Growing up in Arlington in the 1950s and ’60s, David Swerdloff enjoyed his local radio station so much that he would sometimes put on an exaggerated DJ voice and answer the telephone with one of its slogans: “Listen to the new WEAM!”
Later, during a long broadcast career that included stints at WTOP and Voice of America, Swerdloff found himself working as an actual WEAM DJ, spinning records under his adopted radio name, “Dave Arlington.”
“If you were in Arlington in the 1960s, you listened to WEAM,” recalls Swerdloff, who now lives in Florida. “It might have been a weak signal everywhere else, but in Arlington you could pick it up on your braces, as the saying went.” (He’s referring to the days when orthodontia involved so much metal that kids joked they could transmit radio signals.)
In the early- to mid-20th century, AM radio was the best available broadcast technology, and the only way for most listeners to hear their favorite tunes. No single AM radio station could cover the entire D.C. metro area, which gave rise to numerous local stations with loyal followings. WPGC and WINX broadcast out of Maryland, and Fairfax County had WEEL. But in Arlington and its immediate surroundings, it was all about WEAM, located at 1390 on the AM dial.
Based first in Courthouse and later in Falls Church, the station was founded in 1947 by an Arlington businessman named J. Maynard Magruder. The “WEAM team”—as the station called its DJs—reached broad popularity by the 1960s, when many teenagers listened to pop music on their transistor radios. The station regularly released its own list of Top 40 requested songs (one 1966 list put a regional band, The Hangmen, at No. 1 with their song “What a Girl Can’t Do” over the Beatles’ “We Can Work It Out” at No. 2).
Popular WEAM disc jockeys, many using pseudonyms, included Johnny Rogue, Little Jack Little, Russ Wheeler, Jack Alix and Johnny Dark. The station had a strong community presence; for a time, listeners could even make song requests at the former Tops Drive Inn on what was then Lee Highway (now Langston Boulevard).
“We always had a contest going,” says Jack Lynn, who sold ads and helped with promotions for the station. “One time we were in a convertible getting ready for Shirlington Day. I reached in the back for a stack of 45 [rpm] records and started throwing them out of the car [at the crowd]. We were mobbed.”
Even as FM radio took over the airwaves, WEAM soldiered on in various formats until 1984. “I worked at some really good stations after WEAM,” Swerdloff says. “But it was extra special to work at that hometown station.”