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They had a consultant,” he says. “Tom Something-or-Other. I don’t remember his last name. He wasn’t one of the heavy hitters, like Lee Abrams. Nelson [Goldberg, the owner] probably got him at a good price. And he tightened the format down. They gave me the 10 p.m. to 2 a.m. shift and I finished the Friday show, came in for the Sunday Suggestion Box that following Sunday and then I just didn’t show up for the 10 to 2 show.”

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The PG ran a story in October 1977 about the demise of freeform at YDD, cheerfully noting that the competition on FM radio was heating up with the steady diet of hits and that “the days of heavy rock appear to be numbered in general popularity.”

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“You had five different DJs and everyone leaned in a different direction,” Gerson says. “Freeform could have lasted a little longer with a bit more structure, but it was fun while it lasted.”

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Gerson went on to work as a production director at WTAE radio, notably working with Myron Cope, for the next 30-plus years before he retired.

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About five years ago, he heard about a Facebook group called WYDD in Pittsburgh! that was established in 2009.

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“I really wasn't on Facebook,” Gerson says, “but I looked it up and it was the guys that were there in the ’80s. So, I wasn't really interested because it didn't really cover the freeform years at all. And then five years later, I go back to it and all the old hippies had come out, in full force.”

One of those people was Jon Gelsdorf, a Derry native who listened to YDD back in the day, on his way to pursuing a career in the grocery business.

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“That was my station. Every Friday night was Larry Allen's Jam Night,” he says. On YDD, “You got to hear stuff you didn’t hear anywhere else,” he adds, referencing bands like Rare Bird and 801. “Plus, they had Doctor Demento and King Biscuit Flower Hour and BBC Rock Hour and all those syndicated shows, too.”

Looking at the Facebook page, he noticed that most of the people were over 55.

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“And they're really not being served out there to listen to music,” Gelsdorf says. “I mean, Sirius. Seriously? The local stations and things of that nature, there's a lot of good acts out there that when freeform went away, they went away, too.”

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Last year, Gelsdorf and Gerson, who live in Forest Hills and Braddock Hills, respectively, got together and talked about the idea of reviving the ghost of WYDD with freeform internet radio shows, which they posted on YouTube. They also recruited former WDVE morning man Scott Paulsen and Steve Acri, the former Oasis store manager Allen calls “Pittsburgh’s concert king,” for his long history of show-going and archiving.

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It wasn’t long before they ran into copyright issues on YouTube with publishers blocking the videos.

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“Some of the bands are really sticklers for the copyrights,” Gerson says. “King Crimson's one of them, Neil Young's another, Beatles, of course. We would put the work and effort into it, put them up, and then they would block them. We’d take them down and we would edit a couple of them, taking out the one or two songs that caused the issue and then stick them back up. And then I got tired of dealing with that.”

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Gerson put some of his shows up on Rumble, but now PittsburghFreeFormRadio has moved over to MixCloud, a platform that is fully licensed, with high quality audio. You can listen for free on the website or phone app. To listen to a show more than three times in a two-week period, you need unlimited access, for $2.99 per month, with that money going to royalties for the artists.

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A recent show by Gerson had him playing deep cuts from Procol Harum, Genesis, Yes, Roy Buchanan, Steely Dan and the Steve Miller Band, among others.

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You could make your own playlists of those tracks, but you wouldn’t get the DJs telling stories, reminiscing about seeing those bands back in the day and just doing fun banter.

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“So, I’m down in the basement, with the cat and a bottle of wine and a record player,” Paulsen said, opening a recent show. “We’ll do that for an hour or so, or until this wine’s gone. You never know.”

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His playlist that night opened with Rickie Lee Jones and moved on to Porno for Pyros, Curtis Mayfield, Jeff Beck, Jack White, Ike & Tina Turner and more.

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On Wednesday, Gelsdorf is uploading a show for the 58th anniversary of The Beatles debuting on The Ed Sullivan Show, with all songs from 1964.

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The goal is to do some live shows so that people can listen and react in real time.

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None of them are making any money off of it.

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“Nope, it’s just for the love of the music,” Gerson says. “I’ve been really pleasantly surprised to see that these people [who listened to WYDD] are actually out there and not only out there but in force and they remember YDD like it was yesterday. They're still listening to the music and they're very passionate about it. You read some of the posts and some of the guys are putting up posts of tunes to be played and I’m shocked they’re even remembered, a lot of these bands.”

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From Bob Brown in Pittsburgh robikas@comcast.net

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