As FM broadcasting evolved into more than just elevator music or the higher quality simulcast of AM radio, stations started catering to an audience whose tastes in music were changing and becoming more eclectic. In the mid-late 1950's and all the way into the 60's, Folk Music had branched out of its rural roots and into the mainstream. With acts like The Kingston Trio, The Limelighters, The Brothers Four and countless other groups grabbing places on the Pop charts, it created an awareness and an appetite for the casual listener, as well as the enthusiast and budding musician to go looking for more. And FM was the perfect place to find it.
Around 1954, New York Disc Jockey Skip Weshner began a series of live broadcasts called Accent On Sound from the former Cafe Society club in Greenwich Village, which had been closed, revamped and reopened as One Sheridan Square. His program featured a vast array of talents, including early Bob Dylan and Joan Baez among many others.
This tape is a one-hour segment of an original three hour special program Weshner did to celebrate the switch over to WNCN in New York early in 1961. The program was syndicated by tape to KRHM in Los Angeles and features folk legends Pete LaFarge, Ramblin' Jack Elliot, Billy Faier, Logan English among others.
It gives you some idea of what was available on radio during those days. How it was possible to cultivate an eclectic taste in music pretty effortlessly as is evidenced by not only the music featured on Weshner's show but during the intro of the show that followed it. All on December 1960.
