WAAF Rocks Off After 50 Years
Sadly, over the past year we’ve collectively experienced the heartbreaking loss of some legendary radio stations — WPLJ and WRQX are never far from our thoughts. This latest “death in the family,” as it were, took us all by surprise and gave everyone involved almost no time to properly prepare — it was less than a week ago when Entercom announced the $10.75 million sale of 107.3FM, the half-century home of legendary Boston Rock temple WAAF — to Christian broadcaster EMF, setting in motion a rapidly escalating chain of deeply emotional events that culminated in the station’s final sign-off at midnight on Friday.
Fittingly, WAAF’s final days were expertly piloted by two of its longest serving and best loved personalities, Mistress Carrie and Mike Hsu, who anchored the station from 10am-7pm on Thursday and 10am-midnight on Friday. During that time they shared their thoughts — and thanks — and fielded calls from many former WAAF staffers, like “Bob & Zip” (Bob Rivers & Peter Zipfel), Greg Hill, Danielle Murr, Lyndon (LB) Byers, Spaz & Kevin Barbare from the 30-year Hill-Man Morning Show, Anthony Cumia (Opie & Anthony) Liz Wilde, Mark Razz and Ozone.
They also welcomed some special in-studio guests, including Greg Hill (now at sister WEEI), and Aerosmith bassist Tom Hamilton (left), who recalled the excitement of hearing “Dream On” on the radio for the first time. Other artists who called in: Sully from Godsmack, Brent Smith from Shinedown, Tyler Connolly from Theory, Lajon Witherspoon and Morgan Rose from Sevendust and Gary Cherone from Extreme & Van Halen.
One of those former staffers is our longtime friend and RAMP co-founder-turned-executive headhunter Rob Barnett, whose own storied history with WAAF dates back 40 years — he was on-air, MD and PD of WAAF for what he describes as “Five perfect years, from the night before Lennon was murdered in 1980 until 1985.” Barnett was on air for more than 15 minutes with Mike and Carrie on their last show, reminiscing about a variety of subjects, including that now-legendary top-secret Rolling Stones show at Sir Morgan’s Cove, and “50 years of fearless rock.” Barnett later related to RAMP, “My heart was filled with love, breaking a little, but realizing the worst we can all do is weep, and the best we can all do is turn radio deaths as a call to arms to rise up and make great magic happen — with or without a major broadcasting company in our way.”
Emotions finally boiled over as the end drew near, as Carrie said to the audience, “Just know that on Monday when you’re missing us, we’re missing you.” When choosing that all-important sign-off song, Carrie and Mike decided to go back to the beginning — 1970 — the year WAAF became an FM Rock station, and selected a core artist that, like WAAF, recently marked its 50th anniversary. Hsu said, “This is an excellent song for the segue into the new format.” And then, unsuccessfully fighting back tears of pride, Carrie proclaimed, “Head up, shoulders back, horns up, we’re going out proud because we were all part of something special.” And as Carrie and Mike loudly exhorted their fans to “roll your windows down and crank it up!” the sounds of “Black Sabbath” by Black Sabbath gloriously burst forth from the speakers.
In these exclusive photos, PD Joe Calgaro, Carrie and Mike listened silently, and, as the song ended, Carrie & Mike embraced and WAAF ended its storied broadcast history. Afterward, the entire staff gathered outside for the awesome souvenir photo at the top. [Staff photo by 13Photography; photos of Hamilton, Calgaro, Carrie and Hsu by Greg Caparell]
