I got the radio blastin'
I got the windows rolled down
And I'm cruisin' these backroads
On the outskirts of town
Backroads. It is a song with an interesting history. It was written by the then-obscure country Ottawa-based songwriter and singer Charlie Major. As Major tells the story, he had given a demo tape of some songs to the DJ at an Ottawa radio station. Nashville star Ricky Van Shelton was doing a concert. The DJ told Major that he gave a copy of the demo tape to Van Shelton’s bus driver. A day later, Van Shelton called the bewildered songwriter to say that Major had written a hit.
And so it was. Backroads reached number 2 on the country charts. It propelled Van Shelton’s career and launched Major’s. The song is great. It has a driving melody. It has exuberant lyrics. Most of all, it weds two great North American loves – the motor vehicle and the radio – into one song. It is fitting that the match-maker between Van Shelton and Major, between singer and song writer, was a bus driver putting a tape into a sound system while driving.
The modern automobile was invented by Carl Benz in 1896. In North America, it became a thing accessible to normal people in 1908 when Henry Ford created the Model T and the assembly line to built it in volume. The automobile became ubiquitous.
Then came the radio and the radio station.
The radio itself was a method of sending and receiving sound through the transmission and reception of electromagnetic waves. The basic technology was invented by scientists in the late 1800s. People like Heinrich Hertz and Gugliemo Marconi. The real genius was an employee of Westinghouse, Harry P. Davis. He realized that Westinghouse could sell a lot of radios receivers if they did not include a transmitter. The key was to give potential purchasers something to listen to. On November 2, 1920 Davis launched KDKA in Pittsburgh. It was the world’s first radio station. The first programming was news reporting of the voting results in the presidential election between Warren G. Harding and James M. Cox. The 2,000 people in Pittsburgh with a radio set were enthralled. Six days later, KDKA started broadcasting music. That was better than politics. On August 15,1921 KDKA broadcast the first play-by-play report of a sporting event. In case you are curious, the Pittsburgh Pirates defeated the Philadelphia Phillies 8 to 5.
By the beginning of the 1920s, North Americans had two new loves. Automobiles and radios.
But here is the thing. As both cars and roads improved, driving became progressively more boring. People got used to travelling at speeds inconceivable in the days of muscle powered transportation. Cars got more reliable. Roads became straighter and smoother. The unadulterated thrill of driving a car became commonplace. Something everyone did. It was only a matter of time before someone figured out that putting radios in cars was a good idea. In the best-case scenario, it would create the kind of exhilaration described by Charlie Major/Ricky Van Shelton. More prosaically, it could relieve the tedium of being stuck in a traffic jam.
Some genius was going to put radio receivers in cars.
It was an Australian who first came up with the idea. The owner of Kelly’s Motors in New South Wales tried strapping radios the running boards of cars in 1924. Great idea, but the technology was lacking. Part of the problem was that mufflers were not great. Another was that radios were not that great. But, most importantly, the radio was outside of the car. Windows rolled down – you could sort of hear something. Windows rolled up – not much at all. This might have been okay for Australia, but not for Canada in January.
The first car radio approaching commercial viability came in 1930 when the Galvin Corporation – a precursor to Motorola – launched the first radio designed for use in automobiles. It was great. The speakers were even inside the car. There, were, however, drawbacks. The radio had six vacuum tubes, which did not respond well to vibration. It was housed in a heavy wooden case and took up 10 liters of cargo space, not to mention the space taken up by the two additional batteries need for the radio. The radio cost $130 – at a time when you could buy a new car for $540.There was one further drawback. To reduces static enough to hear what was coming in over the radio, a car owner needed to install “suppressors” on the spark plugs. These often prevented the spark plugs from sparking. The end result was that you could listen to the radio while stuck in a traffic jam, but it got a little iffy while actually trying to go somewhere. Oh. And did I mention. Most places just had one radio station. Choice in what you listened to was limited.
Ahh. The good old days. I’m just going to state this as a fact. Listening to music while in a car is better than it was in the good old days.
