NPR Show Unearths 1971 College Radio Show from WHUS

Are you an obsessive radio listener? Do you have boxes of aircheck tapes from your radio show or from shows that you have just recorded off of the radio? Well...there are lots of people out there like you. Online forums exist just to facilitate the swapping of old airchecks and there are countless "radio nostalgia"-type blogs out there. But how do these "finds" become relevant and interesting beyond this inner circle?

Well, Connecticut Public Radio Station WNPR is doing a neat project called the Connecticut Basement Tapes Project, where they are digging up audio artifacts that illustrate pieces of Connecticut history. One of the most recent finds is a college radio show from WHUS circa 1971.

WNPR then put together a piece about this tape from 1971. They even tracked down the student DJ (Les Morrell) and interviewed him to learn more about his history of music show called "Ancient Archives" and find out more about the specific tape that was found. From the WNPR website you can listen to the piece about "Ancient Archives," including audio clips from the 1971 tape. Here's a transcript of a portion of the show:

"Morell would go on to be the station manager at WHUS, but I asked him how he got started at the station back in the late 1960’s.

'I used to hang out in the studio with Sexy Rex Faithful...Isn't that a radio name? And I said, "This is great, how do I do this, how do I get involved?" Eventually, Sexy Rexy graduated from UConn and they had to find someone to fill the position. So I took over the show. What I brought to the ancient archives show was more history about the music than just playing the songs alone. I was fascinated by the background, the singers, where they came from, how the songs came about.'"

Do you have any audio gems like this? Does your station ever unearth old airchecks and re-play them? Seems like a pretty great way to cherish some radio history.