You Feelin’ It? Summer’s Rockin’ Good Vibrations
From Diana Ross to Queen, McCartney & Wings to John Travolta and Todd Rundgren, our Summer music of June 1976 heated up the airwaves and miraculously, I’m beginning my Summer with a full article ON the 1st! Albeit, we need a few more fun images, but they’ll be along in a couple of days. In the meantime, enjoy … 50 Years Ago this Month …
º JUNE 1976 Radio News & Muse ♪
Yep, it’s my home and dictated what stations I was most interested in when collecting the vintage charts years before I wrote the BFYP books or began this monthly article. I will, however, lean on the stalwart ARSA collections to bring you a little variety throughout the national Radio spectrum—um, except for this month.
Hopefully, you Rock & Roll fans east of the Rockies won’t get too bored. Perhaps compare our tastes with yours …
June 1976 brought a variety of talent to the
airwaves as well as the music. B-100
KFMB/San Diego, California, begins its rise to Rock & Roll fame with
ultimate program director, Bobby Rich, attracting up-and-coming DJs
like Shotgun Tom Kelly and
this month, Dave Conley, just in the first two years.
Shotgun will be featured on August
’76’s cover in that month’s article, and in our hearts, as he prepares to
be inducted into the Radio
Hall of Fame this October 8th. Learn of his early rise
to Rock Radio stardom in Blast From Your Past’s Rock & Roll Radio
DJs: The
Swinging Sixties.
B-100’s dial position, at 100.7, was originally a far cry from Rock, having soothed your senses first, with Beautiful Music before its flip to Top 40. But Top 40 was popular and in with the in-crowd. Beginning in 1975, Rock was home for nearly twenty years. The new "Better Boogie" station reportedly came to be the first FM station to reach #1 in a major media market. But times changed and so did its format—a couple of times—until now, it rests with Regional Mexican & KFBG.
In
its best days DJ Dave Conley was in full bushy-beard mode for fans of B-100/KFMB-FM,
on the cover of Chart #59, June 3, 1976. He and Shotgun Tom Kelly had
worked together a couple of times beginning around 1970 and is credited with
contributing to Shotgun’s name fame. I could only spot bits and pieces in
researching Dave’s history, apparently known as “San Diego’s Favorite Lady’s
Man.”
Ironically, most of the comments
were of him at KHJ a few years earlier. If you’d like to hear archived
segments of him in action at KCBQ/San Diego (also a few years earlier),
it’s available by RetroRadioJoe on Mix
Cloud. Report is, Dave passed into Radio Heaven in 2005.
Although
B-100 battled for San Diego’s top spot against the legendary KCBQ
in 1976, it still took second to renowned KHJ/Los Angeles. As our
June 22, 1976 Featured Radio
Survey, KHJ sported the infamous Machine Gun Kelly on the cover of Issue No. 572.
Really? “Machine Gun”? And yes, it
was partly in deference to the original infamous gangster, “George
Machine Gun Kelly,” from the Prohibition
Era.
Who was DJ Machine
Gun Kelly,
really? Gary D. Sinclair from Ada, Oklahoma. And as an actor, just call
him Michael Gary “M.G.” Kelly.
By this time, Kelly had been
behind the mic at KHJ for a couple of years and feeling its waning
popularity, eventually jumping ship to rival station KTNQ in 1978.
KHJ has had a complicated
history since its 1922 inception. A lot of frequency, call sign and format
switches. During the 1960s’ Boss Radio years, KHJ was
instrumental in Boss Jocks’ careers that made them broadcast stars. But by
1980, their Top 40 format spun around to a boot-scootin’ Country music crowd. Ah,
but wait! That only lasted six years … you may know it now, as the powerhouse
classic hits station, KRTH (K-Earth 101).
Enjoy the memories of what and who you were listening to while you sunbathed … 50 Years Ago this Month!
June 10th: Were you there?! Did you wait with bated breath for Paul McCartney to step on stage in the U.S. for one of his first American concerts in ten years? He broke the mold on this day in 1976 when he brought his new band, WINGS on stage in the Kingdome, Seattle, Washington. With 67,000+ fans, McCartney & WINGS grabbed the record for highest attendance in an indoor concert, to date. Whether as a Beatle, flying solo or with WINGS, McCartney is always his best on stage …
June 17th: Who remembers Blondie, one of the early eclectic bands of the ‘70s, known for mixing and matching music genres? Their debut single, “X Offender” released today in 1976 from their self-titled first album, had moderate success, but it wasn’t ‘til their 1979 third album that US music fans embraced them en masse, with “Heart of Glass.”
June 18th: While this isn’t a US music milestone, it was too good to pass up. On this day, the night before King Carl XVI Gustaf, reigning king of Sweden was to marry Silvia Sommerlath and make her his queen, ABBA performed their soon-to-be hit tune, “Dancing Queen” for the first time, on Swedish television. How cool is that?! It was released in August for distribution. Anni-Frid Synni Lyngstad, a founding member of ABBA, performed the song in a cappella for the queen’s 50th birthday in 1993.