Making listening better in cars
Even though early car radios were big, expensive, had crappy sound quality, and a limited number of radio stations to listen to – people loved them. The first real car radio was launched in the market in 1930. Depression and war followed. That notwithstanding, by 1946, there were about 9 million cars with radios in them in the United States – out of about 28 million vehicles.
The first challenge for making car audio even more popular was to make the radio receivers smaller and cheaper. The technological solution was to replace vacuum tubes with solid-state transistors. These were invented by Bell labs in 1947. The original car radios had 6 vacuum tubes. One by one, the tubes disappeared. It took until 1955 before Chrysler marketed the first all-transistor car radio. This made it possible for the entire radio mechanism to be housed within the dashboard of the car.
Another problem was sound quality. Part the quest for better sound came with better speakers. This was a process of incremental improvement that I won’t bore you with. The other key to sound quality was the wavelength of the radio signals. Let’s not get all geeky technical here. There was a tradeoff. The suite of wave lengths called FM offered better sound quality. The AM band wave lengths could be transmitted for much longer distances. Quality versus quantity. At first, car radios went with quantity. Canada and the United States were primarily rural. Broadcast reach mattered. As the continent urbanized, sound quality became more important. The first FM car radio was introduced in 1952. A year later, AM/FM car radio receivers were launched. Choice. Good quality sound where it was available, but with something to listen to when you got on the backroads.
With the introduction of AM/FM in 1953, car radios did not change that much until 2001. Sound quality slowly got better and prices came down. By the 1960s, about 70 percent of cars in North America had radios. By the 1990s, they were, for all intents and purposes, standard equipment. Driving with no sound except that of the motor, the hum of the tires, and your thoughts was almost inconceivable.
As sound quality got better, the pressing issue became selection. There were a limited number of radio station. Programming decisions were centralized in radio station management. If you lived rural areas, you listened to a lot of country music and religious programming. If you lived in a city, you could get pop and rock and roll. As time went on, “classic” radio stations emerged to give middle-aged folk a return to their teen years. In Canada, CBC gave drivers a lot of talk. In the United States, NPR did the same. That was about it for variety. One way to listen to something a little different was to drive long distances. As one station faded away, you’d search for one from the next town. Another way to expand your listening options was to drive late at night, especially in the winter. This would allow a driver to access more stations. But all in all, people living in cities might have a dozen radio stations to choose from. Those in towns and rural areas might only have one.
There are two basic approaches to give drivers and their passengers more listening options.
Increase the number of channels.
Let drivers bring their music with them.
Other than the incremental growth in the number of radio stations, the big innovation in increasing the number of channels came in 2001, with the launch of satellite radio (2008 in Canada). This provided drivers with access to a few hundred targeted and specialized channels. Today, Serius XM has channels devoted to nothing but the Beatles or the Grateful Dead. Decide on your mood, pick your channel. But even with all this channel choice, you still have to listen to what the music directors or the DJ’s choose for you. You can binge on the Beatles, but if you want to listen to “When I’m 64” over and over again on your 64th birthday while driving to work, you are out of luck.
The first attempt to let drivers (or their passengers) choose what songs they would listen to came in 1956. Chrysler introduced an automotive record turntable. The problem was rough roads combined with poor suspension systems. The needle would jump around a lot. To combat this, Chrysler increased the weight of the arm. This caused the needle to gouge the vinyl on the record, destroying the sound. Yeah. It sucked. Another idea into the junkyard of history.
In 1962, car manufacturers introduced tape. The first was a four-track tape deck. Three years later, Ford came out with the eight-track tape deck. It was invented by William Powell Lear, who also invented the concept of a small, luxury, corporate jet. 8-tracks were hugely popular. For the young’uns reading, the eight-track tape cartridge was about the size of a paperback novel. You shoved it into a player installed in the dashboard. You could choose your own music. Sort of. Each cartridge held a record album (about a dozen songs). You could choose the album you wanted to listen to, but it was devilishly hard to find a particular song. Songs would be interrupted with a clunking noise as one track turned into another. The tape often got eaten by the player. But other than that, it was great. Anyone who was anyone had one in their car.
