When the Beatles burst upon my youth in 1964, I became aware of popular music. I began to collect 45s ($1 each) and LPs ($6 each). WLS was the fountain of my adolessent knowledge. The station informed me how to be "young" and cool in the '60s.
For about four years, WLS radio was a big part of my life. My brother Frank and I constantly listened to the radio station and collected silver dollar surveys which listed the top 40 songs in Chicagoland. Frank faithfully listened to the "top three most requested songs" every night at 10 PM. He compiled two year's of statistics about the songs.
Wherever I traveled I kept a transister radio with me to listen to my favorite songs. In 1965, my dad bought a big reel-to-reel tape player. I taped a lot of stuff off of WLS, both to save money in record expense and with an eye toward archiving my life.
