Jim Perry (former Chief Engineer):
WBMI to WKSS: Fred Constant bought the Meridan's WBMI and changed the format and callsign, and moved into "The Mansion" in Hartford.
The Mansion, at the corner of Wethersfield Ave and Wyllys St, was the former Borden (Milk Company) town house for when the family was in the city. A plush red-carpeted curved stairway led the way upstairs from the lobby, past two beautiful stained glass windows. There were Italian marble fireplaces in every room, including the Control Room, which was in the second floor master bedroom. The original engineer (Tom?) had set up house speakers in the flues of the (non-operating) fireplaces, and the "beautiful music" seemed to come from everywhere. The "On-Air" light was an electric candelabra just outside of the studios.
In the very early days of WBMI and WKSS, it was the Muzak franchise that paid the bills. But when "Kiss" got serious about the beautiful music format, and hired Jim Schulke of SRP, the beautiful music guru, he insisted that the subcarriers be dropped. The station became "Kiss, 96FM, All music, All the time."
Owner Fred Constant had a "bachelor pad" on the third floor of the Mansion, complete with water bed and a full McIntosh stereo system. When Fred was coming to town from his other "pad" (a yacht anchored at Diamond Head, Hawaii), it was the chief engineer's duty to turn on the waterbed so it would be up to temperature by the time Fred arrived.
Fred sold the station to Insilco (International Silver Company) of Meriden around 1978 (?). During this time, Insilco attempted to update the format by introducing some newer easy-listening vocals, and hiring some former WTIC(AM/TV) alumni such as Dick Bertel and Mike Ogden. A couple years or so later, Woody Tanger bought the station, and continued the "lite personality" format.
Woody moved the studios to the (now imploded) office building at Washington St and Buckingham. Experiments at that site with a satellite-delivered easy-listening format were a failure because the dish installers were never able to completely rid the C-band dish of interference from Telco microwave links.
All through Woody's years at Kiss, there was some discussion changing to a classical format, but the easy-listening format continued until Woody sold the station and the format was changed to rock (1984?).
Paul Michaud (12/09):
I worked the overnight shift at WKSS for six months or so in 1971. This was during the Beautiful Music format. The Chief Engineer at the time was Ernie Kirshner. We did 6 hour shifts that included production while the music tapes were playing. The music was on 7 inch reels that ran for thirty minutes each. Barry Grant, who would later work for WDRC FM did the 6 to midnight shift. We had Michael O’Grady in the Noon to Six slot. Terry Branham, who would later do news at WAVZ in New Haven handled the morning show. The morning show music was played off of L P’s, not tapes. Terry was married to Rob Branham who worked at WKCI. One morning I received a call from a woman who said her daughter’s car was seen by her boy friend in the station parking lot. This was like 3:00 am. The woman asked if I could check to see if the daughter was in the building. I go off looking and find a door that was normally left open closed. I open the door and who should I find but the daughter in a rather interesting situation with (another employee). This resulted in my termination the next day. My next stop in Connecticut radio was as Johnny Walker at WWCO, Waterbury. I am still kicking in the radio biz, doing mornings at a classic country station in Harrisonburg, Va. October 15th 2010 will make 40 years in Broadcasting.
Barry Grant:
I was Production Director as well as doing an airshift.The music was done by a consultant-it wasn't Schulke-I think the guy's name was Marlin Taylor.
The Mansion was a nice place to broadcast from-in fact one of the lines we were supposed to use was "From The Mansion,This is K(i)SS" & "From The Sound To The Berkshires,This KSS"
I don't remember any attempt at rock in those early days, but I was lucky to get out there & move on to bigger & better things.
