I grew up in eastern Iowa obsessively listening to WLS-AM from Chicago to hear the rock-n-roll that wasn’t played locally, with a line-up of legendary disc jockeys: Larry Lujack, Tommy Edwards, Bob Sirott, John Records Landecker and many others. I’m sure my experiences aren’t unique: a clear channel 50K-watt station, WLS-AM would be easy to receive beyond just the upper midwest.
And I’m reminded of a WLS story every time I hear All Of My Love by Led Zepplin, off their album In Through The Out Door.
A Quick History Lesson
Before the advent of digital audio, record companies sent soon-to-be-released albums and singles before their official release, usually to get some airplay in advance of the release date to get everyone excited and ready to buy.
Other artists raised anticipation levels by embargoing any advance air play, thereby ensuring saturation of the airwaves as stations attempted to out-do each other by constantly playing the new release, hopefully to be the first one to play this new song.
Listening Party Gone Wrong
Here’s the story as I remember, though I can’t find anything online to corroborate!
The release of In Through The Out Door was a big deal – Led Zepplin’s first new album in two years, different album covers wrapped in brown paper so you didn’t know which version you got – and embargoed the album before the release date. At least one station slipped up and was slapped with an injunction to cease immediately.
To quell the internal excitement, WLS held a staff listening party so staff could hear/enjoy the album. Unfortunately, during the listening party, multiple stations independently broke the embargo and started playing the album on-air, nothing happened, and then everyone started playing it.
Meanwhile, the top music station in the upper midwest couldn’t play the album because it was not at the station where it probably should’ve been in the first place! Oops!
Truth or Fiction?
I wish I remembered where I heard this first, it might have been WLS DJs themselves making fun of themselves, I don’t know. I did work at a commercial station briefly, perhaps someone there shared the story. I’m surprised I can’t find any reference to it online.
Regardless, it’s a damn good story!0