In 1970, the cassette tape deck appeared in cars. The tape cartridges were much smaller than the eight-track, which allowed you to carry more music. Songs were not interrupted mid-song. It was easier to find the song you wanted. At first, the quality of sound was pretty bad, but it quickly got better.
Who could ask for more?
People who spent a lot of time in their cars.
In 1985, the first in-dash CD player was factory installed in a car. It was a luxury item. Mercedes-Benz was the first car manufacturer to provide CDs. It caught on fairly quickly. Within a decade, stacking CD players were in cars. This allowed a driver to have several CD’s in a player – and to choose which CD and which song to play at any time.
Who could ask for more?
People who spent a lot of time in their cars.
The next big step was dematerialization. Access to music (and other audio) became accessible in cars via streaming services such as Spotify (launched 2006). This gives access to almost infinite listening options. At last count – 100 million songs, 5 million podcast titles, and 350,000 audio books. Let’s take a step back and look at just the music. 100 million songs equal about 5 million hours of listening. At 100 km per hour, that means a person could drive and listen to music while circumnavigating world at the equator 124.8 times – and never listen to the same song twice.
Crazy.
Let’s make it personal.
The first vehicle I had a share in owning was a 1949 Ford flatbed ¾ ton truck. My brother, my father, and I each kicked in $12 to buy it at auction. You did not listen to music driving that sucker.
When I was in Grade 12, I bought a 1964 Ford Comet. It had no radio. I installed an 8-track tape deck in the glove compartment and put in some speakers. I bought about a dozen tapes (which amounted to about 40 hours of earnings at my part-time job). I thought I had it made. Then some creep stole the tape deck and all my music. They left the speakers, but they didn’t do much on their own.
From there, it was a series of cars with radios. Sound quality was variable, but mostly pretty bad. Choice in music was determined by geography.
In the early 1990s, got a car with a cassette tape player in addition to an AM/FM radio.
In 2003, I bought a Ford that had a 6 CD stacking player in addition to an AM/FM radio. The sound quality was pretty good. I did not think anything better was possible.
All of these vehicles were owned in the good old days.
That was then. This is now.
I now drive a Mazda. Every weekend, I drive from Lloydminster to Regina and back.
Let’s review.
In the early 1970’s, if I wanted music, I’d have to sing. Let me assure you – that’s too horrible to contemplate.
In the mid-1970s, I would have had about a dozen 8-track albums to choose from. That would mean I’d listen to all of them on the way down to Regina, and then again on the way back. Every weekend. All winter. I’d come to hate those albums.
Then there would be a period when I’d motor along- changing radio stations about once an hour. Mostly AM. As I passed through North Battleford, I’d have a choice of one station to listen to. Through Saskatoon, about 7. Into Regina, about the same. In between, three AM stations – CFQC, CKOM and CJWW. Bland music and the back to the bible hour broadcast. Rock music. Country music. I might have a cassette player in the car for variety. Or I might not. They were not standard.
In 2003, I bought a car that had an AM/FM radio AND a CD stacker that held 6 CDs. Man. That was the ultimate. Except it was not.
If we define 2003 as the good old days, things are better now.
As I pound up and down the highway between Lloydminster and Regina (four lane, divided the whole distance – much better than in the good old days), I spend about half the time listening to podcasts. Some current events, some weird historical things such as 300 episodes on the history of piracy. The rest of the time I listen to music. I’m not geographically confined. Satellite radio allows me to have my music match my mood. If that is not enough, I can turn to Spotify’s almost infinite variety. And, if that is not enough, I can tell my car to “Call Mark’s Lovebug.” Then I get to talk to my wife over the car’s sound system.
I’m going to state this as a fact. Audio in cars is better than it was in the good old days.
Mark, you forgot to mention the havoc the sun played on our amazing collections of cassette tapes! If you forgot to put your tapes under the seat on a hot summer day, you likely melted the music into oblivion or, at best, you could still play the tape but it would certainly sound sluggish in spots! And of course the dangers involved in trying to find a song while driving. Fast forwarding and reversing a cassette tape while driving was always an adventure that was likely as dangerous as checking text messages is today.