Well, they did it. God bless them, WPTR is back on the air.
It’s a community radio station, which means that the music format will vary from hour to hour, depending on the on-air radio personality at that time. You can listen to it on your FM radio, on your AM radio (yes, some people still have AM radio), and you can listen online at this link.
But I want to ask you, if you are able, to listen to WPTR on Friday nights, from 6pm to 8pm. Radio personality Chip Ordway has a two-hour block of music and trivia and deep cuts, and it’s definitely worth your time.
Example. When I tuned in last Friday, he was playing a block of 1960’s hits that were written for motion pictures – but although the songs shared the motion picture’s title, the songs were NEVER included in the film and were just designated for radio and jukebox play. Example – the film “Wives and Lovers” spawned this Burt Bacharach-Hal David-crafted song by Jack Jones, but the song doesn’t appear in the movie.
Chip played this song as part of a block with another track from this genre, the song written for-but not included in- the film “The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance.”
This was followed by a set of songs that were local hits in the Capital District, and then later a mixture of the Top 40 oldies you would normally hear on your standard oldies stations.
This is da bomb.
And he plays The Myddle Class. The Myddle Class were a regional group that had several hits in this area, but never broke through nationally.
And he plays the Bougalieu. They had a hit in this area with “When I Was a Children,” and that was about it.
And he plays the Fidelity’s, Albany’s original doo-wop group. Wowie.
Hell, if he adds “I Wanna Be a Lifeguard” by Blotto, I’d be in heaven. 😀
Hey, maybe he can pull out some of those classic Canadian Top 40 hits that somehow sneaked over the border and got some spins on WPTR, like “Half Past Midnight” by the Staccatos,” “Gaslight” by the Ugly Ducklings, “1-2-5” by the Haunted, and maybe even the original Chad Allen and the Expressions’ “Shakin’ All Over” – okay, Chuck, calm down, you can’t have everything but you can dream for anything.
Plus, Chip uses some of the old classic WPTR jingles (although some of them have to be edited to change the station designation from “1540” to “1240”), and it’s just an awesome listen.
So do me a favor. Take a listen this Friday night, from 6p to 8p and let me know what you think. And if you don’t have time to listen to Chip at that moment – check out the rest of WPTR’s lineup. There seems to be musical tastes for everyone.
This might be the chance to enjoy local radio once again. And I’m willing to take that.
Chuck The Writer 
Call me old fashioned but, with all the amazing technology available to musicians today, I wonder why modern music is, compared to the music I grew up with, pedestrian and uninspiring (there speaks an old fart!). Perhaps it is all too easy these days to bang out a tune and call it contemporary music or perhaps music has been democratised to the extent that there is just too much of it and anything good is swamped by the less good. An analogue would be television. With 1000s of TV channels now, we seem to be deluged with mediocre programme content (yawn). On the other hand, maybe I’ve just lost touch with the modern way of doing things. Either way, I find myself listening and watching less and less to radio and TV and seek inspiration, enlightenment and entertainment elsewhere. What a boring old fart I can hear them shout!
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PS. I will listen to Chip. And Chip, what a great name for radio!
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Exciting news! Looking forward to all this…To the future with WPTR . I’m on board!!
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