WLAY-AM

WLAY-AM is a radio station licensed to Muscle Shoals, Alabama. It signed on 1933 and is one of the region's oldest frequencies. Like most early radio stations, it began as a full service AM (meaning it catered to all genres of music and community information, operating live).The station holds an especially impressive pedigree of disc jockeys: Sun Records founder and the universally agreed "Father Of Rock N Roll", Sam Phillips began his career in the music industry at WLAY-AM. The station's early, diverse format of Country and Blues is widely regarded as the cornerstone of Phillip's inspiration to combine the genres at Sun Studios in Memphis, TN.Rick Hall, owner of FAME Recording Studios in Muscle Shoals and producer of ground-breaking recordings by Aretha Franklin, Wilson Pickett and countless others also began his tenure as a music industry mogul as a DJ at the station.Quinn Ivey (producer of "When A Man Loves A Woman") was a disc jockey at WLAY-AM when he discovered Percy Sledge.It has often been said that WLAY-AM was the birth-place of the Muscle Shoals Sound because it was a meeting place for so many of the songwriters and artists responsible for the unique style of music developed in Northwest Alabama. Because of this, the original sound board used at WLAY-AM is a permanent fixture at the Alabama Music Hall Of Fame.The station suffered when FM radio began to overshadow AM frequencies for music formats. The owners of WLAY-AM also created an FM equivalent, focusing on Country music. Slowly, WLAY-AM became a haven of MOR music.The station manitained this position until moving from independent ownership and transferring hands to Cumulus Broadcasting in the 90s and later Clear Channel Communications. Then, the station began broadcasting first Sports Talk radio and finally satellite-based Oldies radio.WLAY-AM was purchased by URBan Radio Broadcasting in 2005. This company re-tooled the frequency to highlight its heritage. On Halloween 2005, following several weeks of "stunting", the station began broadcasting only music recorded or written in the Muscle Shoals area. Given the city's rich musical history, this created a very diverse and unique library of music.WLAY-AM is presently the only radio station in America playing only local music.WLAY-AM plays all blues music from 6pm every Friday night until Midnight on Monday morning. This is a "tip of the hat" to W.C. Handy ("The Father Of The Blues"), who was born and bred in the station's listening area (Florence, AL).A listener can hear everything from Stevie Ray Vaughan to Howlin' Wolf to Roosevelt Sykes to Sonny Boy Williamson to John Lee Hooker to Buddy Guy to Gov't Mule and Tom Waits and Morphine. Truly one of the great radio stations in America. AM or not.There are plans in place to stream the radio station in the very near future! In the meantime, enjoy highlights from our programming here on MySpace!