TNTS History

    It was a Monday evening, February 5, 2001, when The Night Train Show embarked on its inaugaural journey through The History of Rock & Roll on WBOR (91.1 FM from Bowdoin College in Brunswick, Maine). Over the years since then, The Night Train has been time-warping back through the first 25 to 30 years of the Rock & Roll era on a weekly basis, allowing its listeners to experience the Golden Age of Top 40 AM radio - but, on the better-sounding, stereo FM radio dial!

     Since February of 2001, The Night Train has enjoyed various time slots at WBOR (91.1 FM), WRBC (91.5 FM from Bates College in Lewiston, Maine) and WMPG (90.9 & 104.1 FM from USM in Portland, Maine). The Night Train is currently cruising through The History of Rock & Roll every Saturday afternoon (1:30 thru 3 pm ET) on WMPG.

    Remember - as a musical genre back in the 50's & 60's, Rock & Roll was still revolutionary. As of the early 50s, TV was the new kid on the block; by the mid fifties, it had taken over as a family's evening entertainment, leaving radio as a dying form of entertainment. R & R music, along with R & R AM radio, were both still in their formative years, and it was struggling for adult acceptance. Top 40 radio was a new art-form that had evolved around the "Payola" scandals of the late 1950s.  A Dj's on-air personality & presentation were both integral parts of what you heard on your favorite AM radio station; and, quite often, it all came together in a hyped-up package - known today as The Golden Age of Top 40 Radio. Before Rock & Roll began to take over the brand-new "underground" FM radio dial at the end of the sixties, AM radio was the only real radio show in town!

    Your Boss-Jock, Bill Audette, conducts The Night Train as if it were one of those big-city, 50,000-watt, clear-channel AM radio mega-stations. You know the ones:

WABC (NYC with Cousing Brucie)

WLS (Chicago)

KHJ (Boss Angeles with Robert W Morgan & The Real Don Steele)

KRLA Los Angeles)

KFWB (Los Angeles)

KLIF (Dallas)

WIL (St. Louis)

KSAN (San Francisco)

WKBW (Buffalo, NY)

WPTR (Albany, NY)

WBZ (Boston)

WRKO (Boston with Maine's own JJ Jeffrey)

WHK (Cleveland)

KJR (Seattle)

WPGC (Washington, DC)

XERF (Mexico with the legendary Wolfman Jack).

    Back in the 1960's, a hyped-up Boss-Jock's platter-chatter, along with the 45-RPM records he would spin, captured the musical minds and imaginations of teenagers all over the USA - just as they did with a young and very impressionable Bill Audette.

    Bill was one of those mythical teenagers who hid his "hi-tech" Philco transistor radio under his pillow at night so that he could tune in and listen to all those distant, clear-channel AM mega-stations after dark. This nightly listening experience provided the material and the backdrop for Bill's idea of what The Night Train Show could, should and would eventually be. In fact, the name of Bill's show actually hails from Boston's Arnie "Woo Woo" Ginsberg (who nows resides in Ogunquit, Maine).  Arnie's nightly radio show was called "The Night Train Show."  Arnie's show aired weeknights for many years back in the sixties on WMEX - 1510 on New England's nineteen-sixties AM radio dial, which beamed its way into Greater Portland, Maine, on occasion after the sun went down.

    And what about Bill?  He's your one and only Rock & Roll Rebel - the only hyped-up Boss-Jock you'll ever need to relive the golden era of Top 40 radio! Remember, if it goes round to make a Rock & Roll sound, and if it was played on the radio, Bill's got it. And you'll hear 'em all by jumping on board The Night Train on a weekly basis, becoming one of Bill's weekly Night Train passengers. Your ears and your psyche will thank you.

    By jumping on board The Night Train Show, you can relive, or experience for the first time, the atmosphere generated by one of those hyped-up Boss-Jocks from one of those big-city AM radio mega-stations from the early and mid sixties. Every Saturday afternoon from 1:30 to 3 pm (Eastern Time on WMPG, 90.9 FM or on-line at www.wmpg.org - Portland, Maine, USA), your hyped-up Boss-Jock, Bill Audette, delivers to his Night Train passengers all the golden gassers, all those platters-that-used-to-matter and even some of those platters-that-never-quite-mattered - all in a manner similar to which they were originally delivered, back in their heyday. To experience the vintage radio jingles, the vintage station Ids, the vintage sound-bites & song-segues, the hyped-up Boss-Jock platter-chatter, and, of course, the best in vintage Rock & Roll music, you'll need to tune in The Night Train Show - live for all of Southern Maine, as it happens - every Saturday afternoon on WMPG from 1:30 to 3 pm (ET). You can also tune in live as it happens around the globe at www.wmpg.org. Or, if you can't tune in live, you can go to The Night Train Show's web site at http://www.billsnighttrain.com/id80.html and download the audio of the latest shows and, if you like what you hear, a vintage Night Train radio show from its vast audio archive.

    Every time you jump on board The Night Train Show, you'll get a musical theme from The History of Rock & Roll, featuring all those famous, familiar, and forgotten faves from Rock & Roll's first 25 to 30 years. As the hardest working man in show business, the late James Brown, said way back in 1962, "All aboard - Night Train!"

    Are you traveling through Greater Portland or Southern Maine, USA? Tune in The Night Train Show - as it happens, every Saturday afternoon from 1:30 to 3 pm (ET) - on WMPG at 90.9 FM, whose radio signal eminates from the campus of The University of Southern Maine (USM) in Porltand, Maine, USA.  Not local? Use your computer and a high-speed internet connection to jump on board The Night Train from almost anywhere around the globe; we're on-line at www.wmpg.org. Whether by radio or by internet, jump on board The Night Train and WMPG. You'll be glad you did.



    To get in touch with The Night Train Show's famous on-air production crew, call The Night Train's Boss Hitline at (207) 780-4909 between 1:30 and 3pm (ET) any Saturday afternoon.

You can also make an on-line vintage music request at any time using The Night Train's e-mail, or with The Night Train's Facebook page