KRXO's New Classics

Author: Andrew W. Griffin
Issue: 2008 August

Ah, the summer of 1988—a torrid affair where record heat was common and the Summer Olympics in Seoul, South Korea brought the world together once more.

It had already been an interesting year. On New Year’s Day, the University of Oklahoma Sooners lost to Miami at the Orange Bowl. Later, on August 14th, golfer Jeff Sluman would shoot a 272 at Oak Tree Golf Course in Edmond, winning the PGA Championship.

1988 was also the last full year of Ronald Reagan’s presidency. And while people began looking at candidates George H.W. Bush and Michael Dukakis, concerns about the ozone layer were on the minds of many. But global concerns and local weather weren’t the only elements contributing to the wickedly hot summer…folks were listening to some great tunes.

Close to home, rock radio disc jockey Lee Roberts had just joined 107.7 KRXO, after spending some time in Wichita, Kansas, and his hometown of Tulsa.

Roberts, now 52, puts into perspective the amount of time that’s passed as he recalls a recent remote broadcast he did in the metro area.

“A listener came up to me and asked me when Guns N’ Roses became classic rock; I told him that it’s been 20 years since Appetite for Destruction was released,” says Roberts. “And he replied, ‘I’m not ready for it to be classic rock’.”
Roberts is frank in saying that people who were 20 years old in 1988 are now 40 and are being forced to deal with the onset of middle age—a difficult thing to do in a world dominated by youth culture.

“Yeah, I tell them that Guns N’ Roses, Def Leppard, Whitesnake…that’s all classic rock,” he said, noting that much of that 20-year-old music still stands up today and remains popular.

He confesses that the upper end of his target audience, who are in their late forties and early fifties, are moving over to the softer sounds of KOMA, KRXO’s sister station.

With his station, however, he is firmly targeting the 30- to 46-year-old guy.

While it’s a tough pill for some to swallow, Roberts’ attitude of acceptance is beginning to catch on with his listeners, since KRXO plays a lot of music that bills itself as “classic rock.”

But back to 1988.

That year, Roberts says, featured some of the decade’s best albums. He shares that his top five desert island discs from 1988 include the following: the debut album from super group The Traveling Wilburys; the aforementioned Appetite for Destruction; Van Halen’s OU812; Steve Winwood’s Roll With It; and Scenes From the Southside by Bruce Hornsby & The Range. Looking back on the charts from that year in his KRXO office, Roberts also notes some hits from Robert Plant’s Now and Zen album.

“Man, I’d listen to Now and Zen today. What a great album,” he confides. He then notes that Van Halen was actually pretty good with replacement singer Sammy Hagar.

“For what Van Halen was doing at the time, it was pretty good,” he says. “I like ‘Van Hagar’.” He further notes that while David Lee Roth preferred to clown around and tick off Eddie Van Halen at the drop of a hat, Hagar had the chops and performing capabilities that defined that era of the band.

Roberts also reminisces about the good movies out that year, including Rain Man, partially filmed in Central Oklahoma, and the baseball classic Bull Durham.

Over the course of the conversation with Roberts, his emphasis eventually goes back to the music—classic rock music that this connoisseur has embraced most of his life; music from Pink Floyd to Led Zeppelin to the Rolling Stones and beyond.

And as Roberts reflects, he notes that 1988, with its heat, music, movies, politics and sports, was a year that won’t be forgotten anytime soon. “That was such a great year,” Roberts said. “It really was.”

Shawnee Outlook