Underground Radio 1968-1969

The very short lived time period of underground radio was a golden age that lasted only two years or so depending on the city. By late 1970 it was all gone and the age of corporate derived standardized radio playlist was upon us. It would then go from progressive rock to corporate rock and the age of classic rock would stomp out creative radio stations. But first there was that peak of 1960's radio creativity.

It was happening in Philadelphia in early 1968 when the FM radio station WMMR switched from easy listening to a progressive rock format that included much longer album tracks and DJs who spoke in a low key conversational style instead of the fast talking AM DJ banter. This new format was less commercial and did not limit their broadcast choices to the standard three minute pop song. We were hearing a much greater mix of styles and genres during the course of a particular disc jockey's radio show that would include rock, jazz, folk, soul, blues and some modern classical music. You never knew what you would hear next. It was like exploring the world of music. They would play something like Jimi Hendrix followed by John Coltrane followed by Pearls Before Swine followed by Muddy Waters etc., etc. all day and all night without some screaming jabbering old guy disc jockey trying to relate to teenagers. Sure, there was a DJ but always with some interesting information about the record that was played.

I quickly moved away from the top 40 AM stations and focused my radio listening on the FM dial which had better fidelity and a stronger local signal. I was also listening to WDAS-FM which was also playing a greater variety of music. It was a great time to be 16 and into music. Too bad it didn't last.

By the time I was 18 I was off to the Navy for four years. Later in the summer and fall of 1970 I was listening to a good radio station in Chicago while I was stationed at the Navy base at Great Lakes but once I went to sea my radio listening days were over for a few years. When I got out and came home at the end of 1973 the radio landscape had changed drastically. There was still a WMMR-FM but it was not the same as when I left four years earlier.

An interesting side story here is that I did a google search for underground radio and what came up was a large amount of information about the current phenomenon of what is now called underground radio. Apparently this new underground radio of the 2020's has been a response to the extreme corporate control over the playlist of commercial radio stations and streaming services such as Spotify, Amazon and Apple.

This new underground movement has come out of the independent online music stations that have popped up on YouTube and all over the Internet. They are following the tradition of the pirate radio stations of the past. These new underground radio stations play music from unsigned and independent artists whose music is available online. The DJs of these stations play music in the tradition of the underground radio stations of the late 1960's. There are websites that gather together these underground stations together to make it easier for people to find and play these new music collections. This is where the adventurous music listener is going today to expand their musical experience.