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Local doo wop radio station takes listeners back to the 50s

Gray Hughes
The Daily Times
WRBG 106.5 DJs Bob "Strech" Kline and Lou Gaudioso stand in their studio on Wednesday, July 26, 2017 in Millsboro, Del.

Lou Gaudioso was driving into Ocean City five years ago when he heard songs he hadn't heard in 50 years.

The channel was 106.5 WRGB, a station that specializes in playing doo-wop music. Gaudioso made a call into the station for a request.

"I said, 'Can you play 'I Think I Love You' by The Premiers?' and he said, 'Sure, give me a half hour and I’ll get it on the air for you,'" Gaudioso said. "And he got it on the air and I haven’t heard it in years, and I called him back and said, 'The reason I asked you for that request is because I am one of The Premiers, and I made that record back in 1959 from Philly.'"

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That phone call spawned Gaudioso's involvement in the station.

WRBG 106.5 FM is a radio station out of Millsboro. It plays mainly doo-wop and rhythm and blues music from the mid-1950s until the late-1960s. It is co-owned by Gaudioso, Joe D'Alessandro and his wife, Olga. The station began playing music in 2005.

Bob Kline, a DJ at the station who goes by the name "Stretch" or "Stretchman" when he's on the air, said the goal of the station is to keep that music alive.

"There are a lot of people who grew up with it and still like it and we are trying to reach out to them," he said. "And also trying to show as we do it where the music came from stage to stage."

When he hears the songs, Gaudioso is taken back to the summer in New Jersey when he would spend time at the lakes where they would have a picnic, would go in the pavilion and sing and dance.

"I think the music has a different response to each person," he said. "But I think that’s a good analogy, beach type songs, I think, where you remember certain songs you identify with that time, and growing up that’s what I identified with it also."

The station will play public service announcements, but other than that it's a noncommercial, donor-funded station, Kline said.  

Most of the people who listen to the station do it to have fun, he added.

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Inside the studio of WRBG 106.5, where the walls are lined with famous singers and 45s on Wednesday, July 26, 2017 in Millsboro, Del.

"If you tune into WRBG, you know you’re going to be in that era, in that decade between 1955 and 1965 prior to the British Invasion, and so you are going to hear music from that era," Gaudioso said. "And if there’s a song you haven’t heard in a while, you call us, and I think that we are getting a really nice response."

Most of the songs the station plays comes from requests, Gaudioso said. The station has a request line where listeners can call and leave a message with the song they want to hear, and on Sundays, one of the DJs, such as Kline, will play the requests. 

Nine times out of 10, they will play the request, he added, giving the senior residents in Sussex County a station that will play music they want to listen to.

"First off, if you live in Sussex County and you live by the beach, there is a large group of people this age, and there are a lot of people who basically know the music," said Kline. "They grew up with it. When you reach our age the music you heard when you were 15 and 20 you’ll still know all the words."

And, for some, this music represents not just music but their childhood.

Anna Foultz, an Ocean Pines resident, grew up with doo-wop music. She says she would go to the drug store after school growing up to listen to the music there.

"It reminds me of my youth," she said. "It brings back a lot of happy memories."

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Inside the studio of WRBG 106.5, where the walls are lined with famous singers and 45s on Wednesday, July 26, 2017 in Millsboro, Del.

Although she does not listen to doo-wop on WRBG, the music still holds a special place in her heart, she said.

The station caters to people like Foultz who truly love the music.

"I’d much rather have three listeners who all hear something they haven’t heard in a while than 500 walking around saying 'I heard this the other day at this other station,'" Kline said.

In addition to the rhythm and blues music, WRBG also plays religious programming on Friday, Saturday and Sunday morning.

"We have a community that is interested in tuning in at those particular times," Gaudioso said. "And fortunately they help us maintain the operations of the station through donations, and I do think that’s a good thing."

The station tries to run programs like what listeners would have heard in the 1950s, Kline said. Everyone has a shtick, Kline said, because that's how he remembers radio back then.

It's how radio was back before it became commercialized, Gaudioso said.

"We do something different," Kline added. "I always say we are the only rhythm and blues group harmony station on the whole Delmarva nation, and there's nothing like us."

On Twitter @hughesg19