When The Boombox Ruled NYC Radio: “I Hear Music In The Street”
By 1980, the national disco fad was kaput. On the pop charts, dance music had decisively fallen out of favor, a swift decline from the heady days of Saturday Night Fever just two years previous. Disco retreated to the night clubs of New York City, where it had begun in the Seventies.
In fact, disco never faded in New York, thanks to the portable radio or boombox. While actual discotheques remained exclusive, from the velvet-roped Studio 54 to members-only downtown clubs like Paradise Garage and The Saint, disco music was freely available throughout the city. It was unavoidable, in fact, every damn time you walked down the street.
And more often than not, what boomed from boxes was FM radio, specifically 92KTU, KISS and WBLS. Back at the beginning of disco’s ascendance in 1978, WKTU was a failing soft rock station. In desperation, the station owners switched formats; “Mellow 92” became “Disco 92.” Within a year WKTU was ranked Number One in the New York City market, just ahead of WBLS, the landmark black-owned soul and R&B outlet.
For the next five years, 92KTU vied for the top ratings spot with WBLS and a third disco station, WRKS (known as KISS). But disco wasn’t just disco anymore; the playlists expanded, becoming more eclectic, uniting under a new programming label: Urban Contemporary. Call it post-disco.
This retooled format functioned as a musical blender, complementing New York City’s constantly mutating demographic. Funky outings by Blondie and The Clash coexisted with the latest from Grace Jones and Grandmaster Flash. Remixed tracks from the clubs bumped up against “quiet storm” slow jams. Reggae and salsa bubbled up under the surface, reflecting the newest population influx from the Caribbean. And occasional New Wave tracks echoed the eternal migration of young people (like me) from suburban Middle America. Post-disco was the sound of immigration — and gentrification.
By 1981, Frankie Crocker ruled Urban Contemporary radio in New York. He was a player. He’d been a popular local DJ since the late Sixties, first at the Top 40 AM beacon WMCA and then at WBLS-FM. Doubling as program director of WBLS beginning in the late Seventies, Frankie Crocker exercised canny commercial instincts along side his catholic taste.
On the air, Frankie “Hollywood” Crocker was an extravagant smoothie, the original silken-voiced love man. He called himself the Chief Rocker, though guitar-based rock was about the only thing Frankie Crocker didn’t play on WBLS. He signed off every shift by playing a sweet, swinging version of the jazz vocal standard “Moody’s Mood (I’m In The Mood for Love)” by King Pleasure; the voice and violins oozed lubricious romance.
He remained alert to what was happening in the underground clubs and discos. By 1981 he’d become a regular at Paradise Garage, home of the ingenious DJ Larry Levan. A pipeline of inventive dance tracks started to flow, from the cavernous gay disco on King Street to WBLS’ midtown radio studios and from there, out across the city. Larry Levan’s influence spread far beyond his dance-floor; his insistence on spinning reggae and synth-pop beside his beloved disco divas and Philly Soul deep cuts established his forward taste as a key ingredient in the New York version of urban contemporary radio.
“Pull Up To The Bumper” by Grace Jones exemplifies this connection: it’s a Paradise Garage floor-filler that popped up on radio playlists during summer 1981. The throbbing sound matched Grace Jones’ image: erotic, risqué, compelling and abrasive at the same time. It was a perfect boom-box record. The Jamaican bass-and drum team of Sly Dunbar and Robbie Shakespeare boosted Grace’s flat vocals with percolating rhythms; “Pull Up To The Bumper” rose above the horn-honk blare of oncoming traffic.
WBLS, 92KTU and KISS-FM were more than happy to play crossover tributes from white performers such as “Genius of Love” by Tom Tom Club and Blondie’s “Rapture. ” But the backbone of the urban sound was still funk, soul, disco: whatever it was called, black music was dance music.
For example, consider “I’m In Love” by Evelyn “Champagne” King, another R&B classic from 1981. Deploying the dramatic contrast between human voice and synthesizers as a hook, this shimmering, propulsive track could have been custom-made for the boom box.
Even more intriguing than the efforts of established disco singers like Evelyn King were the left-field records released on independent labels that Frankie Crocker and WBLS turned into regional hits. Perhaps the most emblematic of these small labels was Prelude Records. Run out of a tiny mid-town office with a skeletal staff, Prelude mostly licensed Euro-disco hits from overseas, or plucked and repackaged obscure American records that were played by club DJs such as Larry Levan. Many Prelude releases barely dented the national R&B charts, let alone cross over to the Billboard Top 100.
But in New York during the early Eighties, these records were part of the atmosphere thanks to the radio. Prelude Records released albums by its biggest acts — D Train, The Strikers, Sharon Redd — but the indie label’s main protein source was 12-inch singles. Hot dance floor tracks would be released several times, with different mixes provided by top-tier New York club DJs such as Larry Levan, Francois Kervorkian and Shep Pettibone.
The Strikers’ “Body Music” was one of the best, and weirdest examples. Originally issued in a limited run on a homemade label, this quirky disco-funk hybrid was unknown outside the Paradise Garage until Prelude re-released “Body Music” and the omnipresent boomboxes made The Strikers’ odd vocal asides (“rock rock to the punk rock”) and mesmerizing chant-chorus an ubiquitous presence. Huh! Huh!! Baaah-dee Muz-eek!!!
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Eventually the machines took over. The influence of Kraftwerk on dance music and R&B during the Eighties can’t be overstated. Tracks from the pioneering German electronic group such as “Trans Europe Express” and “Numbers” were staples of the early hip-hop scene as well as dance clubs of every persuasion. Synthesizers, drum machines and processed vocals came to dominate urban music, and by 1983 the electro era began in earnest. Hip-hop or rap (as it was called then) hijacked the boombox sidewalk soundtrack, while dance music gradually fragmented into sub-genres like house and high-energy. What remained of urban contemporary radio turned smooth, and a bit retro; love-man crooners and romantic chanteuses gained prominence on the airwaves. On the streets, meanwhile, the increasing popularity of the Walkman sealed off many pedestrians from the involuntary onslaught of the boom boxes. The era of personal music also began in the Eighties. While the music in the street was ultimately democratic, at times it really could be oppressive or actively annoying. You couldn’t change stations, turn it down or turn it off.
