This list is selected each week by WXYZ Radio from reports of record sales gathered from leading record outlets in the Detroit area and other sources available to WXYZ.
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The above WXYZ chart was digitally restored by Motor City Radio Flashbacks
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A special thank you to Jim Heddle of Tuscon, Arizona, for having provided this WXYZ 1270 playlist chart from 1966 to the Motor City Radio Flashbacks archives.
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In my first book, ‘Turn Your Radio On’, there is a photo from the Detroit News referencing how I was able to play the part of The Lone Ranger.
It was all arranged by the late Dick Osgood who was a wonderful friend, Emmy Award Winning Radio icon, and a giant in the early days at WXYZ. One of the three performances we did was recorded with Dick giving a brief history of radio and introducing the cast of the performance. You’ll recognize some of the names.
With an introduction by yours truly, this is the only recording in existence and deserves to be preserved. Most of the cast are now in Heaven, including a bit player, Detroit’s most popular radio and television weatherman, Sonny Eliot.
In adding further to the Lone Ranger legacy, in 1986, Lee Alan wrote to a feature columnist with the Detroit News:
“My childhood hero was The Lone Ranger, but before Clayton Moore. As a boy growing up in Detroit I listened to The Lone Ranger as it was done live from WXYZ on the radio. My Lone Ranger in those days (actually the name was Brace) was Bruce Beemer. His deep, resonant voice created a vivid mental picture of my hero.
Brace Beemer. The original Lone Ranger on the radio ‘live’ from the WXYZ studios in the 1940s.
In 1965, I shared an office at WXYZ with my dear and recently deceased friend, Joel Sebastian. I heard a voice from the hallway. And there he stood . . . 60 plus years of age — looking just like I always thought he would. I nervously introduced myself. He shook my hand, and with the other . . . he gave me a silver bullet. Five days later he died.
“In 1985, at the national convention of the ‘Friends Of Old-Time Radio,’ the Lone Ranger was recreated by the original cast. They asked me to go and play Brace Beemer’s part. For 30 minutes I was surrounded by all the thundering hoof beats from out of the past and realized my boyhood dream. I was the Lone Ranger . . .”
“I retired from radio in 1970 and opened my ad agency about 16 years ago,” said Alan. “The horn and ashtray are locked up in a vault, along with photos and film clips of my radio days. But nothing means more to me than that silver bullet. That and the fact that I actually became the Lone Ranger . . . if only for a little while.”
A ‘Lone Ranger’ Blue Network radio ad. May 1945
Alan also added, “The cast members, when I had the wonderful opportunity to play Brace Beemer’s part as the Lone Ranger before a live audience of a thousand people, included Fred Foy who was the show’s announcer, Dick Osgood, Rube Weiss as Tonto and, the show’s actual director on WXYZ, Chuck Livingstone.
When it was over a small elderly lady approached me and said: “I closed my eyes and it was him . . . I heard his voice. It was him.”
The lady was Leta Beemer, widow of Brace Beemer. My “Lone Ranger.” She saw the “pictures” that only radio can produce.
Lee Alan | March 15, 2022
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A special Thank You to Lee Alan for recently providing his special audio presentation of The Lone Ranger for this page on Motor City Radio Flashbacks.
This list is selected each week by WXYZ Radio reports of records sales gathered from leading record outlets in the Detroit area and other sources available to WXYZ.
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The above WXYZ chart was digitally restored by Motor City Radio Flashbacks
WXYZ DETROIT SOUND SURVEY December 8, 1964
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A special THANK YOU to Larry Good, of Saline, MI., for contributing this featured WXYZ chart — December 8, 1964 — with Motor City Radio Flashbacks.
Earlier in the year, Larry contributed 16 1964 WXYZ charts for the website’s archive.
Thank you for this WXYZ Detroit radio contribution. Inasmuch, this site realizes these WXYZ charts from 1964 are scarce, having been a most difficult find today, as in recent years. A valuable contribution to the archives, much appreciated! 🙂
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A special THANK YOU to our senior site contributor Greg Innis of Livonia, MI., for recently providing this rare WXYZ Don Zee Detroit radio audio memory to our Motor City Radio Flashbacks aircheck repository.
