A Mega Oldie And Goodie

A look at the songs that have shaped
my life and ended up on my devices.

In the late 1990's, a great new radio format appeared out of nowhere: Rhythmic Oldies, also known as "Mega Oldies" or "Jammin' Oldies." My first exposure to it came via Internet radio, on a station in Dallas that streamed over the net. Back in 1999, I was in the Rio Grande Valley, and dial-up 'net was the norm, so I tied up my landline phone listening to the stream for a good hour or two on many a day.

When I moved to Tucson, I simply needed to tune to "Mega 106.3" (or 104.9 if you lived in the shadow of Pusch Ridge and had trouble picking up the signal from the transmitter on Mt. Lemmon's "Radio Ridge"). KGMV played plenty of Motown, R&B classics and funk favourites along with some slow jams like this one from the Isley Brothers:



They also put a Billy Preston classic back on the air:



I remember hearing that song on the way back from one of my first visits to Casino of the Sun in Tucson, on the Pascua Yaqui reservation. The last time I heard it was in a public-service announcement back in Kansas City, or maybe as part of a commercial for Jet TV on Prospect.

Today, KGMV has morphed into KTGV, "The Groove," featuring more white artists and more hip-hop. A lot of the 1970's oldies are gone, or at least they were the last time I tuned in. Well, it was fun while it lasted.