Player-"Baby Come Back"

My commercial 45 has a listed time of (3:28) and an actual time of (3:30). I only post this info because current database CDs that state "45 version" for this song range from (3:28) to (3:35).

Todd, the stock 45 length was included on both sides of my promo 45. But I remember that once the song became a smash, 6 weeks or so in, our station switched over and played the LP version of the song in all dayparts except for AM drive. We also felt that the extended guitar solo was one of the best parts of the song. Many other Top 40 markets across the country also did the same thing back in 1978, as I recall, so that may have been what you heard. (Of course, the longer LP instrumental intro also gave us chatterbox, egomaniac DJs even more time to talk at the start of it - which we also all loved, of course!)

Hykker wrote: I think a lot of stations in the late 70s used the album versions of many songs in an attempt to create an "album station" image since around that time AOR was really eating Top 40's lunch. WRKO in Boston called itself "the album station" for a while around 1978 or so despite being a very tight T-40.

Steve, I have to tell you, that upon being hired at my local Top 40 station in early '78, that you just hit on my most shocking initial observation. This, then-AM station was my dream station/dream job, and unlike many others during this time, it had remained solidly #1 in our market's Arbitron ratings to the very last day until we moved the "elevator music" from our FM sister station over to the AM, and vice versa, in mid-'79. Even though our PD/MD/airstaff was all 100%, veteran Top 40 guys, I shockingly found that a strong sort of a "radio penis envy" existed, because we were an AM station. I loved that fact. And, of course, being new, I was both oblivious and unconcerned about such short-term future AM/FM music listening trends back then. But my bosses weren't. They obviously knew that a very strong "anti-music-on-AM" momentum was building daily around the country. Like an illegitimate child, I felt then that all of them badly wished that they'd worked at the local FM, album rock station instead of ours! (Strangely, my college had got me an internship at this same album rocker a year earlier. It was OK, and I learned a lot there, but all I ever wanted to do was to leave there ASAP, and go to work for the local AM Top 40 station instead!) At this time, all my fellow AM Top 40 staffers ever listened to on their own time was album rock. It appeared to me that the only shows the station ever wanted to sponsor/attend in person were for album rockers. I also felt a strong sense that 99% of what we played, in their opinion, both sucked and embarrassed the daylights out of them! But the MOMENT we moved the Top 40 format over to the FM station, that mentality instantly and TOTALLY disappeared!!! For the switch, the stations just flip-flopped airstaffs, so I was still working with the very same, "AOR wannabe guys" that I was before! And, as disco waned and the AC sounds of Kenny Rogers/Air Supply, etc. was growing 100-fold, our Top 40 sound on the FM out of the blocks was FAR wimpier than it ever was on the AM. But none of this "new wimpiness" seemed to bother the airstaff in the least! Just BEING on FM seemed to have an amazingly powerful, calming, confidence-building effect on our airstaff. Granted, our FM signal was FAR stronger than our AM signal ever was, and that fact also appeared to have had a profoundly positive effect on station staff as well. The FM got off to a great ratings start as well, so I'm sure the jocks were also feeling better about job security at this time.