Summer Sounds: Radio Jingles
Lee Warner grew up moving town to town, and his memory of summer was always linked to the radio stations in the new locale. He offers this contribution to our series Summer Sounds.
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MICHELE NORRIS, host:
Finally this hour, Summer Sounds.
(Soundbite of music)
Today's Summer Sound comes to us from a listener who was once a disk jockey. He spent 25 years in rock and roll radio.
Mr. LEE WARNER: My name is Lee Warner. The soundtrack of my summers came from Top 40 radio.
(Soundbite of radio)
Mr. WOLFMAN JACK: Oh, now we're going to do the weather for all the valleys and the mountain tops.
Mr. ALAN FREED: Ivanhoe 61400 WINS New York 1010 on your dial.
WARNER: From a car or a transistor radio, that's the sound of summer to me.
(Soundbite of music)
WARNER: There was a time before iPhones and iPods and satellite radio and car CD players that if you wanted entertainment in the car or at the beach and by the pool it came from AM radio. AM, amplitude modulation.
(Soundbite of music)
WARNER: Music, commercials, jingles.
(Soundbite of radio promo jingles)
WARNER: These were important to me because I've lived in 20 cities in 12 states, in every region of the lower 48. I was in a different school every year between 5th grade and 12th grade. And the first thing I'd do in each new hometown was spin the dial to find a cool new radio station.
(Soundbite of radio promo jingles)
WARNER: Radio was my constant companion. And these are summer memories for me, because my family always seemed to move in the summer. I felt a connection with the radio announcers and the music they played for me and the memorable radio station jingles.
(Soundbite of radio promo jingles)
NORRIS: A summer sound from listener Lee Warner. He tells us he still does announcing for a living for the Muzak Corporation's voice department. You can hear Mr. Warner's voice in airports, casinos, gas stations, elevators, pawnshops and business telephone systems. After all that moving around, he's now settled down in Reno, Nevada.
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