***A note to air check traders. Please do not record these air checks and try and trade. I have the original tapes many of which I recorded myself and thus the authenticity can not be in doubt and can be easily traced.
Vintage WNEW and Alison Steele from the prime years of commercial free form radio in New York. The first clip is from September 6, 1972 and the second from July 11, 1975.
The music is fantastic as Alison plays King Crimson, The Nice , The Moody Blues and more.
Still more to come on the site from the great WNEW in the future.
A beautiful set from Alison… Great sound & great tracks. Thanks for sharing!
So happy to hear the nightbird again!
Love it !!!
Do you have any of the WNEW mixed bag concerts in your arcives ?
I have quite a few other WNEW air checks on the site with a few more to come but sorry no mixed bag concerts.
One of my idols from the roots of FM radio. She gave me reason to believe that I may someday command the same level of audience as she. Mine was an elusive dream
Hi, please post more Alison Steele! Thanks!!
At night, when you knew you were safe
OMG, she played my songs by our obscure group Gandalf in early 1969. I recall hearing “Can You Travel In The Dark Alone” preceded by a lengthy dose of her psychedelic poetry. Any chance of your coming across that?
I have not come across her playing Gandalf yet but will be on the look out so you never know. Someone taped a copy of your album for me around 1996 and I enjoyed it. I still have the cassette.
Peter, I really like your group’s covers of “Golden Earrings” and “Hang On To A Dream”! Gandalf had a very memorable sound and style, quite striking when I first heard the album in the 2000s. Thought it might bring a smile to know you’re not obscure in my world.
javedjafri, thanks so much for these. I have an offbeat question that you might be able to answer: do you know when Alison stopped referring to WNEW as “Metromedia Stereo” as part of her usual voiceovers/station IDs? Maybe there was a shift in the station’s self-branding?
I’ve been trying to pin down an aircheck with an unknown date — an unknown year, even — and it would help to know if there was a known date on which that changed. As I’ve been looking into this I’ve heard airchecks from 1969 that have the “Metromedia Stereo” and ones from around 1977 that don’t, but I haven’t nailed down exactly when the shift happened yet (if there even was a shift). Thanks for any help you or your commenters can provide!
Can’t tell you when this happened, but MetroMedia Radio was acquired by a larger radio/TV group. MetroMedia also had a sister station in Philadelphia, appropriately using the call letters WMMR 93.3 FM. This station still exists under different ownership.
I remember we played a concert at RCC college in Rockland in a week before that we won a battle of the bands, and Allison steel awarded us with the winnings , I wish I can find that it was recorded that night how to be 1974, 75 but yeah it was quite the night band was called Sunrise she was an awesome person
All readers take note:
At this late date (2021) trading airchecks rather than releasing all one has via the usual venues does little to keep history alive. Our generations will be dead shortly but the internet lives on. Best to put them out at various venues including Youtube (for the accessibility, nothing else) so future listeners can enjoy them forever.
She saved my life.
I was hired by Pan Am in 1967 working at JFK. I moved to NY from farm country Ohio at age 18. I was scared. It seemed everyone was older, wiser, knew where they were going and knew what to do. I didn’t. Then I started listening to The Nightbird and my life changed. I knew I would be ok as long as she was there every night.
Sometime in the late 1970s, WNEW-FM DJ Alison “The Night Bird” Steele aired a Pink Floyd BBC-recorded concert radio show during her late-night slot. The 9-30-71 concert at London’s Paris Cinema. The radio show included two very rare bonus stereo tracks. Embryo & Blues. This was a one-time airing! Tapes of this exist and aren’t difficult to locate. However, does anyone know the exact airing year? 1977 is my best guess. I would appreciate any comments and insight on this. Thanks & Shine-On…..
I turned
70 this year and thought I need I need therapy…. Listening to Allison Steele the Moody blues, King Crimson, is a better modality. It reminded me of the source of my essence.
I was on college radio in the 1990s and did my best to replicate the sound of free form radio of the 1970’s. I know that “In The Court Of The Crimson King” by King Crimson and “For Example” by the Nice were both songs I regularly played. As the years went on, my selections became even more obscure including a lot of German rock such as Can, Faust, Tangerine Dream, Guru Guru and Amon Duul II. I would also incorporate the occasional show tune, 20th Century Classical music and jazz.
I started as a summer fill in and high school and continued during college and a little after. Some student managers got it, some didn’t. One who didn’t stated, at a college station which generally had been free form, that I was ignoring her “two new rotation albums per set” rule she created. Eventually bugged me about it so much I agreed and played the two songs a set…at the same time on the two CD players with pitch control usually set way high or way low. The following week I brought in a music major friend in and we played the tracks with us chiming in with (often scathing) critiques of the new tracks while they were playing,
I was asked to take a hiatus, but that only lasted for the month as she was off to a summer study abroad and ended up getting malaria and had to take a year off from college. Karma.