Bootleg Top-40 Lives

It wasn’t a conventional LP. It was a recording of airchecks–short snippets of disk jockeys talking over the intros and outros of top-40 hits. The actual songs were inconsequential. Once the disk jockey stopped talking the track cut to the next element.

The photo on the left arrived in my mailbox early this morning. Bill Dillane found it and wanted me to forward it to my friend Howard Lapides, the guy holding the album.

Done.

It’s probable you’ve never heard Bootleg Top-40, the album in Howard’s hands. It wasn’t a conventional LP. It was a recording of airchecks–short snippets of disk jockeys talking over the intros and outros of top-40 hits. The actual songs were inconsequential. Once the disk jockey stopped talking the track cut to the next element.

I was just getting started on-the-air when this album arrived. This was disk jockey porn! It was a collection of impressive jocks to rip off emulate… and I did.

I committed it to memory! I can still recite all the lines from WAKY’s Bill Bailey or KCBQ’s Rich “Brother” Robin along with dozens of others.

Like nearly everything else Bootleg Top-40 has found its way to the Internet. If you enjoyed listening to top-40 radio in the 70s (or want to hear what it was like) it’s worth a click.