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Keener13.com @keener13.com · 02/10/2026

Counting down the top Keener13.com hits from this week in 1964. Friday at Noon Eastern, with encores Saturday at 3pm and Sunday at 9am.

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Keener13.com @keener13.com · 15/09/2026

Remember Film Strips? We do. There’s an archive out there. Keener13.Substack.com #60s #filmstrips #school

Once upon a Time filmstrips were a respite from having to pay attention to our teachers. Now there’s an organization that is archiving hundreds for posterity.

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Keener13.com @keener13.com · 06/09/2026

Join us! All day, Labor Day on Keener13.com! #oldies #RockNRoll #radio #countdown #at40

Keener’s Labor Day programming includes 9 hours of countdowns and three deep dives into rock history. Join us at Keener13.com

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Keener13.com @keener13.com · 25/08/2026

Today in 1975, @brucespringsteen.net caught lightning in a bottle. keener13.substack.com/p/born-to-run

For a performer who had spent years sweating through marathon sets in bars and clubs, the effect must have been surreal. He had wanted to be heard. Suddenly, he was being declared important.

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Keener13.com @keener13.com · 17/08/2026

#marvingaye & #tammiterrell, a #motown number on this date in 1968. keener13.substack.com/p/marvin-and...

On August 17, 1968, Marvin Gaye and Tammi Terrell took “You’re All I Need to Get By” to number one on Billboard’s R&B chart, and for a few incandescent minutes, Motown sounded less like a record company than a church.

This wasn’t just another precision-built hit rolling off Berry Gordy’s Detroit assembly line. It was something warmer, stranger, and more human. Written and produced by the dynamic duo of Nickolas Ashford and Valerie Simpson, “You’re All I Need to Get By” unfolds like a testimony gathering strength. There’s no rush to the hook, no obvious pop-song machinery grinding underneath. The record simply rises. Voices, strings, rhythm section, and emotion keep piling on until Marvin and Tammi sound like they’re singing from somewhere beyond the studio walls. That was the magic of their partnership.

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Keener13.com @keener13.com · 15/08/2026

How long did it take #PaulMcCartney to gain control over his early #Beatles compositions? Almost 5 decades. Keener13.Substack.com.

It remains one of the coldest, smartest, most Shakespearean moves in rock-and-roll history.

In August 1985, Michael Jackson was no longer the kid from Gary, Indiana. He was the biggest pop star on Earth, still riding the thermonuclear aftershock of Thriller, an album that had turned him into an economy unto himself.

And he was about to spend $47.5 million on some of the most valuable songs ever written. He outbid Paul McCartney for over 250 early Lennon/McCartney compositions and it took almost 5 decades for Paul to get them back.

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Keener13.com @keener13.com · 12/08/2026

How Thomas #Edison began the #Rock revolution. keener13.substack.com/p/the-night-...

On August 12, 1877, Thomas Edison reportedly sketched out an idea that would become the phonograph, a machine capable of doing something that bordered on sorcery. It could capture sound and play it back.

Until then, music was mortal. A singer opened his mouth, a violinist drew a bow across the strings, a piano chord rang through a parlor, and then it was gone. Music existed only in the instant it was performed.

Edison changed that forever.

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Keener13.com @keener13.com · 10/08/2026

Today's Keener Birthdays include Kylie Jenner, 29. Actor Antonio Banderas, 66. Former heavyweight boxing champ Riddick Bowe, 59. Patti Austin, 76. Jethro Tull's Ian Anderson, 79. And remembering Ronettes lead singer Ronnie Spector, born today in 1943.

Happy Heavenly Birthday to Ronnie Spector, Born Veronica Yvette Bennett in East Harlem, New York City, August 10, 1943.

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Keener13.com @keener13.com · 10/08/2026

Some of Detroit’s most iconic auto events are coming up. Keener13.Substack.com

Welcome to the Motor City’s annual automotive nervous breakdown. For nearly two months, southeast Michigan becomes one enormous rolling celebration of speed, noise, chrome, mud, beer, nostalgia, technological ambition, and the deeply American conviction that anything worth doing is probably worth doing with a larger engine.

