WMAK
WMAK was one of Nashville’s two most popular radio stations (WKDA the other) among listeners aged 18-49 during the late 1950s and through the ‘60s.
History[edit | edit source]
During this period, the two battled for supremacy of the airways by trying to outdo each other in contests, or with the most music, or with the coolest DJs. Hugh Cherry was one of those.
Logan Hickerson,saxophone for the Lancers, recalls playing in the pre-Beatles rock/rhythm & blues era, the Lancers borrowed largely from the black artists of the day – Muddy Waters, Ray Charles, Jimmy Reed, Bo Diddley – music they heard on disc jockey Hugh Cherry’s radio show on Nashville’s WMAK. “The station played what the kids liked to dance to,” remembered Hickerson. “So we were riding along with that. When we started it was rhythm and blues; when we finished it was rock ‘n’ roll.”