WDAS to WNEW

In high school, I listened to WDAS FM in Philly. “DAS” was what we would later in the early seventies call an underground station after the underground came above ground, kinda like when Punk was called Punk, Punk was over... At night, while studying, Michael Tearson and “My Father’s Son” (Steve Leon), played tracks from albums…the great stuff in the middle of LPs, those songs you could not hear on AM Top 40. They were great study buddies but I think they tended to distract me.

So, in ’71, now in the Hudson Valley at “college” (kinda like a college) my new evening study buddy was Alison Steele of WNEW, the “Night Bird”. In ’73 while in NY for a weekend, I was able to meet her. By then I was a fledgling college broadcaster at WKDT FM: “The Rock of West Point” with my own show and a listening audience of 5, probably. I stole a few of Alison’s “plays”...the one I remember is transitioning from Rod Stewart’s version of “Street Fighting Man” to the Stones version at the song’s bridge. Steele had a way of blending songs in the same key, rhythm, and texture to create a mood.

My grades suffered, but I didn’t.