Call it the Big Five. Call it automotive Woodstock. Call it what happens when Detroit remembers exactly who it is.

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Keener13.com @keener13.com · 07/08/2026

Michigan’s #Woodstock, Goose Lake, turns 56. Keener13.Substack.com

For three days, Leoni Township became the center of the rock-and-roll universe. The Goose Lake International Music Festival was supposed to be the Midwest’s answer to Woodstock. What it became was something louder, harder and considerably more dangerous: 200,000 longhairs, freaks, bikers, hippies and suburban kids descending on rural Michigan for a weekend of deafening music, open drug use and spectacularly organized chaos.

It was Woodstock with Detroit horsepower. The man behind the madness was construction entrepreneur Richard Songer, who wasn’t interested in building some temporary hippie carnival. He bought the property intending to create the world’s first permanent rock-festival grounds. And he went big.

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Keener13.com @keener13.com · 06/08/2026

Happy birthday, #lucilleball. How she changed #TV. Keener13.Substack.com

Before television became a glowing shrine in every American living room, before reruns, syndication, streaming, and billion-dollar production empires, there was Lucille Ball.

Born August 6, 1911, Lucy didn’t merely become television’s first great comedy star. She helped invent the business that television would become.

Onscreen, she was controlled chaos in a polka-dot dress. She stomped grapes, baked bread that blasted from an oven like a freight train, and fought a candy conveyor belt. Her timing was surgical. Her willingness to look ridiculous was fearless. But behind the slapstick was a woman who understood power, ownership, and technology better than most of the men running Hollywood.

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Keener13.com @keener13.com · 05/08/2026

Happy Birthday, #AmericanBandstand! Here's the #Detroit connection. Keener13.Substack.com. #oldies #60s #radio #keener

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Keener13.com @keener13.com · 05/08/2026

Context is everything. How @johnlennonofficial.bsky.social’s observation about misplaced priorities caused a firestorm for the #Beatles. Keener13.Substack.com

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Keener13.com @keener13.com · 04/08/2026

Uncle Russ at age 17 on Keener’s predecessor, WKMH. Two decades later he will skyrocket the #PaulMcCartney death rumor into the stratosphere on #Keener. #beatles #paulisdead #detroit

Future DJ and Grande Ballroom impresario Russ Gibb on the air at 17 at the station that would later become WKNR. Russ amplified the rumor that Paul McCartney had died on his weekend program on Keener in 1969..

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Keener13.com @keener13.com · 03/08/2026

Happy Birthday, Billboard Hot 100.. Remember what the first #1 song was? keener13.substack.com/p/the-week-p...

Before this week in 1958, nobody in the record business could say exactly what a hit was. They knew one when they heard one, of course. It swallowed dimes in jukeboxes from Detroit to Dallas. But proving that a song was a hit was another matter entirely.

The American pop charts were a glorious, corruptible mess. Billboard published separate rankings for “Best Sellers in Stores,” “Most Played by Jockeys,” and “Most Played in Jukeboxes.” One record might be flying out of shops in Chicago, ignored by disc jockeys in New York, and setting jukeboxes on fire in roadside diners across the South. There was no single scoreboard, just a collection of competing realities.

This week in 1958, Billboard brought order to the chaos. The magazine combined sales, radio airplay, and other measures into one national ranking. It called the new chart the Hot 100. And pop music would never be the same.

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Keener13.com @keener13.com · 01/08/2026

Remembering #MTV 45 years later. Keener13.Substack.com #80s #musicvideos #radio

At 12:01 on the morning of August 1, 1981, Apollo 11, grainy and ghostly, rose again toward the moon. But what followed was a new kind of blastoff. A voice announced, “Ladies and gentlemen, rock and roll,” and the Buggles appeared with synthesizers, plastic glasses, and an inconvenient message for everyone working in radio. “Video Killed the Radio Star.”

