Wearin’ the Green & Rockin’ Out to Golden Oldies!
Have you ever wished you could go back to where you started from, oh, so many years ago?
With that provocative query, let’s just say that I managed to finish the text of our March article, but the images will take a tad longer. In the meantime, use your imagination, your memories, or make something up! Rock Radio History, though, is the important part, right? Enjoy …
As I was cruising down Memory Lane, it was a perplexing toss-up to choose March’s Featured Radio Survey! Originally, I wanted to go with WHYI/Ft.Lauderdale, Florida, because it’s the only music chart I have for that station, and a fun one!
But
when I saw KERN/Bakersfield, California’s, survey with a “Junk Food” crossword
puzzle we can all have fun with, I had to go with the Middle Earth in
California. That’s what we Bay Area brats called Bakersfield, Fresno, Stockton,
Sacramento and all the farm towns of Cally’s Central
Valley.
That isn’t all for this month though.
We have another WTAC/Flint, Michigan, music chart for March,
right on the heels of February’s WTAC Featured Radio Survey posting.
Busy month with three
vintage Rock Radio surveys! So let’s have some Rockin’ fun … 50 Years Ago
this Month …
º MARCH 1976 Radio
News & Muse ♪
Wanna know a secret? Vinyl record sales, both new and vintage records, have been climbing again, to its highest in two decades! Vinyl Sales Rose For The 19th Consecutive Year in 2025, screams the headline in the Cue Burn newsletter article on Vinyl Alliance’s Substack, February 26, 2026. Who’d a-thunk it back in the day when Pop, Rock, Heavy Metal and Disco were still evolving?!
Let’s enjoy the memories of what and who you were listening to … 50 Years Ago this Month!
March 7th: To you, it may have been an average day 50 Years Ago (or not even born yet!), but to Elton John, it isn’t every day one is immortalized in wax. Especially at London’s famed Madame Tussaud's Wax Museum. Although the Beatles beat him to the honor of being the first Rock-themed display, in 1964 (says SuperSeventies), there hadn’t been another until the Rocket Man zoomed in. Now he has several and the latest in 2024 is downright supersonic … or so I hear. Never had the pleasure.
March 9th: Unfortunately for Keith Moon of The Who, this date in 1976 was not his finest hour. But then, by this time, he’d been destroying his finest hours for about ten years. Unable to continue after only two songs, he caused their Boston Garden appearance to be rescheduled for the next night. It didn’t help … the whole US tour was ultimately delayed after he demolished his hotel room and landed himself in the hospital. Sadly, Moon battled alcoholism to the point of self-destruction. “… notorious as ‘Moon The Loon’, [he was] the incorrigible clown who respected no authority whatsoever and never knew the meaning of the word embarrassment.” After more tries and fails, Keith Moon died in September 1978, in the same London flat where the Mamas & Papas’ Cass Elliot died, both at the age of 32.
March 20th: It was today in 1976, that “Rhiannon,” a tune written and sung by Stevie Nicks and released with Fleetwood Mac in February, hopped on the KERN/Bakersfield, California, chart on its way up to the Top Ten. Of our three featured music charts for March, only KERN already saw its potential. DYK moments … It’s reported (unsubstantiated) that Stevie was a hit hostess at a Bob’s Big Boy hamburger joint before her phenomenal singer-songwriter achievements! Part of her success no doubt came from an active imagination. Reportedly, she read about Rhiannon, a dynamic figure in Welsh mythology, and became enamored of her. In the song, “Rhiannon,” was she revealing something about herself as well? ♪ … She rings like a bell through the night | And wouldn't you love to love her? | She rules her life like a bird in flight | And who will be her lover? … ♪
March 26th: Love the title of the new album Wings released on this day … Wings at the Speed of Sound. It does rather boost the ethereal image, doesn’t it? All set to promote the album in McCartney’s first US tour in a decade, they were delayed after the final show in Paris. Guitarist, Jimmy McCulloch, broke a finger slip-sliding on his hotel bathroom floor. Kind of a bad whoopsie!
