HomeMy WebLinkAboutSam Jones Changes Formats Transcript, WTAW First 100 YearsProject HOLD
WTAW Interview
Sam Jones | General Sales Manager
Tom Turbiville | WTAW Radio Host
Laura Quezada | Transcriber
00:00:00 Dick Bolin (DB)
College Station, Texas, April 14, 1947, Dick Bolin talking. Here's the latest news from the
Associated Press…
[Unintelligible news broadcaster speaking]
00:00:07 Speaker 2
Aggies win 74-72! Here's your…
00:00:12 Speaker 3
…1620 WTAW.
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00:00:19 Tom Turbiville (TT)
This is WTAW, the First 100 Years, I'm Tom Turbiville. If you like to plan your life, well, then
maybe radio is not the job for you. Just ask Sam Jones, who came to work for WTAW first in the
summer of 1974 when he was a student at the University of Texas ; starting at WTAW-FM
spinning Top 40 records, until the boss changed that.
00:00:43 Sam Jones (SJ)
To go work on WTAW-AM, which was the countryside, somebody thought I should replace
somebody on the AM side is what happens. WTAW was at AM, the country station, and it was
1150 was the frequency back then. The station signed off whenever the sun went down. In the
summer, the days are longer, so WTAW-AM was on the air more, and so they moved me from
WTAW-FM, which was Top 40, over to WTAW-AM, which was country. I worked Monday
through Friday from 6 p.m. til 8.30. And at 8.30 p.m., my shift ended, and that's when we signed
off the radio station. When I started on the air, my preference was Top 40; I was familiar with
that. They put me on the country station. When that happened, I knew nothing about country
music at that point, I mean, absolutely nothing. Of course, you've got a format that you follow,
and you play a record from this stack at this time, a record from this stack at that time, blah, blah,
blah. Over the period of weeks and months, I familiarized myself with the country music.
00:01:54 (TT)
Yep, you learned to do it all at WTAW, the First 100 Years.