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Keener13.com @keener13.com · 01/08/2026

The WKNR #Music Guides for today in 1966 & 1968. How many of these do you remember? #detroit #rock #oldies

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Keener13.com @keener13.com · 31/07/2026

The Sultan of Groove. How Ahmet Ertegun Built a House That Rocked Detroit. Keener13.Substack.com. #atlanticrecords #AhmetErtegun #RockHistory #arethafranklin #detroit

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Keener13.com @keener13.com · 30/07/2026

On Henry #Ford’s birthday, we look back on his impact on #Detroit #cars and #rockandroll. keener13.Substack.com

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Keener13.com @keener13.com · 29/07/2026

Remembering Mama Cass, who left us today in 1974. She charted 10 times on the WKNR Music Guide - eight with the Mamas and the Papas, twice as a solo act. Keener13.Substack.com #casselliot #mamasandpapas #oldies #detroit #keener

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Keener13.com @keener13.com · 28/07/2026

How Davy Crockett invented today’s pop-culture. Keener13.substack.com #nostalgia #television #disney #detroit

To understand the hypnotic grip of American pop culture in 1955, watch Back to the Future. When Marty McFly staggers into Eisenhower-era Hill Valley, Robert Zemeckis surrounds him with tailfins, soda fountains, and spotless storefronts. But the detail that truly pins the year to the wall is the music in the background. The theme from Disney’s Davy Crockett.

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Keener13.com @keener13.com · 27/07/2026

Band on The Run: How #paulmccartney Grew #Wings and Escaped the #Beatles Shadow. Keener13.Substack.com

Band on the Run reached Number One in Britain on July 27, beginning a seven-week reign at the top. The debate was over.

This was not merely a successful album. It was McCartney’s dazzling escape from the long shadow of the Beatles. It was a declaration that he could still build pop monuments without Lennon, Harrison, Starr, George Martin, or the machinery of Beatlemania.

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Keener13.com @keener13.com · 15/07/2026

Happy Birthday, Linda Ronstadt. Here's our appreciation: keener13.substack.com

Linda Ronstadt did not merely sing songs. She entered them.

She found the bruise inside a melody, pressed down hard, and made millions of people feel it.

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Keener13.com @keener13.com · 03/07/2026

When The Doors lit the match. How a razor blade turned an album track into the Keener 13 song of the year. keener13.substack.com/p/when-the-d...

From the darker end of the Sunset Strip, a band called The Doors were not selling utopia. They were selling heat, danger, sex, death, poetry, and whatever might happen after midnight if you stopped pretending you were afraid.

Then, on July 3, 1967, Elektra Records sent “Light My Fire” out into our consciousness.

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Keener13.com @keener13.com · 02/07/2026

What was your first #AirConditioned car? We had AC in the car before we had it in the house. Remember many a hot night driving around town just to keep cool.

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Keener13.com @keener13.com · 30/06/2026

Remember "Quad"? Were you one of the few who had a quad receiver and figured out how to play #Quad #LPs on it? keener13.substack.com/p/the-day-th... #radio #keener #detroit

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Keener13.com @keener13.com · 29/06/2026

Will there be a sequel to "St. Elmo's Fire"? Maybe. Would you watch it?

NBC Los Angeles reports the plan is “Yes”, but nothing is official yet. Rob Lowe says a St. Elmo’s Fire sequel is being written and that the original cast is interested. The idea gained momentum after Andrew McCarthy’s Brats documentary revived Brat Pack nostalgia.
No release date, director, or production start has been confirmed. For now, the fire is glowing, but not yet burning.

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Keener13.com @keener13.com · 24/06/2026

Today in 1967, Procol Harum's "Whiter Shade of Pale" topped the UK charts. Here's some Keener backstory. keener13.substack.com/p/1967-proco...

Somewhere in the blur of 1967, lyricist Keith Reid heard somebody tell a woman she had gone “a whiter shade of pale.” That was all it took. A fragment. A spark. A sentence with no map. From there, Reid built one of the strangest and most enduring fever dreams ever pressed onto vinyl.

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Keener13.com @keener13.com · 01/06/2026

This week on Keener13.com in 1964.

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Keener13.com @keener13.com · 21/04/2026

April 21, 1963 Beatles meet the Rolling Stones for the first time.

