WYBC: Bob Santulli

While so much of what was exciting and revolutionary about WYBC had to do with its focus on progressive rock and roll, there was also, for most of our time at Yale, a classical music side to WYBC FM.  That is how I got interested and involved in heeling the station.

I remember having an afternoon classical show, “Front Row Center,” — in WYBC lingo, “FRC” — and then moved up to an evening program once a week, which I think was called “The Age of Grandeur” or something pompous like that.  I played 19^th century classical music and had a great time selecting pieces from our impressive classical music library and figuring out how to back-time so you finished before the news or whatever followed.  I can still remember the classical library, with floor to ceiling shelves of records (yes, records in those days, of course – before cassettes, before CDs, way before MP3s, and before the current revival of interest in vinyl.

Gradually, I worked my way up from announcer to Classical Music Director to Program Director.  I was prouder of those titles than any of my academic accomplishments at Yale.  (OK, I really didn’t have that many.)

I’ve been interviewed a few times on the radio, over the years, and every time I sat down in front of a microphone, it brought back memories of being in the WYBC studio in Hendrie Hall.  I’ve often had fantasies, now that I’m retired, of getting a job as a classical DJ on the local public radio classical station.  I’d offer to do it for free.

I still remember trying to use my most mellifluous voice for the station ID: “These are the radio stations of the Yale Broadcasting Company: WYBC-FM, at 94.3 on the FM dial, serving all of Southern Connecticut; and WYBC-AM 640, closed circuit to the Yale campus.”  I’ll still occasionally say it when I’m sure no one is listening.

While Yalies were certainly more into rock than Rachmaninov, there were some other classical music aficionados there besides me.  I remember listening to Stardust on the AM station one night when they were doing one of their contests.  You had to call in with a song that made for an amusing prelude to the phrase “between the sheets.”  Someone (not me) called in suggesting Verdi’s opera, “Aida”.  I actually think it won.  Amusing at the time.  Now we should all say “Tut tut”.