Jane, There are two pretty good standard stations in LA right now...570 & 1260. God forgive me, I'm blanking on their call letters right now...Ah, 1260 is KSURF, I think. Both are pretty good, but both could broaden their palette a little. You get far too much Linda Ronstadt and others of the older rock ilk now crooning standards, mixed with the Tony Bennetts and Ellas. Still there's a lot of voices I've yet to hear on these stations...like Vic Damone, Johnny Hartman, Brook Benton, Buddy Clark, Helen Merrill, Bobby Short, etc. They could also mix a little big band or show tunes in with it. This would actually be an excellent venue in which to play all the sort of things Mr. Kimmel produces and all the artists he features. Why not a little Brent Barrett and Guy Haines? Mr. Kimmel, you should speak to these program directors.
1260 at one time tried an all show tune format. It failed; largely, because they did not stay true to their mission statement. They claimed they would give you show tunes from both the movies and films and would also interperse it with great standard singers singing their cover versions of Broadway and movie hits (and let's face it, probably 75 percent of the great standards came from some show or movie). But they gave us very little movie show tunes, almost none of the standard cover versions, and they would give you far too much current Broadway and Lloyd Webber, not nearly enough from the great fifties book shows and the 30's and 40's.
So far the standards stations are certainly preferable to the right-wing screamfests that inundate most of the stations out here, but if I here Sunday in New York (as much as I like it) one more time I may be the one screaming or Diana Ross and the Supremes singing Rodgers and Hart, or Dionne Warrick doing Cole Porter covers with the worst synthesized orchestrations I have ever heard...
When I was back in Cincinnati last week, they had a great station, WMKV, sort of a fogie station, but they played terrific standards and big band stuff. It's supposed to be listenable to on the internet.
I too remember when top forty stations bled into other arenas besides just rock n roll. Elvis, Tony Bennett, the Drifters, Johnny Cash, Sinatra, Faron Young, Jackie Wilson, Dinah Washington, and even Louis Armstrong singing Hello, Dolly peacefully co-existed together in a rich top 40 tapestry.
So just how does one become a full member around here? Is it number of posts?