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Keener13.com @keener13.com · 21/04/2026

April 21, 1980 Howard Stern begins broadcasting on WWWW Detroit.

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Keener13.com @keener13.com · 19/04/2026

Today in Today in 1965…The movie "The T.A.M.I. (Teen-Age Music International) Show" featuring the Rolling Stones, Supremes, Four Tops, James Brown, Beach Boys, and Smokey Robinson & the Miracles, opened in London under the title "Teenage Command Performance."

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Keener13.com @keener13.com · 19/04/2026

Today in 1965…The Beatles released the single "Ticket to Ride."

John Lennon explained the song's title as being about cards indicating a clean bill of health carried by Hamburg prostitutes in the 1960s. The Beatles played in Hamburg early in their musical career, and "ride/riding" was slang for having sex. A notation on the label of "Ticket to Ride" said the song was from their forthcoming movie "Eight Arms to Hold You," which was the original title for the movie "Help!"

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Keener13.com @keener13.com · 19/04/2026

Today in 1948…The ABC-TV network began operation.

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Keener13.com @keener13.com · 19/04/2026

1979…The reality television series "Real People," with John Barbour, Sarah Purcell, Byron Allen, Skip Stephenson, and Bill Rafferty, began its five-season run on NBC.

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Keener13.com @keener13.com · 19/04/2026

1963…Backstage following a Beatles performance at London's Royal Albert Hall, Paul McCartney met the actress and television personality Jane Asher. Their ensuing romantic relationship lasted five years.

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Keener13.com @keener13.com · 19/04/2026

1957…Five years before taking over "The Tonight Show" on NBC-TV, comedian Johnny Carson turned briefly to acting in a role on the "Playhouse 90" production of "Three Men on a Horse" on CBS-TV.

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Keener13.com @keener13.com · 19/04/2026

1956…Actress Grace Kelly married Prince Rainier III of Monaco in a civil ceremony. A religious ceremony took place the following day. They had three children and remained together until her death in a 1982 car accident. The prince died in 2005.

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Keener13.com @keener13.com · 15/04/2026

April 15, 1964…After a long day of filming for their first movie, which was still called "Beatlemania!," Ringo Starr declared that it had been "a hard day's night." John Lennon immediately began writing the song of that name on the back of an old greeting card.

Ringo Starr coined the phrase "It's been a hard day's night" after a long day of work. He realized it was night while still feeling like it was day. This spontaneous remark occurred during a filming session, and it humorously captured the hectic lifestyle of the Beatles.

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Keener13.com @keener13.com · 15/04/2026

April 15, 1960…"Because They're Young," starring Dick Clark, Tuesday Weld, Warren Berlinger, and Doug McClure, with cameos by Duane Eddy and James Darren, opened in U.S theaters.

Because They're Young is a 1960 American drama film directed by Paul Wendkos and starring Dick Clark as Neil Hendry, a high-school teacher who tries to make a difference in the lives of his students. The film co-stars Tuesday Weld, Michael Callan, Warren Berlinger, Roberta Shore, Doug McClure, Victoria Shaw, and Stephen Talbot, and is based on the 1959 novel Harrison High by John Farris.

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Keener13.com @keener13.com · 15/04/2026

April 15, 1956…Columbia Records music director Mitch Miller, disc jockey Alan Freed, and two psychiatrists appeared on Eric Sevareid's TV program "CBS Sunday News" to discuss the "potentially negative effects of rock 'n' roll on teenagers."

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Keener13.com @keener13.com · 15/04/2026

Saturday April 14, 1956, the Ampex VR1000 2" Quad video tape machine was introduced at the National Association of Broadcasters convention. At $75000 each ($1 million today) so many were ordered that one day that it took months to build them all.

