[ratnobMember]

Just noticed that one of the most ground-breaking and iconic jingle packages ever is now on the JAM website: ‘Magic Music’.

To my mind, these jingles reinvented AC (or, as we used to call it, MOR) radio, and I was lucky enough to be in Philadelphia when they were on air from 1975.

They also mean a lot to collectors over a certain age because so any were reusing for BBC Radio 2 in 1976. The original package, I seem to recall, was sung used Los Angeles- rather than Dallas-based singers. Some of the cuts were, er, shall we say, ‘referenced’ when Beacon Radio’s 1976 ‘Sunshine Sound’ package (by Emison) went on air in April 1976. It was clear that the writer of those UK jingles also and very obviously admired ‘Magic Music’ – a sign of the way the JAM package moved jingles for stations like this to a new level.

https://www.jingles.com/audio/d_MagicMusic.mp3

[RobinBlamires]

The Magic packages in the late 70s were special. Laid back acoustic led tracks, and timeless enough for Radio 2 to resing them again in the mid-80s.

[Jim Donahue]

These were the first jingles to “register” in my mind way back then!

[LenGroat]

Well spotted Ratnob!

A ‘little jingle birdy’ in Dallas told me there will be more about this 100% classic package soon…..

I had cut 9 sung for GEM-AM in 1992, and we STILL use it on Solid Gold GEM AM. A perfect jingle….

[IainJohnston]

Noting from the Copyright tag that the package is FORTY years old this year … and yet … the demo and its contents is still very “listenable” today.

Also, in comparison to “today’s product” from many producers, each cut is “associated” musically & vocally with the others (hence a discernable coherent “package” as such) yet not “exactly the same instrumentation”, and unlike “modern” production doesn’t depend on just a limited sing of a station name at the end to “tie together” a package.

Also, different cuts have different “structures” – instead of “synthy logo at front, woah/yeah pad, strained poorly-keyed vocal at end” tired formulaic structure on every single cut nowadays – some cuts end on the slogan, or the frequency (remember those?), and the front lyrics and middle sections are different i.e. there’s variety in how the lyrics are laid out around the different cuts. And utterly excellent harmonies, and the solos have “character” rather than sounding like they were a pain to have to do.

If I may use the term in those dire GWR sweepers a few years back, these jingles are “Timeless Classics” :^)

[PKMember]

It was Cuts 10 & 11 of Magic Music that were “referenced” in the Emison launch package for Wolverhampton’s Beacon 303.

The Beacon 303 Emison re-hash of Cut 10 had many different mixes of solo Male & Female vocals, mixed group, male group, female group vocals and more.

Whereas the JAM Magic Music Cut 11 is in the key of G, the 303 re-hash was sung in the lower key of D and amongst the various Beacon mixes were also 2 festive Christmas versions too.

It’s interesting realising which JAM cuts influenced many of the launch Beacon 303 Emison jingles which are now nearly 40 years old themselves!

The Magic is the Music = The Music is the Sunshine.

[ratnobMemberAuthor]

For your interest:

[PKMember]

Must call 303 tech engineer Bruce Warbuton, with that wow & flutter it sounds like that old Beacon Sonifex cart machine needs some WD40 & a good servicing lol!

[radiocitybillMember]

That certainly brings back memories for me as I remember the nearby FM station owned by Merv Griffin using the package back in the mid-late 1970’s. They made an impression as I remember quite a few people listening to the station at the time.

[Tracy CarmanMember]

Indeed… Merv Griffin owned WIOF (sung as W One Oh Four) used cuts from Magic Music as did their competitor, WWYZ (Natural 92 – Y Z Plays To You). I put a montage of these cuts up here years ago… and my copy is on a backup disk here somewhere. I liked one of the WIOF cuts enough to have it resung for me, albeit with Dallas vocals. It was the ONLY JAM cut I’d had sung for decades until Jon produced the relyric’ed “Christmas Kit” cut #9 for me a couple of years ago (see http://www.carman.net). Of trivia(l) note on that cut… it was the first time since originally sung in 1977 that the entire cut had been relyric’ed (not just the tag sung).

