On the fabled first night of WBCN’s “American Revolution;” March 15, 1968, a new deejay named Tommy Hadges stood at Joe Rogers’ side as the latter put the needle down on Cream’s “I Feel Free” and commercial underground radio fired its first shot in Boston. Both were Tufts University students who’d found their way to MIT’s WTBS-FM and caught the attention of entrepreneur Ray Riepen, who hired them for his fledgling radio project.
When the overnight experiment succeeded and classical music-formatted WBCN yielded to rock ‘n’ roll in May ‘68, Hadges became one of the first full-time personalities on the station’s air (along with Rogers, Peter Wolf, Sam Kopper, Al Perry and Jim Parry).
DEPARTURE, RETURN, ‘BCN PROGRAM DIRECTOR, MOVE TO WCOZ
Less than a year later, however, the Brockton, Massachusetts native left his full-time role, showing up only occasionally for fill-in shifts as he concentrated on his studies at Tufts Dental School. Eventually, however, the pull of music and radio overwhelmed the desire to fill cavities and listen to that noisy saliva-sucking device all day, so Hadges returned to ‘BCN full time.
By 1976, he was holding down the morning shift following the initial exit of superstar Charles Laquidara. A year later, he was named program director and made three critical moves: coaxing Laquidara to return, hiring Oedipus and bringing promotional maestro David Bieber onboard. As Boston dug itself out from the Blizzard of ’78 in February that year – before Bieber had even settled into his new office – Hadges jumped ship again, this time to join ‘BCN’s rival WCOZ as its program director.
After two years there, he moved on to program legendary FM rocker KLOS in Los Angles and in 1985 joined radio consultant Jeff Pollack’s company, which has grown over the past 30 years into an influential global concern. Hadges is now president of Pollack Music and Media Group’s Worldwide Video and Radio Division and works closely with stations overseas. When he’s not racking up an obscene number of frequent-flyer miles, he lives in Santa Monica.
(by Carter Alan)
Carter Alan is a former WBCN deejay now heard on WZLX-FM in Boston. He is the author of Radio Free Boston: The Rise and Fall of WBCN (University Press of New England, 2013).
