[RobWalkerMember]

I finally found the disc. Here’s a sample of the main cuts.

THOMPSON CREATIVE – WXLO – HOUSTON MIX III by WQFN

[Good Time Oldie]

Rob, never tire of hearing TC cuts/packages – thank you

[RobWalkerMemberAuthor]

Glad you like them… I never thought these were very good. they sounded very out of place. The TOH cut was awkward, too…

[kolossMember]

I always liked the houston mix packages- these sound decent- with a lot of variation from the original.
Here is an oddball question or two to ask here-
Thompson’s vocals always sounded looser than say TM and especially JAM; and it almost seems, as is evident here, they had a ‘lead guy’ rather than lead girl coming out on top; does anyone know who generally was in the group at the time and the guy on top?

[Good Time Oldie]

Not sure I can answer your question re 1995, but I know who would be in the group if you had that resung today (and you can).

Re the main Male lead, could it be Mike Collier? – it’s a Johnny Hooper package so he would most defo be on there and his wife Debi perhaps

[IainJohnston]

“never tire of hearing TC cuts/packages”

GTO – please check your email!
IJ

[LenGroat]

Koloss: “Thompson’s vocals always sounded looser than say TM and especially JAM; and it almost seems, as is evident here, they had a ‘lead guy’ rather than lead girl coming out on top”

I think this was intentional – to offer an alternative to what other companies did/do. Johnny writes very strong/contemporary tracks/vocals and the cuts use a different mix of singers – younger, edgier ‘sounding’.

Good Time Oldie: “It’s a johnny Hooper package so he would most defo be on there and his wife Debi”

Johnny and Deb were virtually a ‘jingle group’ in their own right. We flew them into Manchester for a Trent/Alfasound package in the mid 80s (along with Jackie Dickson) and they sang up a STORM- transformed the sound of our station jingles before we were ‘allowed’ to go to Dallas (the antiquarian MU/IBA [then] ‘rules’).

We flew in Mike Collier another year; as far as I’m aware he’s primarily a soloist (and GREAT drummer) – you can ask him, he’s on Facebook!

ILR was launched with its ‘hand tied behind its back’ for the first 12 years = 50% ‘needletime’/ no US jingles….

[loujosephs]

At the time these were originally cut they worked just fine. I am one of the evil suits who had these cut for wxlo. Jam was not available in the market nor was anyone else so it was a compromise but it worked on air and got the station it’s highest ratings in the money demo something it has yet to repeat. End of story

[loujosephs]

the TOP of the hour cut was never intended to be used for that purpose. It was only used as a instra bed into the news or when playing music to music over the top of the hour. The legal ID came before the weather jingle at 50. No way in hell could you get a jingle that would sing fitchburg worcester…try that five times fast.

[IainJohnston]

“Jam was not available in the market nor was anyone else”

I’m intriqued by that Lou, considering the huge variety of (then) current & back catalog material available from the top rank producers.

Can you give us a bit more of the story please?
IJ

[Bigdave]

If you remember the video that Thompson did as a promo back in the 90’s, you get a few shots of the vocal groups used at the time.

In it are Jim Clancy, Johnny & Debi,Eric Tagg,Mike Collier,Bruce Upchurch,Cheryl Cleavenger,Steve Haas and many more.

Although they seemingly popped up on Hospital Radio and RSL’s here in the UK, Thompson stuff did end up on stations like CD603,Channel 103, KCBC,and of course, Atlantic

[IainJohnston]

“remember the video”

I’ve still got the VHS video tape here somewhere!

“…Thompson stuff did end up on stations…”

Add KFM in Kent (94Q), likewise other southern Sallie stations such as Arrow in Hastings, Medway FM etc.

Hands up how many people have had Dave Langer (one-time Thompson UK rep) playing jingles down the phone to them…?

And his website is still there…

http://www.jingle.org

(No, thats not quite the address of Tracy’s MPF, but dodgily-close…)
But the audio section (MP3 samples) is a little…um…dated shall we politely say…,
as are one or two other bits.

[professor1036]

I used a few Thompson jingles during my time at The Wave in Blackpool (before the name reverted back to Radio Wave), but were mixed in with a few JAM cuts. Thompson also appeared on Centre FM in Staffordshire, Country 1035 in London and Gemini FM, Devon as well.

Oh and yes…I also had the Dave Langer phone call!

I liked Thompson…but preferred Century 21/TM Century

[radioboy949]

Ah nice… used these jingles at Coast 107.3 in Tampa. TC did some nice work in the 90s, very underrated company.

[loujosephs]

The major jingle folks considered worcester part of the boston metro, even though its a separate arbitron market. So the best jingles in the boston market were of course at the time JAM and TM had the CHR’s so that’s how we got to Thompson Creative. The first jingles that WXLO had were from Fairwest.

[Bigdave]

Re the Thompson video…its here…

[Good Time Oldie]

Cheers for the link Dave and thanks to Paul for uploading the video to youtube, I could watch that all day.

Always nice to see the guys in action and I have some of those cool Thompson Creative PCs sitting right here loaded in my rack – GOOD STUFF!!!

[RobWalkerMemberAuthor]

I find it very hard to believe that there were no JAM or TM jingles available in the market. My guess is it came down to money. I was at WZID in Manchester New Hampshire at the time XLO purchased these jingles. We had just switched to Thompson, after a long run with JAM. (The last JAM package WZID had purchased was American Mix.) I always thought XLO was a very interesting radio station.

[loujosephs]

Manchester was not part of the boston metro a good chunk of Worcester was being annexed to the Boston MSA. So that’s where the problem was. All that so Boston could stay in the top ten. Yeah I could have re done the ROR stuff that I did with TM but they were a bad fit and old plus the extra stuff I added fit better with an oldies station than an ac. Money was not the issue. WSSH had the Coast package, WBMX had Jam. So…
I always like the GM at ZID as I had worked with him in Laconia Wolfeboro

[Tracy CarmanMember]

WXLO Worcester, MA – FairWest ID Jingle (Vocal by The Ron Hicklin Singers)

[Author]

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