Plaudits and gratitude are owed to L.A. Oldies 1260 K-Surf (KSUR) owner Saul Levine. He restored…read morerock'n'roll oldies to the Los Angeles market's AM dial (streaming at laoldies.com) in 2017 after removing it in 2011 for a classical music format.
Levine, 93 years old, runs his independent station with scarce-if-any commercial interruptions, and his largesse is what makes K-Surf an oasis of the airwaves. In what is predominantly an automated format, the station has live DJs in control from 6-10 a.m. and noon-6 p.m. weekdays, and several features during the week that depart the routine.
DJs are unobtrusive, announcing titles/artists and tossing in sometimes-surprising factoids. For instance, did you know that the twangy stringed instrument in B.J. Thomas' hit, "Hooked on a Feeling," is a sitar? To how many listeners might that have occurred some 50 years ago when the tune was in heavy rotation?
K-Surf twice a week presents Dick Clark's archived syndicated program, "Rock Roll & Remember," and can be counted-on every Saturday night for six hours of disco memories, actually absence-heart-fonder fun.
On the downside, the hour-long weekday news show, "This Morning: America's First News," breaks into the music at 4 a.m. and, what the heck, it never hurts to hear some news before you prep to slay those dragons. However, when the program ends, the oldies resume, and only one-and-a-half tunes play before a nearly identical news encore intrudes. Only other nit to pick is intermittent glitches in the signal (or computer?); only an instant of dead air, but annoyingly frequent when present.
Monaural 50s-60s-70s music on AM radio possesses a certain throwback appeal. It sometimes sounds tinny, fuzzy or staticky, just as it did when the songs were new, listened-to on rudimentary, AM-only car radios and hand-held, Japanese-manufactured "transistors." That's the way it was until the rise of the FM band--and people LIKED it! The music transmitted rose above the obstacles then, and still does now.