An Ear for an Era

As someone once said, nostalgia sure ain’t what it used to be.

But it is on KRLA-AM (1110), where you can hear ‘60s music the way it really was in the ‘60s, when kids would take their little transistor radios under the covers to read their Archie comics to an amazingly varied soundtrack.

No, the station, the original L.A. oldies outlet until switching to a talk format last year, has not gone back to music programming full time. But it has just brought in a weekend show designed to play the music in a way that hasn’t been heard for 30-plus years--with the old jingles, ads and TV themes of the time as well.

“Radio a Go Go,” airing Saturdays from 7 to 9 p.m. and Sundays from 10 p.m. to 1 a.m., is the baby of Hal Lifson, one of those kids with a transistor back then. He created the show in a passionate crusade to reclaim the ‘60s the way he remembers them--and not the narrow, edited version heard on KRTH-FM (101.1) and other oldies stations.

“History’s being rewritten by programmers of oldies stations that have trimmed down playlists to these ridiculous 200-song manifestoes distorting history for both the artists and the listeners,” says Lifson.

Maybe “passionate” isn’t a strong enough word.

“What you hear on my show is different,” he says with evangelical zeal. “It’s a mix of styles, which in the ‘60s were all played together.

“KRLA circa ’65 would play the Beau Brummels, the Beatles, Sonny and Cher, the Turtles--but also ‘A Taste of Honey’ by Herb Alpert and the Tijuana Brass, Petula Clark, and at the same time country with Roger Miller’s ‘King of the Road,’ and folk with Peter, Paul & Mary, and R&B;, which was rapidly growing in different directions, Motown and the Atlantic-Stax sound with Otis Redding. Otis Redding on KRTH gets one song--’Sitting on the Dock of the Bay.’ Where’s ‘Try a Little Tenderness’ or ‘Hard to Handle’? Where’s [U.K. star] Sandy Shaw, ladies and gentlemen? You don’t hear those.”

Lifson, 39, wasn’t even born when the ‘60s began, and was only 3 when the Beatles played “Ed Sullivan.” He turned 7 in the Summer of Love and was barely 9 when Neil Armstrong walked on the moon. But he says he remembers it all in detail.

“It was all important to me when it happened,” he says of his childhood in the San Fernando Valley. “And I’ve studied it since the ‘60s, put myself through a personal university of pop culture.”

Program Caught the Ear of Jackie DeShannon

So confident was he in his belief that he wasn’t the only one who wanted a show like “Radio a Go Go,” he launched it a year ago on KIEV-AM (870) in a “brokered,” 1 a.m. Sunday slot for which programmers buy the time themselves and then sell their own advertising.

“I went to a station that wouldn’t control my creativity, but I treated it as if it was a real show that they hired me to do, never as an infomercial,” he says.

Validation came swiftly as, within two months, KIEV management moved the show up to midnight, and armed with letters and e-mails from fans, he secured an upscale Glendale auto dealer as a sponsor. Just two months later KIEV gave him a 9 p.m. time.

Among his fans were not just people wanting to relive ‘60s music, but people who really lived it.

“I first found out about Hal’s show from my father,” says Jackie DeShannon, the singer and songwriter behind such hits as “When You Walk in the Room” and “Put a Little Love in Your Heart.”

“He happened to be listening on a couple of occasions and told me there was a radio show playing my music. I said, ‘Dad, you must be taking too much medication. No radio station plays my music anymore.’ But it was true. Hal played songs of mine that hadn’t been heard for years. I was hooked--the depth and knowledge he has. I agreed to do an interview with him on the air, the first one in way over 10 years.”

And then another ‘60s music figure set about lobbying KRLA, with its heritage ties to the style--not to mention its stronger signal and higher ratings. Nancy Sinatra (not exactly an impartial bystander, since Lifson is her manager) contacted KRLA General Manager Bob Moore and more or less insisted that he give Lifson a listen.

“Between Hal and Nancy Sinatra, we couldn’t say no,” Moore says, noting that though the rest of the format remains talk, “Radio a Go Go” is a perfect fit, just as Deirdre O’Donoghue’s long-running Sunday morning “Breakfast With the Beatles” has proven perfect for talker KLSX-FM, which Moore also oversees. “Whether it’s talk or whatever, we hope to entertain and inform, and Hal’s show is definitely entertaining and informative, and it’s definitely in the demographics of our station.”

So what next? Lifson has long-range sights on possible syndication for the show, something both he and Moore think has a good shot, especially given the recent boost in interest in the Swingin’ ‘60s thanks to Mike Myers’ Austin Powers character.

“Austin Powers reignited that stuff,” says Lifson. “It’s Carnaby Street and the Mod ‘60s, not the stoner ‘60s. ‘Radio a Go Go’ is founded upon that ‘60s.”

And what about a move to FM radio? Not if he has his way.

“A lot of people say to me, ‘When are you going to FM, dude?’ ” he says. “In the ‘60s we not only heard this music on AM, we heard it on one speaker in our parents’ cars and on our transistor radios. The music was mixed to sound great on that one little speaker. Today, it’s kind of like how everyone wants to see the old movies letter-boxed and get things in mint condition. Mint in the ‘60s was AM mono. Like Phil Spector always says, ‘Back to Mono.’ I’m using the slogans ‘Back to Mono,’ ‘Mondo Mono’ and ‘Radio the Way You Heard It.’

“Listening to my radio, reading my Archie comics . . . what a magical experience it was.”