HEART OF GOLD * Neil Young * WKNR (No. 03) 03/13/72
DAY DREAMING * Aretha Franklin * WKNR (No. 09) 03/13/72
EVERYTHING GOOD IS BAD * 100 Proof (Aged In Soul) * WKNR (Hit Preview) 03/13/72
(WKNR Survey Guide courtesy the John Freist Collection)
A WKNR FOOTNOTE: Today, April 25, marks 43 years having passed since WKNR consigned itself to Detroit radio history. In the 1972 WKNR music guides, you’ll note the top 31 was no longer standard station play. Cut in half, the new WKNR playlist rotation, as this March 13 music survey indicates, would focus primarily on the top 15 singles listed for the week.
The WKNR playlist was also leaning more heavily into album oriented tracks as well. While listing their bottom 15 as “hit previews,” several of these song titles confirmed WKNR was also promoting selections from their top 10 ‘WKNR Albums,’ as listed on the back-side of the survey. Notice as well the moniker “Keener 13,” the station’s famous ID staple, was noticeably stricken from the WKNR vocabulary, likewise, in 1972.
By then priding itself as “Detroit’s Only Rock ‘n’ Roll Station,” this WKNR March 13, 1972 issue was published the week before the station’s very last music guide would go to print, the week of March 20, 1972. A month later WKNR signed-off the air, April 25, 1972.
