Another "new" sticker, magnet and shirt for the new year. I think the Statue Of Liberty logo is a mid-90s-era one for the heritage New York City rock station. A string of format changes including Talk, CHR and Adult Contemporary followed and then the WNEW call letters were gone forever (at least in NYC.)
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Back in the '70s, Allison Steele ("The Nightbird") saw me through many a lonely adolescent night with her smoky bedroom voice that obviously bespoke far more than she was telling on the air. Whatever she played, I wanted to hear. "At the top of the set, we had The Flying Burrito Brothers, followed by The New Riders Of The Purple Sage, The Flock and It's A Beautiful Day. After a brief commercial message, at some point during her broadcast, she'd say, "Here's Jimi Hendrix." It is rumoured that Ms Steele was "friendly" with Hendrix, and that his posthumously-released song, "Night Bird Flying" was written in her "honor". All I know is that WNEW played music on FM late at night that no other station in town ever bothered to play. She was the first to play the single-side tracks like Iron Butterfly's "In-A-Gadda-Da-Vida" or even full album tracks like Jethro Tull's "Thick As A Brick", in their entirety with maybe a commercial break between sides. At one time, WNEW-FM was by far the best radio station in New York, although there were some pretty good pirate stations off-shore -- but they didn't have Allison Steele. Sorry to hear that they gave up the call letters. Yet another reason not to go back.
RIP *Alison* Steele. I did a Wiki after I posted this -- she passed away in 1995. I also learned that she was inducted into the Rock & Roll Hall Of Fame with other New York radio talent from back in the day, like Cousin Brucie, Herb Oscar Anderson and Frankie Crocker. As to the "friendship" with Hendrix, he was just another fan of Alison's -- she didn't know that she was the inspiration for "Nightbird Flying" until after he was dead. I neglected to mention that the late Ms Steele also pioneered prog-rock (for better or for worse) in the NYC area by featuring album tracks from Emerson, Lake & Palmer, King Crimson and Yes. RIP, Alison. RIP, WNEW.
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