Music radio is a radio format in which music is the main broadcast content. After television replaced old time radio's dramatic content, music formats became dominant in many countries. Radio drama and comedy continue, often on public radio.
Traditional pop is Western pop music that generally pre-dates the advent of rock and roll in the mid-1950s. The most popular and enduring songs from this era of music are known as pop standards or American standards. The works of these songwriters and composers are usually considered part of the canon known as the "Great American Songbook". More generally, the term "standard" can be applied to any popular song that has become very widely known within mainstream culture.
Quiet storm is a radio format and genre of R&B, performed in a smooth, romantic, jazz-influenced style. It was named after the title song on Smokey Robinson's 1975 album A Quiet Storm.
Lounge music is a type of easy listening music popular in the 1950s and 1960s. It may be meant to evoke in the listeners the feeling of being in a place, usually with a tranquil theme, such as a jungle, an island paradise or outer space. The range of lounge music encompasses beautiful music-influenced instrumentals, modern electronica, while remaining thematically focused on its retro-space age cultural elements. The earliest type of lounge music appeared during the 1920s and 1930s, and was known as light music.
A cover band is a band that plays songs recorded by someone else, sometimes mimicking the original as accurately as possible, and sometimes re-interpreting or changing the original. These remade songs are known as cover songs. New or unknown bands often find the format marketable for smaller venues, such as pubs, clubs or parks. The bands also perform at private events, for example, weddings and birthday parties, and may be known as a wedding band, party band, function band or band-for-hire. A band whose covers consist mainly of songs that were chart hits is often called a top 40 band. Some bands, however, start as cover bands, then grow to perform original material. For example, the Rolling Stones released three albums consisting primarily of covers and then recorded one with their own original material.
Gordon Hill Jenkins was an American arranger, composer, and pianist who was influential in popular music in the 1940s and 1950s. Jenkins worked with The Andrews Sisters, Johnny Cash, The Weavers, Frank Sinatra, Louis Armstrong, Judy Garland, Nat King Cole, Billie Holiday, Harry Nilsson, Peggy Lee and Ella Fitzgerald.
Middle of the road is a commercial radio format and popular music genre. Music associated with this term is strongly melodic and uses techniques of vocal harmony and light orchestral arrangements. The format was eventually rebranded as soft adult contemporary.
Beautiful music is a mostly instrumental music format that was prominent in North American radio from the late 1950s through the 1980s. Easy listening, elevator music, light music, mood music, and Muzak are other terms that overlap with this format and the style of music that it featured. Beautiful music can also be regarded as a subset of the middle of the road radio format.
The Billboard charts tabulate the relative weekly popularity of songs and albums in the United States and elsewhere. The results are published in Billboard magazine. Billboard biz, the online extension of the Billboard charts, provides additional weekly charts, as well as year-end charts. The two most important charts are the Billboard Hot 100 for songs and Billboard 200 for albums, and other charts may be dedicated to a specific genre such as R&B, country, or rock, or they may cover all genres. The charts can be ranked according to sales, streams, or airplay, and for main song charts such as the Hot 100 song chart, all three data are used to compile the charts. For the Billboard 200 album chart, streams and track sales are included in addition to album sales.
A radio format or programming format describes the overall content broadcast on a radio station. The radio format emerged mainly in the United States in the 1950s, at a time when radio was compelled to develop new and exclusive ways to programming by competition with television. The formula has since spread as a reference for commercial radio programming worldwide.
KNBR-FM is a commercial radio station licensed to San Francisco, California, serving the greater San Francisco Bay Area. Owned by Cumulus Media, KNBR-FM features a sports radio format in a simulcast with co-owned KNBR. Both stations are the San Francisco affiliates for CBS Sports Radio, the flagship stations for the San Francisco Giants Radio Network and co-flagship stations for the San Francisco 49ers Radio Network. KNBR-AM-FM are the radio home of Greg Papa and Tom Tolbert.
The Great American Songbook is the loosely defined canon of significant 20th-century American jazz standards, popular songs, and show tunes.
"It's Too Late" is a song from American singer-songwriter Carole King's second studio album, Tapestry (1971). Toni Stern wrote the lyrics and King wrote the music. It was released as a single in April 1971 and reached number 1 on the Billboard Hot 100 and Adult Contemporary charts. Sales were later gold-certified by the RIAA. Billboard ranked "It's Too Late" and its fellow A-side, "I Feel the Earth Move", as the No. 3 record for 1971.
Squeeze Play is an Ultra High Fidelity monaural phonographic album which was released on the Dot Records label in 1956 (DLP-3024) featuring John Serry Sr. It includes an original composition by Serry, classical works, and popular music of the era. Ben Selvin serves as the musical director/producer for the album. The works were arranged by Serry and performed with his ensemble featuring two accordions, piano, guitar, bass, drum, vibes, and marimba.
"Smoke Gets in Your Eyes" is a show tune written by American composer Jerome Kern and lyricist Otto Harbach for the 1933 musical Roberta. The song was sung in the Broadway show by Tamara Drasin. Its first recorded performance was by Gertrude Niesen, who recorded the song with orchestral direction from Ray Sinatra, Frank Sinatra's second cousin, on October 13, 1933. Niesen's recording of the song was released by Victor, with the B-side, "Jealousy", featuring Isham Jones and his Orchestra.
"Cast Your Fate to the Wind" is an American jazz instrumental selection by Vince Guaraldi; later, a lyric was written by Carel Werber. It won a Grammy Award for Best Original Jazz Composition in 1963.
Frank Sinatra's musical career began in the swing era in 1935, and ended in 1995, although he did briefly retire in 1971, before returning to music in 1973. Sinatra is one of the most influential music artists of the 20th century, and has sold 150 million records worldwide, making him one of the best-selling music artists of all-time. Rock critic Robert Christgau called Sinatra "the greatest singer of the 20th century". In addition to his music career, Sinatra was also a successful film actor, having won the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor for his role as Private Angelo Maggio in From Here to Eternity (1953).
Horst Jankowski was a classically trained German pianist, most famous for his internationally successful easy listening music.
Adult contemporary music (AC) is a form of radio-played popular music, ranging from 1960s vocal and 1970s soft rock music to predominantly ballad-heavy music of the 1980s to the present day, with varying degrees of easy listening, pop, soul, R&B, quiet storm and rock influence. Adult contemporary is generally a continuation of the easy listening and soft rock style that became popular in the 1960s and 1970s with some adjustments that reflect the evolution of pop/rock music.
Lawrence Welk and His Sparkling Strings is an album by Lawrence Welk and His Sparkling Strings. It was released in 1955 on the Coral label. On January 28, 1956, the album reached No. 5 on Billboard magazine's "Popular Albums (Over-All)" chart, trailing only the Oklahoma soundtrack and popular albums by Frank Sinatra, Harry Belafonte, and Julie London. Lawrence Welk and His Sparkling Strings remained on that chart for 11 weeks
You may hear examples of Easy listening music performed by John Serry from his album Squeeze Play on his Chicago Musette in 1958 Here on Gallica.bnf.fr