Influence
Her career with the station began as a part-time switchboard operator on Labour Day weekend of 1963, before she was offered a full-time position in the station's music library a few years later. As CKLW's popularity boomed and Rosalie became more and more influential, her job title became "Music Director". Trombley served as Music Director from 1968 through 1984, at which time the station changed formats to classic Big Band Jazz.
The term "crossover hit" owes much of its definition to Rosalie's ability to pick artists from urban and rock playlists and cross them over to CKLW and their CHR Top 40 format, which in that era of radio, was the most listened-to format as defined by cumulative audience listenership and reach.
Trombley is legendary in the history of AM Top 40 radio and was known for her ability to pick future hits. Artists that have acknowledged her pivotal role in their success through early belief and airplay include Elton John, Bob Seger, Alice Cooper, Earth, Wind & Fire, Anne Murray, Tony Orlando and Dawn, The Guess Who, Blood, Sweat and Tears, Chicago, Harold Melvin & The Bluenotes, Gordon Lightfoot, The Stylistics, Parliament/Funkadelic, and Aerosmith.
A 1973 Billboard article notes her role in promoting the Skylark song "Wildflower", playing it for over three months as an album cut before its release as a single.
Seger immortalized her in his 1972 song "Rosalie" from his Back in '72 album. "She's got the tower, She's got the power / Rosalie, Rosalie Trombley" are two lines from the lyrics of that song. The song has been covered by the band Thin Lizzy, on their 1975 album Fighting. Trombley reportedly refused to allow the station to air the song, threatening to quit if the station added it to its playlist; thus, CKLW never played it, although the song did receive airplay on other Detroit stations.
Read more about this topic: Rosalie Trombley
Famous quotes containing the word influence:
“Temperament is the natural, inborn style of behavior of each individual. It’s the how of behavior, not the why.... The question is not, “Why does he behave a certain way if he doesn’t get a cookie?” but rather, “When he doesn’t get a cookie, how does he express his displeasure...?” The environment—and your behavior as a parent—can influence temperament and interplay with it, but it is not the cause of temperamental characteristics.”
—Stanley Turecki (20th century)
“A healthy soul stands united with the Just and the True, as the magnet arranges itself with the pole, so that he stands to all beholders like a transparent object betwixt them and the sun, and whoso journeys towards the sun, journeys towards that person. He is thus the medium of the highest influence to all who are not on the same level.”
—Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882)
“Women stand related to beautiful nature around us, and the enamoured youth mixes their form with moon and stars, with woods and waters, and the pomp of summer. They heal us of awkwardness by their words and looks. We observe their intellectual influence on the most serious student. They refine and clear his mind: teach him to put a pleasing method into what is dry and difficult.”
—Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882)