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This WDRQ recording was recently donated to our Detroit radio aircheck collection. Lee Alan’s New Year’s Eve Countdown, on WDRQ, December 31, 1977. This was to be his second, and last, on WDRQ. (Lee Alan hosted one other New Year’s Eve broadcast on WDRQ in 1976). In closing out the year, this exclusive posting is our special featured presentation on Motor City Radio Flashbacks on this last day of 2022.
In this recording, the tape begins – timewise – at the 9:59 p.m. hour (Detroit time) with Lee Alan’s presentation of Chuck Berry performing live at the Walled Lake Casino, sometime late-October, in 1963. Five years ago, we lost Chuck Berry in March 2017. Also in the broadcast you will hear Lee Alan paying a short tribute to Elvis Presley, who passed away four months earlier, August 16, 1977.
The broadcast was taped by our friend, Greg Innis. Greg has kept this tape in his personal Detroit radio airchecks collection for the past 45 years. And as always, this site is indebted to him for having shared this holiday memory. It is presented here for the very first time, today.
You will note this two hour recording highlights listener call-in’s and recollections, stories and sounds. And minutes before the end of the recording you will hear The Horn counting down the seconds to 1978 . . . as was heard on New Year’s Eve night, December 31, 1977.
Enjoy. Lee Alan’s WDRQ New Year’s Eve Countdown . . . . Happy New Year!
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Audio recording digitally remastered by Motor City Radio Flashbacks
A special THANK YOU to senior site contributor Greg Innis of Livonia, MI., for having provided this featured WDRQ audio memory for our Motor City Radio Flashbacks aircheck repository.
I was there that night. I was also there the night that Stevie Wonder debuted upstairs in the balcony playing on my friend Steve Bookvich’s drums and he played his harmonica. What a night that was. Thank you Lee.