While a majority of radio formats and programmers are looking forward for the next great thing, Brad Savage, PD of Triple A non-comm WAPS (The Summit)/Akron, is rummaging through the past several decades of music and constructing a musical history class every week for his “Cruisin’ the Decades” show. Each hourlong show features a century’s worth of music personally curated by Savage, where he picks and plays a song from every decade starting with the 1910s while also providing some musical and artist history.
“’Cruisin’ the Decades’ is a love letter to the power of radio and record-collecting,” Savage says. “It’s a super-wide show about music history.” The roots of the show formed in his first radio gig at Adult Standards KLBB-AM/Minneapolis, where he played older songs and wondered what people were thinking about when they first heard those tracks.
He did an early version of the show on his college station, KVSC/St. Cloud, MN, but only went back as far as the 1990s. Then, during the first few months of COVID lockdown in spring 2020, Savage started pondering the concept again. “We started hearing about the Spanish Flu pandemic of 1918, and I was curious what artists were singing about back then and what songs were popular the last time we went through a pandemic – and I realized that I have those records in my collection,” he says.
And so it was: “Cruisin’ the Decades” was reborn as a specialty show on The Summit, which Savage did initially as a feature at 5 pm on Fridays. “Prime time!” he says, laughing. “I didn’t tell anyone I was starting it. I just put it on and said, ‘Well, let’s see how this goes.’” Initial feedback trickled in that listeners thought it was interesting, then widened as the audience caught onto this history lesson about the roots of modern music. “About nine to 12 months in, we started to get a lot of comments about the show,” says Savage, adding that his GM has blessed his side project.
The jump to worldwide coverage was unique – and sudden. Savage had been emailing with a friend, Paul Walker, at KSKO/McGrath, AK, who suggested he could cover the whole country in one fell swoop by getting the show on shortwave WRMI (Radio Miami International), which airs programming from independent producers. “Paul put me in touch with the Station Manager in January 2022,” Savage says. “They air talk shows and also shows by some music nuts who want to create shows that cover large areas on 12 different shortwave frequencies. I was like, hell yes, I have a shortwave radio, so I started listening and decided to produce a version that would cover the country.”
From there, Savage started researching other shortwave outlets and got the show on 500kw giant WBCQ/Monticello, ME, and Channel 292 out of Rohrbach, Germany. Walker then offered to run “Cruisin’ the Decades” on KSKO, which has repeaters and translators across the state, and that gave Savage the idea to hit up other radio friends and self-syndicate the show on AM/FM. “We’re still on the shortwave outlets and KSKO and a few other stations that started early, but the show is now up to 51 stations around the country and in different countries, and that’s just me hustling and bothering people until they say yes,” he says. “It’s even on Armed Forces Radio’s Joe-FM network, so it airs on all U.S. bases around the world.” A self-described radio nerd, Savage loves seeking out new stations where he thinks “Cruisin’ the Decades” would be a good fit. “It’s a slow build, but the growth has also been organic – I’ll sometimes get interest from some station out of the blue,” he says.
For now, Savage continues to produce the weekly show as a labor of love since he doesn’t charge carriage licensing costs. “I think it satisfies this creative urge in me where I just want to pick the songs, especially in the pre-rock ‘n’ roll era. There are so few classic jazz and adult standards stations,” he says. “I spend a lot of time learning about those genres from the 1920s-1960s. It’s a nice way for those stations to acknowledge the roots of modern music for an hour each week.”
Savage does a lot of research for each episode, ensuring each edition includes a good amount of artist history. He jokes that he sometimes has interesting conversations with his record label friends when he’s asked if he’s listened to a new album by a current artist. “I have to say something like, ‘No, but I’ve listened to everything Duke Ellington did back in 1932!”
There’s also some solid crossover between his work on The Summit and “Cruisin’ the Decades,” especially where artist interviews are concerned. “A couple of months ago, I talked to Master Gee of The Sugarhill Gang and interviewed him about the National Hip-Hop Museum in Washington, DC, for a segment on The Summit, and I reused that on the show,” Savage says. “There’s a lot of fun thought going into the content.”
For more information on “Cruisin’ the Decades,” to find all archived episodes of the show or to ask Brad how you can air the show on your station, visit cruisinthedecades.com.
“Cruisin’ the Decades” – episode 122, August 17, 2024
“One song per decade, 100 years of music.”
Byron G. Harlan – “I Like The Hat, I Like The Dress, I Like The Girl That’s In It” (1911)
Vaughn DeLeath – “Blue Skies” (1927)
Artie Shaw’s Orchestra “Begin the Beguine” (1938)
Hank Williams Sr. – “Move It on Over” (1947)
Thurston Harris – “Little Bitty Pretty One” (1957)
AUDIO HISTORY ACTUALITY: The Invention of Color Television (1958)
Mariam Makeba – “Pata Pata” (1967)
Neil Young – “Heart of Gold” (1972)
SHORTWAVE SHOUT-OUTS: “Listener Greetings” with Martine in Poland
Missing Persons – “Destination Unknown” (1981)
Green Day – “On the Wagon” (1994) [rare B-side song not from LP]
Saving Jane – “Girl Next Door” (2005)
SPECIAL GUEST IN-STUDIO INTERVIEW: Milky Chance
Milky Chance – “Stolen Dance” (2013)
Eddie Vedder – “Save It for Later” (2024) [cover of The English Beat]
BONUS TRACK: The English Beat – “Twist & Crawl” (1980)
A former air personality and industry journalist, Keith Berman worked at the late Radio & Records for several years, where he held a number of positions before being promoted to format editor. While at R&R, he also served as a writer and reporter, covering breaking news; authoring weekly columns, format roundups and features; and contributing heavily to Street Talk Daily. When R&R folded, he co-founded RAMP (Radio and Music Pros) and spent 3 years covering radio and record labels before taking a hiatus from the industry. His experiences also include time on-air at stations in Connecticut, Boston and Southern California. He can be reached at KeithBerman@gmail.com.