I don’t have my version of the Magic Music cut handy to post, but it’s been used on here in numerous samplers over the years…

[radiocitybillMember]

@TC: I forgot that WWYZ used that series as well. I do remember listening to both stations and hearing the similarities in the jingles although the programming differences made other and myself favor one station over the other. Finding an aircheck of either station from that era is pretty rare air.

Interesting background on your resung jingles, too.

[Tracy CarmanMember]

Bill… I looked around and found that I still have the WWYZ/WIOF composite I put together years ago still on the server. Give it a listen at http://www.jingles.org/audio/wwyzwiof.mp3

…another blast from the past. As for presentation, the stations were far apart. The best way I could describe YZ would be musically more coffee house than mainstream. The only reason I know “Stringman” by Kenny Rankin and several other songs is from hearing them on YZ. The jocks low-key pushed the sell line ‘YZ plays to you” and I still joke with Jack Kratoville that I will forever hear his voice back-announcing the songs that he played.

WIOF almost reminded me of progressive radio. The songs rarely (if ever) segued. Come to think of it, neither did any of the other elements (except the commercials). The music was more mainstream than YZ concentrating on MOR oldies (like Art Garfunkel’s remake of “I only have eyes for you” and the like). It was perfect for when I had back yard BBQs in that era as it was unobtrusive background music people might hum along with. I particularly liked listening to the late Lou Terri, whom I’d met in the sixties when he was working up here at WHYN.

[ratnobMemberAuthor]

I still have the WWYZ/WIOF composite I put together years ago still on the server. Give it a listen at http://www.jingles.org/audio/wwyzwiof.mp3

TC

I loved hearing these, and reading your memories of the station. The presentation on WMGK used to fascinate me. A radio pal who worked on WIFI at the time used to say ‘When you’ve heard one link, you’ve heard them all’. But of course I wasn’t listening either for the links or the music – purely for those JAM jingles.

[radio_blokeMember]

It was my first JAM Demo, maybe 35 years ago (mono dub)
Does anyone know if there have been any resings in the last five years?
Would be interesting to hear “todays JAM vocalists” on those classic tracks

[loujosephs]

Greater media was trying to syndicate the concept. This at the time an awful lot of am fm simulcasts had to have New programing I got a tape with these two stations plus Philly but it came with a very high price tag so I passed.

[radio_blokeMember]

Did Radio 2 ever have cut 6?

[gameswizardMember]

Did Radio 2 ever have cut 6?

It doesn’t sound familiar to me.

[GrahamCollins]

Hi Rick, Mike is right, cut #6 was never ordered by BBC Radio 2. As for a contemporary re-sing, Len will have news soon

[radio_blokeMember]

Thanks Mike & Thanks Graham. I look forward to the re-sing!

[PKMember]

The end of Cut 6 did musically influence another Beacon 303 1976 Emison jingle!

[LenGroat]

Graham “As for a contemporary re-sing, Len will have news soon”

I do indeed! By complete co-incidence we ordered a cut from Magic Music in July for our ‘August’ package which has now arrived!

Radio Bloke : “Would be interesting to hear “todays JAM vocalists” on those classic tracks”

Here it is: https://soundcloud.com/len-groat/jam-magic-music-1-for-solid-gold-gem-am + we also did aversion for our ‘sister station’ Serenade Radio

[GrahamCollins]

I have already attempted to butt the 1976 group to the current one and it’s pretty good in terms of overall sound, however the stereo positioning of the mix is quite different and so it jars on the ear at the edit point but in mono it works a treat….. will post the audio later for people to compare, unless someone beats me to it

[GrahamCollins]

I hope Len and Jon won’t mind me taking this opportunity to showcase just how good and consistent the JAM sound really is. The front and back parts of this jingle are nearly 40, yes 40 years apart !

https://soundcloud.com/graham-c/sggam-brightens-up

[ratnobMemberAuthor]

The consistency is breathtaking. Thanks for compiling the audio.

[Jim Donahue]

Fantastic!

As Eric Morecambe might have said, “you can’t see the join”

[Author]

Posts