I wasn’t into top 40 music in the 70’s (or ever?), but a few hours after AT40, things got better…
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I majored in Radio-TV-Film and I frequently imitated Casey for one assignment or another (or for someone else’s). Also did his voice when replacing the outgoing message on my sister’s answering machine, which she really appreciated; it just never failed to amuse her.
For example:
“…I tripped on the carpet onto a pair of scissors and all my intestines fell out. Now, Tom refuses to date me. Casey, would you please play ‘Could’ve Been’ by Tiffany? Well, Norma, here’s your long-distance dedication.” <sings “Could’ve Been”>
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Oh my gosh, I forgot about King Biscuit.
Another time machine.
“We’ve got a new singer we’d like to welcome, Mr. Steve Perry”.
We’re gonna play some new songs from our new Infinity album.
Or a new song Rhiannon and another new song Landslide. Amazing stuff.
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I happen to know a bit about this.
The engineers who had worked on the show had these recordings in very high quality. Much higher than even the one posted here. They had never heard the Negativeland song until I brought it to them. I had already heard the raw recordings similar to what was posted, I believe in one of their cars and this was my first excuse to get up and see the studio. That studio being the one they were NOW working at: Rick Dees’ Top 40. My strong sense was that none of them felt any disrespect for Kasem and they would not have leaked it. When they heard this Negativeland tune, they were very surprised - they said it sounded like a fifth generation copy. I don’t -think- I had accidentally set up a lot of suspicion among them and they really seemed not so stressed about it. The whole thing had already been litigated and the recording I brought them was banned from record stores and pretty hard to find. It was not Kasem who had sued, it was U2, for the musical backing “I Still Haven’t Found What I’m Looking For” behind Kasey’s dog rant.
In exchange for bringing them this, they put the raw rant on tape for me, but I could tell the engineer was deliberately pegging the levels, and sure enough what I got was really distorted and unusable - worse even than what I’d brought them. They were still doing right by Kasem.
Separately I had met Kasem through his involvement with students. He was a true humanitarian and peace builder. I think everyone who worked with him, they were all pros, were on the same page with him: don’t come out of an uptempo record and have to talk about a snuggin dog dying.
There was much playfulness among this team. They remain friends for life. When everyone was stressed from lack of sleep and going bonkers after very long hours putting the show together, Rick Dees would start having a conversation with an invisible Casey Kasem. The engineers had it all in snippets. The engineers manifesting Kasey in various moods. “Tell me again about the dog?” Now, that was funny.
R.I.P. Reggie Collins, who brought me into this crowd as a young man and let me join in some of the trouble making. He went on to assemble the great Richard Pryor anthologies (having been a Pryor nerd as a kid, he managed to ingratiate himself to Pryor and become one of the real authorities appointed by Pryor’s estate) and wrote many liner notes for Rhino Records.
Obviously the Kasem tapes were a “worst kept secret,” but I believe these particular guys were not the source.
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We got them here in Australia back inthe '80’s as well.
I remember taping favourite songs (badly), desperately trying to hit start late enough to avoid the voiceover, and hitting stop before it returned.
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