KEENER Music after 1972

For a brief period in the late 1970s, Keener was reborn as WWKR. Keener13.com founder Steve Schram was music director of the resurrected Keener brand and decided to revive the WKNR Music Guide.

Radio's Best Friend, Art Vuolo printed a brief series of guides for WWKR in 1978. The Guide was a monthly affair, a sign of the limited resources that the WNIC gang was able to spend on Keener's AM operation. Keener's 1978 playlist included Meatloaf, Patti Smith and Pablo Cruise, artists that were still in high school during WKNR's glory years. But there were also some of the same names we heard in the 60s including The Stones and Carly Simon. In the issue we feature here, courtesy of the Tom Sanders collection, Bob Seger is at the top of the power rotation with "Still The Same."

Many of us who heard of Keener's comeback hoped that the Seger tune would herald the same memories and the some of the same success WKNR enjoyed during it's heyday. But it was a different world and the 60s Keener magic had drifted into legend.

Ironically, the WKNR Music Guides have served as a touchstone for several Detroit oldies iterations. Recording Engineer and CK board op Tom Ryan remembers seeing an entire set of Keener guides at WOMC when it launched it's oldies format. From time to time Keener guides appear on EBay but their value to collectors is limited.

Keener13.com is a repository to the most complete collection of classic WKNR chart data thanks to the efforts of Jim Heddle, Michael R. Lewis, Tom Pokladowski, Tom Ryan, Tom Sanders, Chris Stinson, Steve Schram and others who contributed original guide scans and chart positions to the keener13.com preservation effort.