“Route 66” radio show coming to KMOX

A Saturday night music show, titled “Route 66,” soon will air on St. Louis’ flagship radio station, KMOX-AM.

This was initially reported on the STLmedia.net rumor site Tuesday. KMOX account executive Randy Raley confirmed it in an e-mail Wednesday and added that he’s “thrilled” to host the show.

Here’s the announcement in a news release that Raley sent:

Route 66, the iconic highway memorialized in song, winds across the United States, through St. Louis, down through Missouri, Oklahoma, New Mexico and beyond.

KMOX, the iconic radio station established in 1925, blasts its 50,000 watt signal across the vast stretch of Route 66.

Now KMOX debuts a new Saturday night show titled “ROUTE 66 .” ROUTE 66 is hosted by St. Louis radio veteran Randy Raley.

ROUTE 66 on KMOX is a hip, retro slice of life, featuring the music heard on AM radios in the Chevys, Buicks, and Fords driving across this exciting American Highway. On ROUTE 66, you’ll also hear historic moments from the huge KMOX audio vault. ROUTE 66 returns radio to its American roots.

So whether you’re out on the road this Saturday night, or relaxing at home, please enjoy ROUTE 66 on KMOX.

The release provides a sampling of music that will be heard on the “Route 66” show — Elvis Presley, Percy Sledge, Righteous Brothers, Bobby Darin, Chuck Berry, Frank Sinatra, Temptations, The Byrds, Martha and the Vandellas, Roy Orbison, Tony Bennett, The Platters, and Mitch Ryder and the Detroit Wheels. So the music skews from the 1950s to about the mid-1960s, when AM radio ruled the roost and Route 66 was still a certified U.S. highway.

And the vintage news clips sound like a nice touch.

There’s no word yet when the show will debut. Many broadcasts will be partly pre-empted by St. Louis Blues games during hockey season, but the “Route 66” show still ought to get some air time unless the team is on the West Coast.

KMOX can be heard on the Internet here. KMOX’s clear-channel signal also can be heard in 43 states and several foreign countries after sundown. I can attest to hearing the “Mighty MOX” loud and clear in Florida and south Texas at night.

So if you’re east of the Rockies, chances are good that you will be able to turn your radio to the 1120 AM frequency and hear Raley’s show on Saturday night.

UPDATE: I e-mailed Raley some questions to get more details on the show.

Time slot for “Route 66” is 8 p.m. to 1 a.m. Central time on Saturdays. The debut is tentatively set for Oct. 14, unless ESPN “bumps” the Oklahoma-Missouri football game to that time slot.

As for whose idea it was for the show …

The idea came from our GM, Dave Ervin, who thought that we needed to freshen up what we were doing on Sat. night. I don’t think he wanted to syndicate anything and decided away from the “Snake Oil” selling programs.

KMOX is iconic and so is Route 66. KMOX reaches about 85% of the road from Chicago to the mountains of California. There is just a certain mystique about the road and we wanted to come up with a name that symbolizes and represents in a few words the music and feel of what we are doing. We wanted to capture what it must have been like to travel that road circa 1956-1965 and what was going on at that time culturally. […]

I grew up on a farm and really dug the old powerhouse AM giants … WLS, KAAY, WLAC and, of course, KMOX. I have been in the business for over thirty years, doing a number of different formats, but my first love were the guys who could tell stories and make you laugh over the intro of a song. I have extensive work in oldies but the show won’t really be about me. We have production pieces, old commercials and drops that will blow your mind. Our imaging guy has kept everything over the last fifty years. We plan on doing requests, high school shout-outs and all of the stuff that the “boss jocks” used to do.

I am very pumped about it.