Jeff Roteman's WLS Page - WLS Jingles Page

The Sound of Music Radio WLS...
The On-Air sound of WLS featured high profile personalities, the best music, and classic jingles from PAMS, Anita Kerr, Tuesday Productions, Jam Productions, Jodie Lyons and many more.
Ken R. of Ken R Inc. in Toledo talks about WLS Jingles over the years:

In the early 60's, WLS was running jingles created by Anita Kerr and her 4 person vocal group. The sound was soft, well-blended and distinctive. If the voices sound familiar to you, it's because they were used on countless Nashville recording sessions over the years. You've heard Anita Kerr sing background vocals on hits like Big John (Jimmy Dean), Jingle Bell Rock (Bobby Helms) , Forever (by Pete Drake and his singing guitar) and dozens of others.

At some point WLS approached PAMS (or vice versa) and the goal was to make a jingle package that sounded like Anita Kerr's material The same distinctive 5 note melody was used for the call letters ... and after a few auditions and false starts, a package was created which aired for a few years. Then PAMS kicked in Series 18 (Sonosational) which started WLS on a PAMS track which lasted through 1976. Here are some of the highlights of their PAMS jingle packages:

1962: Custom package (like Anita Kerr)

1963: Series 18 (Sonosational)

1966-1969: A capellas (male, mixed group, with and without guitar slides)

1968: WLS also purchased PAMS Series 34, which included some "Music Power" cuts. A few custom (non-syndicated) jingles were also recorded which never appears on any demos. (They do appear on our WLS: The 60's CD.)

1970-71: A very unique unnamed custom package referred to as "WLS Custom 71."
Some of these cuts were ultra-short with vocals extending beyond the end of the band tracks. They used a 7-voice vocal group (4 guys, 3 girls) and were used by many rock and MOR stations of the day.

1972: Solid Rock - This package used a younger rock-oriented vocal group in the style of "Jesus Christ Superstar" which was popular at the time. The style was copied by the other jingle companies, but PAMS was very successful with this series.

1973: Solid Rock II - Like most sequels... not so hot. PAMS then cut a small, unmemorable "traditional" package for WLS. Also in 1973, one of PAMS writers defected and started his own jingle company, bringing WLS with him as a client. This lasted one year. The jingles were widely considered to be not wonderful.

1974: Back to PAMS for another custom series. Also in 1974 and 1975, WLS aired some packages created by Tanner (and their on-paper sister company, Thunder Productions) in Memphis, although the jingles were cut in Dallas with Dallas writers, musicians, singers and studios. This scheme lasted about a year.

1975: Another PAMS custom series... this one pretty hot. Mr. Boogie-check was on board at this time and his cut appears in this series. (John Records Landecker)

1976: The "Windy" custom series began to show touches of disco. PAMS was on the brink of collapse for many reasons, but these jingles weren't too bad.

By this time Jon Wolfert, a former PAMS and TM employee, had begun his own company (JAM, started in 1974) and began picking up big clients such as WABC and soon WLS. PAMS continued to record experiments and custom jingles, but WLS chose to stay with JAM for many years to come. (With good reason... JAM jingles were, and are, excellent and are currently heard all over the world.)

The PAMS/WLS affiliation lasted about 15 years and brought many very unique and powerful IDs into the world. The era between 1962 and 1976 was really considered to be the peak of WLS's reign as the midwest's #1 Top 40 station.
Ken R.
Ken R. Inc.

John Gehron, WLS Program Director in 1978 made the switch to Jam for WLS Jingles.

John Gehron explains the switch to Jam in this clip from the CD,
JAM: The First 20 Years, courtesy of JAM Productions

WLS Jingle Montage 1973 - 1977 provided by Tim Brown. 10 minutes of WLS Jingles from PAMS, Thunder, and Sundance.

WLS Jingle Montage provided by Starbrelz. 17 minutes of WLS Jingles.

WLS Jingle Montage provided by Starbrelz. 15 minutes of WLS Jingles from PAMS, Thunder, and Sundance covering the Tommy Edwards and John Gehron eras.

