A friend of mine worked on-air in Baltimore radio for many decades, including a Top 40 station for much of those years.

He said when the station got copies of the new Elvis record...the promotion man would supply dozens of copies of the 45. A record would be played once an hour around the clock and it wouldn't take long before the disc would become 'cue burned'...which is that staticky sound at the beginning of the song that results from the engineer rotating the turntable back and forth to cue up the song so that it would play instantaneously when the button was punched.

Too much of that 'back and forth' wear from the needle would create a cue burn and when the engineer heard the record start to get that way...he'd toss it and replace it with a fresh, unplayed copy.

And now you know...the rest of the story!

Bob

• RE: FM - WFIL, WIOQ, etc. - John 04/14/2008 23:30:11 EDT (0)