What DID "WPLJ" Stand For?

There's a real Seventies trivia question for New Yorkers. Hard-core radio fans from the era will recall that the letters were the title of a song by the Four Deuces in 1955, although the more popular version was recorded (in doo-wop style) by Frank Zappa in 1970. The lyrics extolled the virtues of White Port and Lemon Juice, a drink which, according to my friend Z, was a favorite of poor, struggling musicians. Z. adds that the lemon juice was needed to make the sickeningly sweet cheap wine drinkable.

As you would expect from a station named for a Zappa tune, PLJ was, during its heyday, a pretty quirky station. Originally WABC-FM, the station at the start of the Seventies featured a "free-form" format, similar to that of its arch rival, WNEW-FM. In 1971 they changed both their call letters and style, playing a combination of album cuts from serious rock acts such as the Allman Brothers and Yes with some of the better stuff from the Top 40. The O' Jays and Carly Simon were PLJ material; the Osmonds and Cher were not. You could hear several cuts in a row without commercials, and staff never talked while a record was playing, the way they did on AM radio.

Many PLJ disk jockeys were first-rate, and you can hear some of them to this day on various stations in our area. The air staff included Jim Kerr, Carol Miller and Pat St. John, along with legendary horror film host John Zacherley, "The Cool Ghoul." Late nights San Francisco transplant Alex Bennett did a talk show, featuring guests such as Cheech and Chong and Jean Shepherd. Bennett would seem to be an unlikely choice for PLJ, in that he was openly critical of many major performers whom the station played, including David Bowie, the Grateful Dead and especially Led Zeppelin; he classified the latter as amongst "The Scum of Rock." I suspect that some of his vehemence might have been due to his having been roughed up by a bodyguard while backstage at a Zeppelin show, an incident he spoke of for quite a while. And while he considered himself a member of the "New York Art Crowd" who hung at at the famous Max's Kansas City, he was no fan of the New York Dolls. Bennett was one talk show host who did not hide his true self. Fans knew where he lived; his girlfriend appeared on the show and he brought his moods with him into the studio. Even at his grouchiest, however, Bennett was a far cry from the shock jocks and hate mongers who would later dominate talk radio.

Another PLJ regular was Bill Ayers, a Catholic priest who hosted a Sunday morning show which mixed interviews with various rock stars with a blend of spirituality and social action that was a far cry from what would develop later in the decade with the advent of the televangelists. "Father Bill" was a close friend of Harry Chapin, with whom he was heavily involved in the World Hunger Year project. I recall one show in which he consoled a caller that he would not go to Hell if he missed Mass, as those of us who attended Catechism class were sometimes told. Eventually, as was becoming very common amongst priests and nuns, Ayers announced that he was leaving the formal ministry in order to get married.

Live concerts were another great feature of PLJ. They broadcasted the farewell night at the Fillmore East, a concert by Elton John which would become an album (11-17-70) and simulcasts of WABC-TV's late night "In Concert" program. I still have a tape from that show of Rick Wakeman performing "Journey to the Center of the Earth."

In the latter part of the Seventies PLJ dropped the Top 40 material and focused entirely upon what would come to be called "Classic Rock." This was a sign of the times. "Lite" music was already becoming a format in its own right, while R and B was rapidly showing symptoms of the Disco virus. There really wasn't much for their kind of audience to hear on the pop charts. As it moved into the 1980s, however, PLJ made a 180-degree turn and itself became a 'hit' station, at which time most of us removed it from our radios' pre-set selections. Some then, the station has been fighting an uphill battle for a tiny share in the local market.

Pele and Pre-Soccer Mom Soccer

During the Sixties it was tough to just find a real soccer ball in sporting goods stores around NYC, and almost as tough to gather a bunch of kids with whom to play a game. Soccer was popular mostly with small communities of immigrants, such as the Scandinavians and Greeks, although their American-born children typically showed little interest in the game. They wanted to fit in with the other kids. Those who did play would often have to improvise, using football or baseball fields, and sometimes bringing portable goal nets with them.

Things started to change in the Seventies, although slowly. My high school had intramural soccer games amongst home room teams, plus impromptu matches in gym classes, but no serious team. By contrast, we had every level of basketball, baseball, track and football. Those of us who did enjoy soccer were typically not the athletic crew, but we enjoyed the casual games, in which nobody cared much about rules (indeed, few of us knew the “official” soccer regulations). Gym teachers weren’t much help, since they didn’t know the rules much better than we did, and were more interested in coaching the more serious jocks. The few soccer moves I learned came from a Norwegian guy who lived up the street from me, who demonstrated a few basics to my pals and I.

The one person who did the most to promote soccer in the United States, and our town in particular, was one Edison Arantes do Nascimento, universally known simply as Pele, the Brazilian superstar who joined the short-lived New York Cosmos in 1974 and helped propel them to the championship of the North American Soccer League. The Cosmos paid him $7 million for a 3-year contract. Pele was to soccer what Babe Ruth was to baseball or Mohammed Ali was to boxing; much more than an athlete, he was a fascinating character of whom the public could simply not get enough. The brief spurt of popularity which the Cosmos experienced ended soon after Pele retired in 1977, but at least a sizable chunk of the public had seen a real soccer match.

Another trend which helped promote soccer in our town during the Seventies was the arrival of a great deal of immigrant kids. Note my words here; as I said before, children of immigrants did not seem terribly interested in soccer (or most of the other things that distinguished them from the other kids). But kids from abroad, who grew up playing the game, wanted to continue with it. As their communities grew, these children, and to some extent their older relatives, were able establish teams and draw fans (something rather important to teenagers).

Finally, there was Title IX and the rise of girls’/women’s sports in schools. It’s easy to forget that, prior to this legislation, girls’ team sports, at least in most working and middle-class communities around NYC, were not taken very seriously, apart from phys ed classes. You had girls’ softball and volleyball, but even these were not very popular. But, for whatever reasons, soccer proved very popular with girls.

Meanwhile, the phenomenon of the “Soccer Mom” was virtually non-existent, except perhaps for parents of very small children. Most of the games we played were conducted either at school athletic fields, or local parks. Kids walked, or took public transit (and, believe it or not, just about none were abducted or abused!) In addition, this not being the ‘burbs, NYC moms had to work.

The "West Side Story" Revival

In 1972 just about every kid in New York City was glued to the TV when the film version of West Side Story was shown. This sentimental musical, with no rock and roll in it, was co-written by Leonard Bernstein. Yeah, Bernstein, of the Philharmonic! It seemed an odd hit for our generation. After all, not only was it corny, but it dealt with greasers, inter-racial fighting and gangs, which were all behind us, right? I mean, this was the dawning of Age of Aquarius, Consciousness III, etc!

Well, maybe the Sixties generation were all so stoned that they believed such drivel. The kids I knew were quite aware of the antipathy between ethnic groups, since many experienced it first-hand. They knew that a real life Tony/Maria romance would spark some resentment. And while none of us belonged to gangs or carried switchblades, the adolescent bravado of the Sharks and Jets was something any teen could relate to. The next day at school just about everyone was walking through the hallway, snapping their fingers in unison. And if you were lucky (or unlucky) enough to be named Tony or Maria, you would be serenaded.

Perhaps Alice Cooper was watching along with us, since on his School’s Out album there appeared a tune called “Gutter Cats Verses the Jets.”