March 29th: Reminiscing over the past brought a certified gold honor to the Four Seasons’ first #1 hit since 1964. Appropriately titled, "December, 1963 (Oh, What a Night)," it deserved the distinction, still riding high on Radio charts. The tune jumped four spots from the week before to #4 at KERN/Bakersfield, while earlier in the month, Ft. Lauderdale’s WHYI listeners set it at #3, and it hit #2 at WTAC/Flint, Michigan.
Speaking of WTAC, were you there when DJ Peter C. Cavanaugh was best buds with The Who and flaunted The Who by Numbers album, to the delight of their listeners? WTAC ran a coveted contest for “The Who and San Francisco too!!!” trip featured in their March 12, 1976, Radio survey. The caricature style is quintessential 1970s’ art. “Squeeze Box” from the album was a hit on both WHYI & WTAC music charts this month. “The Big 600” made their mark on Pop & Rock until early 1980s when you could still hear Stevie Nicks, if you liked WTAC’s switch to Country. (Think her ’82 hit, “Leather and Lace.”)
Next,
let’s cruise the ol’ surf bus from Michigan all the way down to South Florida,
as we peek into the studio at WHYI-FM/Ft. Lauderdale. Who was your fave
DJ while tanning on the beach? If you didn’t have a job, it was likely Bill
Tanner (1945-2021), who liked to tease listeners with, “Get up and get off
with Tanner in the Morning.” The longtime area DJ helped homegrown artists like
KC and the Sunshine Band (on the March charts with “Queen
of Clubs”) and loved his listeners. Bill honed his relatable and
knowledgeable broadcast skills from the start, at thirteen years old; and
before he even arrived in Florida, was recognized as an innovative format
developer.
Y-100’s March 20, 1976 “official
music sheet #95” flaunted its artistic prowess for listeners as they dove
headlong into Disco, keeping “Disco
Lady” by “Johnny” (Johnnie) Taylor at #1 for a second week.
Hoping
the exhaust-chugging bus will hold together, we trek cross-country, from the
right coast to the left coast, stopping in the rural countryside of middle California.
What’s so great about KERN/Bakersfield
that it’s this month’s Featured Radio
Survey? The March 20, 1976, music chart boasts more great artwork
and a Junkfood Crossword Puzzle! Just too good to past up! DJ Mark Thomas
invites you to solve the puzzle—and so do I! Print it and have fun wallowing in
nostalgia as you munch on some junk food. Trust me, you’ll want to by the time
you solve it!
“Mark Thomas” may be a case of
Radio’s annoying DJ aliases habit. I couldn’t find the name in research,
not as a DJ in general, or specific to KERN, so let me know if you
know his story!
♪ March 1976 Song of Note ♪
That’s how we came to know Pierre Tubbs and J. Vincent Edwards’ poignant hit (recorded by Maxine Nightingale), “Right Back Where We Started From,” this month’s Song of Note and #7 on KERN’s featured survey. History says the title was created a long while before the lyrics were penned. But inspiration for the song in totality struck in less than ten minutes while the duo raced to the hospital for Pierre’s family. Can’t you just imagine how the urgency of the moment—and reports hinting at wedded bliss distress—may have prompted Pierre’s creativity.
Talk about dedicated to work—a rough demo was cut the very next day. ♪ … Love is good, love can be strong | We gotta get it right back to where we started from … ♪
♪ March 2026 Music Events
& More ♪
The music
world—and indeed, all of us who love music—is still talking about Neil Sedaka (1939-2026), who passed
away on February 27, 2026. As a child, Sedaka asked his mother to buy him a
piano and at nine years old, began serious classical piano training at the
Julliard School. The rest of his life was dedicated to music and performing. Do
you remember, “Breaking
Up is Hard To Do”? It’s #14 on WHYI/
Ft. Lauderdale’s March 20, 1976
Radio survey. ♪ … Don't take your
love away from me | Don't you leave my heart in misery | If you
go then I'll be blue | Cause breaking up is hard to do … ♪
♪♪ BFYP Featured Radio Survey ♪♪
Rock MARCH 1976 and … Rockin’ the Pot of Golden Oldies!
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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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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