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The Ex-Child Star Who Is Bringing Back The "Beautiful Music" Format
This isn't about local radio, but what a weird little story this.
If you watched American TV in the 70s, you probably saw commercials for an American-only fast food chain called "Jack In The Box." They featured a cute little kid named Rodney Allen Rippy, who became a minor celebrity thanks to those spots. (You can see some examples below.)
Rippy grew up, but his time in showbiz was to be restricted solely to those ads. So he had a career change and that involved radio. With some partners, he's determined to bring back an almost extinct format - Beautiful Music, the kind of thing you used to hear on CHFI's "Candlelight And Wine" back in the day: instrumentals of popular songs, often backed with lush string arrangements.
It used to be a popular format and almost every city had at least one that everybody's father would listen to. And they used to do OK in the ratings. But you rarely, if ever, hear any radio stations programming "elevator music" anymore.
Until, that is, Rippy and his friends found a way to bring it back. This story is from Los Angeles, but it directs you to the link of KJMB, which programs nothing but music to watch paint dry by. It isn't my cup of tea but I recall some here reminiscing about the good old days of the quiet music. So this is your chance to hear it again here.
"Selections include string versions of popular songs such as “It Had to Be You,” “Stardust,” “Over the Rainbow,” “Love me Tender,” “The Warmth of the Sun,” “This Girl is Mine,” “Saving All My Love For You” and more… over 3,400 titles in all, spanning over three decades."
Not bad for a Jack In The Box star who's managed to pop up again decades later.
How Rodney Allen Rippy brought back the ‘Beautiful Music’ radio format
- newsguy1
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Re: The Ex-Child Star Who Is Bringing Back The "Beautiful Music" Format
Way back I worked in Victoria for rock station CKDA, and it's counterpart, CFMS, the latter being a "beautiful music" station.
All the jocks were older guys with deep pipes, and heavy smokers in the days when there was no problem lighting up in the studio.
CDKA did highh energy rock n roll news, whereas CFMS did the soft quiet delivery.
The hilarious thing is we news types had to read news for both stations, back-to-back.
So we literally did the old George Carlin routine about the difference between rock news and "candle light and wine" version.
So a news story that would read on CKDA as "Victoria cops have busted thee perps in a record pot sweep," would read on CFMS as
Victoria police have apprehended three male subjects after seizing a large quantity of marijuana."
When I heard the old Carlin routine, I laughed and said, "hey we do that for real, no joke."
Anyway that "beautiful music" format was very popular at the time.
- Muffaraw Joe
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Re: The Ex-Child Star Who Is Bringing Back The "Beautiful Music" Format
It is a bit like CJCL when it was on 1430...Music of your Life, .or as we joked back then, Music of your after-life.
I wonder if it has legs to become a radio format here, the Jewel, came close, but they shifted formats.
Oh and a big shout out to Mr. Rippy, many child actors struggle in their adult years, he found his niche and passion and is working it!
Well done!
Last edited by Muffaraw Joe (December 31, 2024 4:51 pm)
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Re: The Ex-Child Star Who Is Bringing Back The "Beautiful Music" Format
Recalls memories of similarly-formatted stations such as Barrie's CHAY-FM, one of the most popular and most powerful in southern Ontario. I believe they held on to the format in one form or another as late as the mid to late '90s before shifting to an adult contemporary format. During the Shaw era in the '90s, a bunch of "Project Easy" Canadian Talent Development CDs were released, and my musician uncle, who was living in Toronto at the time and has since moved back to his native Collingwood, performed on a few tracks for the Project Easy series.
Growing up in the Peterborough area in the late '80s and early '90s, Oshawa still had CKQT 94.9, which my parents would occasionally tune in; and the "seagull" itself, Belleville's CIGL 97.1, sourced a lot of its music from the Michigan-based KalaMusic organization, whose reels CHAY also used. When we arrived in the area in the late '80s, Peterborough's CFMP (now CKWF) had already ditched Music Of Your Life, in favour of "Peterborough's Adult Rock - FM 101". (The Wolf and its rock format would be born in 1992.)