WKXW Big Joe Henry 2/5/1999

With its talk format during the week and oldies on weekends WKXW thrived on being New Jersey's station interjecting every 10 with weather and 15 with traffic reports under signature music beds that when you hear probably pours back memories of being all over the Garden State (well at least for me who grew up in the 90's). I consider the late 1990's the prime of New Jersey 101.5 as they had an amazing talk lineup during the week and an oldies format to give everyone a break from the jabber on weekends.
Big Joe Henry kicked off the music with the "Friday Night Jersey Oldies Show" in which this aircheck is recorded from February 5, 1999. In his show he played mostly requests and dedications but also had a "salute to" theme where he played certain artists or genres. In this aircheck it was a salute to Motown.
Other themed shows on weekends you had Don Tandler host the "Saturday Night Jersey 70's show" showcasing music and a countdown from the Musicradio survey the week of somewhere in the 70's. Then Norm Latham hosted the "Sunday Night Jersey Oldies Show" to wrap up the weekend with doo-wop and other oldies from the 50's and 60's. Unfortunately I never thought to aircheck either show as I figured they'd be on the air for a long time.
Sadly as time went on the oldies were looked at as crusty, burned out or stale and eventually phased out for newer music of the 80's and eventually 90's. Today if you tune to the station on weekends it sounds like a classic rock hair band with occasional 90's haphazardly thrown in. Gone are the oldies I loved and grew up to (even though I was born in 1985 I grew much fonder of the oldies) that spark memories of a kid riding his bike with a walkman blaring listening to the oldies with the trademark NJ 101.5 TM shotgun jingle between the songs.
The image I used was an autograph I got from Big Joe some time in the Summer of 1999 when him and the "big yellow van" were at the Edison Fairways off Stelton Road. Today much like the oldies the fairway is nothing more than a memory with housing and a strip mall on the former grounds.