♪ Good, good, good … good vibrations … ♪ Summer vibes reverberate off the SoCal ocean waves. Did we have a time warp? Are we back in the surreal surf music of after-summer October 1966? Not exactly. 1) It isn’t The Beach Boys moving “Good Vibrations” up the Radio chart, but (2) Todd Rundgren, faithfully reproducing the ultimate summer feel-good song as a force of musical nature in his own right, ten years later. June 1976 it was chugging up the chart at #18 with San Diego’s B-100 KFMB fans, topping out at #2 in early July.
Generally, I like to find a YouTube rendition of the Song of Note, in a live performance, around the time it was popular. However, there seemed to be no live Todd Rundgren version, so hope you enjoy an original of The Beach Boys played over great ‘70s-era “day-in-the-life” pictures of a happening concert.
An infamous Brian Wilson composition with Mike Love lyrics, “Good Vibrations” in the ‘60s was ahead of its time, taking us into the late ‘70s’ with a natural vibe of Rock, Pop and Psychedelia. The Beach Boys did the heavy lifting in creating an intricate arrangement that not many could imitate. Later, a few brave artists attempted remakes in their own style, but only Rundgren’s replication made it as another commercial success.
At least, in the West. I spent waaaay too much time researching across the nation and could not find Rundgren’s hit version listed anywhere else on Top 40 charts. Ah well …we were either way ahead of the hits, way behind the hits, or makin’ hits on our own … and here we are, 50 Years Later … ♪ I'm picking up good vibrations | She's giving me excitations | Good bop bop, good vibrations … ♪
♪ June 2026 Music Events
& More ♪
We can Rock our “Good Vibrations” and dream of
surf and sand in June’s International
Surf Music Month! The sponsor link is to a
terrific surf organization in Connecticut, and I recognize their
enthusiasm for surfing and the music that surrounds it. And intellectually, I
know the East Coast has its own hang-ten culture, however, I can’t help
thinking that California is surf music “home.”
The Summer sun, surf music and your Rock’n Radio, sets the Summer mood, no matter where you are, or what digital or terrestrial Radio station you’re tuned to …
June 20th: It’s great to see worldwide support for International Surfing Day! Wikipedia is actually the primary history link for the day, with a fun UK neighbor link. The day itself, was established by Malibu, California’s, Surfrider Foundation and the now-defunct, Surfing Magazine, a full 21 years ago, in 2005. Celebrate! Find a beach to watch the sunset surfers, or join them!
June 25th: This is
truly, originally, a love letter from superfan, Faith Cohen, when she established
Global Beatles Day in 2009. A literal
lifelong advocate for the Fab Four, her effort to establish this day as a global
“… love letter from the world to The Beatles,” has indeed, progressed to a
global level. See what you can do with your fun and worthwhile obsessions?!
Enjoy the music, the memories, and the four talented teens who changed our
lives, whether we know it or not.
I wasn’t always a Beatles fan like Ms.
Cohen … but that changed when they came to San Francisco and has never waivered
since. It’s been a “Long and Winding Road.” I’ll play my vintage Beatles
records on the 25th. How about you?
♪♪ BFYP Featured Radio Survey ♪♪
June 22, 1976 ~ KHJ/Los Angeles, California, Issue No. 572
… this month’s vintage radio music chart tells you to “Get Up & Boogie,”
have an “Afternoon Delight,” and if all else fails, “Kiss and Say Goodbye,” “If
You Know What I Mean.” Oh, I’m just having too much fun with the hot Summer tunes
of yesteryear, how’s about you? Do you recall the classically handsome and wildly
popular DJ Machine Gun Kelly
pictured on the cover, kicking off “The Beach Boys Weekend” … “More Summer for
You Times Two on 93/KHJ”? … 50 Years Ago
this Month in Rock & Roll Radio! Where were you that groovy day when your radio played …
Rock JUNE 1976 and … Rock Out & Feel the Vibes!
BFYP Book 2 (Swinging ‘60s) on Amazon
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Share your Golden Oldies R&R fun on X: @BlastFromPastBk
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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 PastTM series, available on Amazon: Book 1 – Rock & Roll Radio DJs: The First Five Years 1954-1959TM (eBook only; coming soon in updated print edition) and Book 2 – Rock & Roll Radio DJs: The Swinging SixtiesTM (eBook & print). Coming soon-ish … Book 3 – The Psychedelic Seventies!TM
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by LinDee Rochelle & sponsored by PenchantForPenning.comTM.
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Enjoy!
RE: AI – The Blast from Your Past site has
never and will never (knowingly) be written or assisted, by Artificial
Intelligence. It’s just stupid ol’ “I” and I enjoy
writing these articles. They soothe my soul. So why would I hand that
indulgence over to an artificial, soulless entity that can’t feel pleasure?!
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