Radio Free Boston: The Rise and Fall of WBCN

Camelot Redux

WBCN’s second age of Camelot arrived and set up a decadelong residence at 1265 Boylston Street. In the station’s backyard at Fenway Park, Red Sox seasons came and went, including the heartbreaking ’86 World Series loss to the Mets (one home run ball shot over the left field wall and dented the station van parked on Lansdowne Street), but ’BCN remained a champion in ratings period after ratings period, year after year. That spectacular success fueled revenue growth that was mostly acceptable to even the voracious Mr. Karmazin, although the pressure on the sales department never relaxed as revenue targets were reached and always increased for the next cycle. The worker bees started referring to that inevitability as the “Mel Tax.” “Obviously it wasn’t going to Mel directly, but it was an expectation that success was supposed to breed more success,” David Bieber explained. “You were expected to expand the boundaries, whether it was promotions, sales, or whatever.” While “percentage” and “double-digit gains” were terms CAMELOT REDUX I believed that with music and news, you didn’t just back float with your audience but that it was your role to introduce provocative music and ideas, whether in the form of a song or a global event. That’s why we were on the air! katy abel 202 radio free boston that could send Tony Berardini and Bob Mendelsohn diving for the Tums, the sales department nearly always managed to cover Karmazin’s spread, so the magical umbrella over programming never folded. To the public, ’BCN remained the coolest thing around, and the DJs were free to frolic in the biggest radio playground in town, perhaps the entire country. To be sure, one of the key attractions of the station was that its listeners, and sometimes even the employees, didn’t know what, or who, to expect most of the time. “Darrell Martinie would come in to record his ‘Cosmic Muffin’ reports on Tuesday; that was Darrell Day,” producer Tom Sandman recalled. We found out that Little Richard was coming to the station on a Tuesday [for an interview with Mark Parenteau] and Darrell was so excited: “I gotta meet Richard!” So, he gets there at ten o’clock in the morning, gets all his reports for the week done, and then just sits. He’s dressed to the nines and wearing three times as much gold as usual; he can’t wait! So, finally at two in the afternoon the studio door opens and Little Richard walks in. Darrell stands right up and says, “Hi, my name is Darrell; they call me the Muffin.” And Richard looks at him up and down and says, “Ummmm, hmmmm. I eat muffins for breakfast every day!” Well, they hit it off, and we had about an hour with Little Richard, and he was just the coolest guy in the world. He loved us and we loved him. Little Richard, the rock ’n’ roll star who lit up the charts in the fifties, wouldn’t be the kind of personality you’d expect to show up on a rock station in the mideighties, but WBCN was far less a slave to format, and more a creature of lifestyle to its audience. Richard’s music had not been featured a whole lot since the days of Peter Wolf and Little Walter, but the perception was that many listeners would still be curious about the effeminate legend-turned-preacher, who used to wear glittering outfits onstage, put red lipstick on in morning, and helped build the musical foundation that WBCN stood on. It was up to Mark Parenteau to make it all work on the air, which, by all reports, he accomplished admirably, resulting in a hilarious and engaging interview. Year later, when Larry Loprete developed a personal relationship with Tony Bennett’s family and management, the renowned singer offered to come by the station for an on-air session and “meet ’n’ greet” with the staff. What possible common ground did ’BCN have with Tony Bennett? For most, he was a popular singer from a far-distant Camelot redUx 203 The wbCn Sportsrockers with Roger Clemens in Fenway Park. (From left) former Red Sox player and Jimmy Fund representative Mike Andrews, Charles Laquidara, Clemens, Oedipus, Larry “Chachi” Loprete, and Tank. Photo by Mim Michelove. era with whom they weren’t terribly familiar. Was “I Left My Heart in San...