WPTF (680 AM) is a news and talk radio station serving the Triangle area of Raleigh, Durham, and Chapel Hill, North Carolina. Its call letters date back to the former longtime owner of the station, Durham Life Insurance Company, whose motto was "We Protect The Family." Its studios are located in Raleigh, and the transmitter tower is in Cary, North Carolina. WPTF is one of the two most powerful AM radio stations in North Carolina, along with WBT in Charlotte. (More from Wikipedia)
I became familiar with Wendy Bagwell and the Sunliters when we used to go to sleep listening to WPTF radio in Raleigh. As the second radio station in North Carolina, and still the second most powerful in the state with its 50,000-watt broadcasting tower, WPTF was beloved throughout central North Carolina. I often listened to Bart Ritner, who was with the station for 39 years and is credited with having one of the first two-way radio talk shows in the country. Their FM affiliate was renamed WQDR-FM in 1972 – the call letters stand for "quadrophonic" (four-channel stereo), which station managers mistakenly thought was the wave of the future; but this was still one of the first album-oriented rock stations in the country.
My grandmother had one of those vintage wooden radios on display, but the one that she used was one of the early plastic models; and she regularly listened to WPTF on that radio – 100 miles away in Raleigh. On my little transistor radio, I had trouble picking up stations in Greensboro just 30 miles away, so I was amazed at that.
* * *
WPTF had a late-night country music show back then that was aimed at truckers, called Interstate 68 (the station is at 680 on the AM dial); it was hosted by Hap Hansen. They took requests, so most of the songs were charming oldies, but there were also other recordings that were unusual to say the least. Besides "Here Come the Rattlesnakes" by Wendy Bagwell and the Sunliters, they played numerous routines by legendary country comedian Jerry Clower that often featured the crew of Ledbetters that he hung with back in the day; "Telephone Call from God" by Jerry Jordan about a man picking up the phone and finding God on the other end (you never actually hear God, but Johnny Carson can be heard briefly in the background – a newer hit version came out later that mentions Jay Leno instead); and a 1948 monologue by Tex Ritter called "Deck of Cards" about a soldier caught spreading out cards in church (sample dialogue: "The marshal said to the sergeant, 'Why have you brought this man here?' 'For playing cards in church, Sir.' 'And what do you have to say for yourself son?' 'Much, Sir' replied the soldier. The Marshal said, 'I hope so, for if not, I shall punish you more than any man was ever punished.') – I don't have Tex Ritter's version, but I do have the one by Rusty Draper.
(November 2014)