Listen to samples of WLS in Real Audio . . .
Requires Real Audio Player

Solid Rock Song (Based on Wide Track Pontiac)	Solid Rock Song 2 (Son of Solid Rock)
Pams Series 18 - Hearing Things	Pams Series 18 WLS Long
Pams Series 34 Love Power	Pams 1967 Music Power
1967 - WLS Plays More Music	1968 - WLS Plays More Music
1969 Windy City Weather	More Solid Rock WLS Jingle
JJ Jeffries ID	Joel Sebastian ID
Mountain Of Music ID remastered	Anita Kerr WLS Jingle remastered
Life Is A Rock - WLS Rolled Me	Music Radio WLS Jingle
Larry Lujack WLS Jingle remastered	The Rock Of Chicago WLS Jingle remastered
The Best Music WLS Jingle	Boogie Check WLS Jingle
Boogie Check 2 WLS Jingle	Rock Of Chicago Music Radio WLS
Music Radio WLS Chicago Jingle	Kris Erik Stevens More Solid Rock
Larry Lujack Super Jock Jingle remastered	Anita Kerr - Personality Jingle remastered
Music Radio WLS ID Jingle	Guest Disc Jockey Jingle
John Landecker Jingle	WLS, the Windy City Jingle
Music Radio WLS ID Jingle	Radar Weather Eye Jingle
WLS Weekend Weather Jingle

Uncle Lar & Lil Tommy
Animal Stories News Team (2:54)

From the Collection of Hal Widsten
WLS Production Director (1968-1971)

WLS Series 2 PAMS Acapellas	First Used on WLS Nov. 11, 1968
More Music 89 WLS (f/s)	Chicago Weather
WLS Souvenir (fast)	89 WLS / The WIndy City
WLS PAMS Acapellas	1971 Produced by Mike McCormick
More Hits More Often (f/s)	WLS Chicago
WLS Double Yesterday (f/s)	WLS News Sounder
All Hit Music All Summer Long	WLS All Hits All Summer Long
Gary Gears WLS

The WLS Jock Jngle Montage
19 minutes of WLS DJ Jingles. Featuring many of WLS's Best Personalities

And Featuring Jingles from Anita Kerr, PAMS, Jodie Lyons, and Jam

Jodie Lyons produced a Rock of Chicago Jingle Package.
This ad appeared in Billboard Magazine September 9. 1972

Jon Wolfert of PAMS and Jam Creative Productions. in Dallas talks about WLS Solid Rock and Rock of Chicago Jingles:
"Solid Rock" was recorded for WLS in October 1971, which was one month after I began working at PAMS so I remember it vividly. Jodie Lyons was the producer, and did write many of the cuts, but was not the only writer. (Anorak note: I have the only copy of this package with the count-offs still on, because I made myself a dub before doing the editting!)

When WLS was ready for a follow-up package, Jodie's departure from PAMS had more to do with he and Bill Meeks being unable to agree on "the deal", and not PAMS' unwillingness to do the package. After all, "Solid Rock" had sold surprisingly well and had given all of us "kids" in Studio C something profitable to do.

Jodie did his package "The Rock of Chicago" under the company name "Jodie Lyons Productions". I have the well-worn 5" reel demo sitting on my shelf here.

The accompanying lyric sheet indicates that there were 60 cuts in all.

At a later time Jodie tried to market a number of his packages under the "Concrete Concepts" label. I have that demo on a vinyl LP.

PAMS, meanwhile, created their own follow-up to Solid Rock. It was first done for KOL Seattle. Chris Kershaw produced it and wrote many (but not all) of the cuts. To my ear it was a very different sounding package than the original Solid Rock, even though it used the same vocal group who had been doing the Solid Rock packages in syndication. Note that the original WLS versions heard on the Solid Rock demo used 8 singers, but the syndicated versions for other stations only used 5... and the sound became considerably less "annoying", shall we say. I recorded and mixed quite a few of those.

Internally the project was known as "Son of Solid Rock", but once the package was released it was called "Solid Rock, volume 2".