If you were a radio listener in the picturesque western Minneapolis suburb of Golden Valley in 1961, the frequency of 92.5 FM sounded like static noise. But that would soon change. There would soon be sounds of music and news and community information coming from Golden Valley using a new technology that was just beginning to sweep into the lives of listeners all over America…FM RADIO.
AM radio had already been around for about twenty years when FM radio was invented in the 1940s. By the 1960s, many successful AM stations began investing in the new stronger frequencies by signing on FM sister stations.
The KEYD building located in downtown Minneapolis on the corner of 9th and Hennepin
KQRS’ roots can be traced back to 1948, when station KEYD at 1440AM came on the air using the three towers on Lilac Drive along Highway 100 in Golden Valley. The station later changed its name to KEVE. In 1962, the station’s owners submitted an application to the FCC for a new radio station at 92.5 FM with a proposed power of 2,800 watts – a small fraction of KQ’s 100,000 watts today.
The station signed on as KADM, and along with its AM station KEVE, was known as “Adam and Eve in the Valley” playing country and western music. The station used this identity for about a year before becoming KEVE AM and FM in 1963.
The call letters KQRS were finally adopted in 1964 and along with a change in format. The early version of KQRS played the kind of music that had the qualities of high fidelity and sounded great in stereo on an FM station, but the music was far removed from the rock & roll being played on the AM stations as The Beatles exploded.
The adult audience of Hi-Fi enthusiasts listening to “Q” were treated to a format of light classical, Broadway and Hollywood show tunes, concertos of so called “good music” of the era, some big bands and Brazilian bossa-nova.
Advertisement promoting the call letter change from KEVE to KQRS in 1964
Then, something happened called 1968 – one of the most eventful years of the century brought massive cultural, social and musical changes to the world.
A controversial war, political assassinations, and generational divisions made for a tumultuous year that awakened a large baby boom of young adults searching for music that spoke to them. It was out there, and this vast new pool of music and its fans needed a home…a radio station to call their own.
At first, KQRS began experimenting with that music very late at night, with a Midnight to 6am program called Nightwatch, hosted by George Donaldson Fisher and sponsored by Musicland Record Stores, which actually purchased the airtime to expose the music.
As the program’s popularity grew and the featured records began to sell, the program was expanded to cover 6pm to 6am, with the new early segment renamed Nightwatch Trip One, hosted by Alan Stone, and the later segment continuing as Nightwatch, Trip Two….
….And that’s where this special day begins…the KQRS 50th Anniversary Celebration Day!
div.entry-content .fifty-text-box p {
margin: 0 0 25px;
}
div.entry-content .fifty-text-box p:last-child {
margin: 0 0 0;
}
.fifty-second-row:nth-child(even) {
background: #f5f5f5;
}
.fifty-second-row:nth-child(odd) .fifty-text-box {
width: 95%;
}
.fifty-second-row:nth-child(even) .fifty-text-box {
width: 100%;
}
.birth-photo img {
width: 100%;
}
.birth-photo .image-content {
margin-top: 0 !important;
padding: .5em;
margin-bottom: 0 !important;
}
.birth-photo .image-content .image-caption {
font-size: 14px;
text-align: center;
line-height: 120%;
}