1970s-1983: WOXR
Based in Oxford, Ohio, WOXR was broadcast at 97.7 FM and largely targeted at Miami University students. WOXR also played listener requests. WOXR featured a blend of top 40 and album cuts during the day, an hour-long oldies show at 5 PM, with the evening music again a top-40/album rock mix that became more and more album-oriented as the night got later.
WOXR was known for playing uncensored versions of songs such as Steppenwolf's recording of "The Pusher" (written by the late Hoyt Axton) and Country Joe and the Fish's recording of the "I-Feel-Like-I'm-Fixin'-to-Die Rag." Late at night the station played uncut versions of long songs such as Neil Young's "Cowgirl in the Sand" and "Down by the River" and Traffic's "John Barleycorn Must Die."
The station was among few in the U.S. to play the cult classic "Je t'aime... moi non plus" ("I love you... me neither"), performed by the late Serge Gainsbourg and his partner Jane Birkin, which most stations refused to play (or were forbidden to play) because of its sexual explicitness in the form of the lyrics being sung to a background sound of a female orgasm (which some say was the sound of the couple actually having sex).
WOXR showed an irreverent on-air personality, identifying itself as coming "from the city by the water tower" (a take-off on Chicago's WLS identifying itself as being "from the city by the shore"). WOXR played on the culture shock many Miami students from large cities experienced at the start of the school year when they found themselves confined to a town much smaller than their hometowns by identifying itself as being "Down on the Farm," sung to a twangy beat. The song went as follows:
You are listenin' to the big 97,
Where it does sound like heaven,
Tap your foot 'cause you love it so,
Hearin' that good old rock and roll.
This here station's got a lotta power,
But that's because of the water tower,
If you dig it we do know why,
And with that verse we'll say "bye bye."
Every April Fool's Day, WOXR played the same song repeatedly for an entire hour (then playing a different song during the next hour, etc.). WOXR featured contests with prizes consisting of album rejects (called "The Worst Contest"). One of their newscasters always referred to then-Secretary of State Henry Kissinger as "Hank" Kissinger. Another newscaster who was a Boston native and Red Sox fan would only give the score of the Red Sox game, while failing to mention the scores of any other games.
Bob Nave, keyboard virtuoso for the The Lemon Pipers in the late 60s (whose big hit was the song "Green Tambourine"), was a late-night DJ for WOXR in the early 70s. Other early- to mid-70s on-air personalities for the station included such luminaries as Rick Sellers, Ray Smith and Ed Pharr. Nave's program featured a brief comedy program known as "The Purple Nurd," produced by four high school students from Fairfield, Ohio who billed themselves as HPW Squared Productions. The Purple Nurd program later grew into "The Electromagnetic Spectrum," which featured spoofs of local commercials and television shows. Where the four young men who billed themselves as HPW Squared Productions ended up remains a complete mystery, shrouded in urban legend.
The station featured on-air classified ads identified as the "Dog-Gone Bulletin Board." This was a pun based on classified ads placed by dog owners to let everyone know that their dog was missing — or "dog-gone."
WOXR was among the few FM stations at the time to carry live broadcasts of sports events. During the 1970s, WOXR broadcast games of the Miami University football and basketball teams and the Cleveland Browns, tapping into the vast southern Ohio fan base that the legendary NFL team cultivated long before the Cincinnati Bengals were established.
Read more about this topic: WOXY (FM)