This list is selected each week by WXYZ Radio reports of records sales gathered from leading record outlets in the Detroit area and other sources available to WXYZ.
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The above WXYZ chart was digitally restored by Motor City Radio Flashbacks
— A SPECIALACKNOWLEDGEMENT —
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A special THANK YOU to Larry Good, of Saline, MI., for contributing this featured WXYZ chart — October 6, 1964 — with Motor City Radio Flashbacks.
Last year, Larry contributed 16 (rare!) WXYZ 1964 charts for the website’s archive.Thank you for your WXYZ Detroit radio contributions. Kindly appreciated! ?
Today we present a selected WXYZ Joey Reynolds audio extraction from the Motor City Radio Flashbacks airchecks library.
Long archived in the collection, this audio file has been digitally renewed, enhanced in sound, much improved overall (note there are several ‘drop-out’ flaws in place from the original recording).
Also corrected was the recording’s faster speed pitch, having slowed the recording down to a more ‘normal’ state than what the original recording archived sounded previously.
Another classic Motor City radio flashback. Joey Reynolds on WXYZ. This month, fifty-five years ago.
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THE MOTOR CITY RADIO FLASHBACKS AIRCHECKS COLLECTION
The original featured recording was posted HERE on Motor City Radio Flashbacks seven years ago, September 12, 2014.
In 1966, WXYZ radio promoted heavily Joey Reynolds’ anticipated arrival from Cleveland to Detroit. Having been discovered by Lee Alan on radio WIXY 1260 while on a business trip there, one of the station’s promotions was having distributed for their listeners this record 45, “Joey Reynolds’ Theme”, as recorded by The 4 Seasons. Joey Reynolds was the late-night personality on Radio 1270 from 9-midnight. Short-lived at the station, Reynolds tenure on WXYZ was a little over 6 months, from April to October of that year.
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This audio feature was restored by Motor City Radio Flashbacks
The above featured WXYZ ad was digitally re-imaged by Motor City Radio Flashbacks
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A DETROIT RADIO BACK-PAGE AD
Missed any of our previous ‘Detroit Radio Back-Pages‘ features? GO HERE
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A rare ABC/WXYZ Radio brochure from early-1963. The featured flyer was distributed freely for station visitors, clients, sales staff, and media personnel. The Broadcast House studios was located on Ten Mile Rd., near Northwestern Hwy., in Southfield, Michigan.
WXYZ 1270. Fifty-eight years ago.
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NOTE: For a formidable look-back of WXYZ and its legendary, Detroit broadcasting glory years (previously published on this site), please go HERE.
— SPECIAL ACKNOWLEDGEMENT —
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NEW! A special THANK YOU to Ray Tessier, of Allen Park, MI., for contributing this rare WXYZ brochure with Motor City Radio Flashbacks 🙂
THE RAY TESSIER COLLECTION
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The above WXYZ flyer was digitally restored by Motor City Radio Flashbacks
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WXYZ SALUTES DETROIT HIGH SCHOOLS | A-B-C | ’63-’64
THE WXYZ ‘PAMS’ HIGH SCHOOLERS!
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In 1963, WXYZ commissionedPAMS of Dallas to create a plethora of outstanding jingles saluting all the high schools in the metropolitan Detroit area. They were aired mostly during the Detroit high school graduation season and were highlighted on WXYZ during the Detroit high school football seasons, 1963 and 1964.
At the time, WXYZ chose to tally every high school in alphabetical order on the Detroit map with their own jingle, from A through Z. The presented WXYZ jingle sampler was created for high schools lettered A, B, and C . . . from All Saints to Cody High.
Throughout the decades having passed since, many of the named schools recalled in this PAMS sampler, those institutions no longer exist today. But you just may find your high school’s ‘jingle’ played here — as they were selectively saluted on WXYZ radio, some 58 years ago.
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NOTE: For all the other WXYZ High School tributes — 1963-1964 — you can find them archivedHERE
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