In Chicago I'd listen to WWVA in Wheeling, W. Virginia late at night just to the right of WLS. The WLS Barn Dance and the Opry seemed very modern compared to the much more old-timey music on WWVA. Even as a kid, that's how I remember it. The songs that told the tales were heard more often on the more old-time stations too. By the 1940s, when I came along, it was only Hank Snow's train songs that had that documentary, old ballad type, story song feel to 'em that said, "Yeah, you're hearing some history now!"

Once in a while Bob Atcher would sing an actual cowboy ballad on the WLS Barn Dance---along with his humorous junk songs (I thought). Bob was later to be the mayor of Shaumburg, Illinois for 20 years. I had a gig in Shaumburg in the 1970s and knocked on his door to tell him how much his doing the REAL cowboy songs meant to me. He left me waiting at the door, disapeared inside, and came back with one of my records for me to sign. It blew me away. I wound up going in and having coffee with Bob and his wife, Maggie. It was pretty cool, for sure.

But I digress.

When I finally got to Wheeling, W. Va., I took along with me all the memories of nights trying to tune in that station. All I recall from being in Wheeling though is that massively huge railroad bridge with it's giant arch. It was amazingly impressive.

Yes, I was too late for border radio ---or, at least, too young to know to look for it. But I found Wheeling and the fiddles and the banjos sure did get my attention. ----------- Later, when folk music came along and we FOUND IT and took it for our own in cities like my Chicago, I was amazed to hear people like Bob Gibson and even Big Bill Broonzy doing songs I had heard first out of WWVA in Wheeling. In the south they wer ejust "old songs". Coming out of the mouths of urban folks it was called FOLK MUSIC. ------ What goes around, comes around.

But those stations fed the music and the message all over the USA----JUST LIKE THE INTERNET and the site Masato pointed us to are doing now-----but all over the world. PRETTY AMAZING !!!

Art Thieme