osbourne (1948-2025). 

♪♪ BFYP Featured Radio Survey ♪♪   
January 3, 1976 ~ WBBF/Rochester, New York. As we know, the 1970s were over-the-top in all the arts, and Radio music charts are a prime artistic example. WBBF’s January graphics are alternately insane and brilliant. DJ Mike O’Brian on the cover as the man-in-the-moon with a nearby flying saucer and fun art, turns to chaos. 
       Inside, the chart’s massive spread of irreverent cartoon characters includes Zappa, Elton John and ‘70s quintessential duo, Cheech & Chong. I think it’s more fun looking back, than it was back in its prime … 50 Years Ago this Month in Rock & Roll Radio! Where were you that groovy day when your radio played … 

Let's Rock JANUARY 1976 and … Dream On!  

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LinDee Rochelle is a writer and editor by trade, and author by way of Rock & Roll. Two books (of three planned) are published in her Blast from Your Past^TM series, available on Amazon: Book 1 – Rock & Roll Radio DJs: The First Five Years 1954-1959^TM (eBook only; coming soon in updated print edition) and Book 2 – Rock & Roll Radio DJs: The Swinging Sixties^TM (eBook & print). Coming soon-ish … Book 3 – The Psychedelic Seventies!^TM 

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