Via Randy West: The single greatest TV invention ever. It changed everything...
This year's NAB convention is happening in Las Vegas. Back at the 1956 NAB convention, on this date, the Ampex Corporation demonstrated its first commercial video magnetic tape recorder, the VRX 1000.
The crowd of engineers at the National Association of Broadcasters gathering was aghast when they were unable to discern a difference in quality between live video and playbacks recorded moments earlier.
Differentiating the video picture from grainy film or poor quality kinescopes, engineers described the TV picture played from tape as closest to a photograph.
This giant reel-to-reel monster with its two-inch wide tape sold for close to $75,000 with taxes and shipping, that's close to $1 million in today's money! So many were ordered at the convention that day, on the spot, that it took months to build them all.
The first use: time shifting for the different time zones. Believed to be the first such delayed re-broadcast was a CBS evening newscast with anchor Douglas Edwards.
Repeating programming for the western time zones used to be a crazy affair of broadcasting filmed kinescopes that were almost still damp from developing fluid - they called them "wet kines."
Then came variety shows and dramas - if you had hands like a surgeon, you could actually edit the tape once you located the sync pulses. It was done meticulously with a special fluid, a microscope and blade. You can see a tech editing in the photo.
That kind of physical splicing continued through the end of the 1960s. An hour of NBC's quick-cut "Laugh-In" had as many as 100-plus hand-made physical splices, and that surgery was performed by one editing specialist over several days each week.
That tape with all the edits was immediately dubbed to protect against the splices becomming undone during on-air playback.

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Keener13.com @keener13.com · 14/04/2026

April 14, 1994: Turner Classic Movies cable channel launches; media mogul Ted Turner hosts ceremony in NYC's Times Square district at 6PM marking "the exact centennial anniversary of the first public movie showing in New York City"

Turner Classic Movies (TCM) officially launched on April 14, 1994, at 6 PM in Times Square, New York City. This event was significant as it coincided with the 100th anniversary of the first public showing of moving pictures in the city.

Ceremony Highlights
Host: Ted Turner, the founder of TCM, led the launch ceremony.
Location: The event took place in Times Square, a historic site for cinema.
Inaugural Broadcast: The first programming was simulcast on a large screen in Times Square, featuring classic film stars.
Historical Significance
The launch of TCM marked a pivotal moment in television history, celebrating a century of film. The channel aimed to provide a platform for classic movies, showcasing a vast library of films from various eras.

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Keener13.com @keener13.com · 14/04/2026

April 14 1963: The Italian puppet Topo Gigio appears on the "The Ed Sullivan Show" for the first time

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Keener13.com @keener13.com · 14/04/2026

April 14 1960: A new American record company is founded by Berry Gordy Jr, who had launched Tamla Records one year earlier. He incorporates it as Motown Record Corporation in Detroit. Michigan.

Berry Gordy Jr. started Tamla Records with an $800 loan from his family. The label quickly gained traction, leading to the establishment of Motown Record Corporation. The name "Motown" is a combination of "motor" and "town," reflecting Detroit's automotive industry, where the label was originally based.

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Keener13.com @keener13.com · 13/04/2026

April 13, 1986…Most of the cast of the long-running sitcom "The Andy Griffith Show" reunited for the NBC-TV special "Return to Mayberry." www.youtube.com/watch?v=156z... #ReturnToMayberry #AndyGriffithShow #Mayberry #OnThisDay #1986TV #ClassicTV #TVHistory

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=156zdjIsWAY

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Keener13.com @keener13.com · 13/04/2026

April 13, 1962…In Hamburg, Germany, the #Beatles began a marathon stint at the new Star Club, performing three to four hours per night for 48 days, with only one day off, for a total of 172 hours of performances. #StarClub #HamburgGermany #1962Music #BeatlesHistory #OnThisDay #RockHistory

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Keener13.com @keener13.com · 13/04/2026

April 12, 1979… Mickey Thomas became the new lead singer of Jefferson #Starship. He had been the vocalist on "Fooled Around And Fell In Love," Elvin Bishop's hit in 1975. www.youtube.com/watch?v=0MtX...

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Keener13.com @keener13.com · 13/04/2026

April 12, 1973… #StevieWonder became one of the first contemporary music stars to appear on #PBS's #SesameStreet.

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Keener13.com @keener13.com · 13/04/2026

Today on #Keener in 1971. Trivia question: Who wrote "Joy to the World?"

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