This week’s flashback is a nod to a Boston radio powerhouse that shaped my musical tastes and fed my obsession for Pop and Dance Music. If you grew up in the Boston area during the 1980s chances are you too listened to WXKS FM better known as Kiss 108 and you are familiar with names like, Lady D, Dale Dorman, J.J. Wright and of course the late “Sunny” Joe White.
I loved everything about Kiss 108 in the 1980s. I loved that they played “Wishing on a Star” by Rose Royce every Saturday at 12:00pm. I can still recall the first time I heard the song when I lived in Atlanta in the early 90s and the DJ played it on my evening commute home. I was totally caught off guard and had to laugh at myself when I realized why.
Those names I mentioned along with a handful of other DJs have been off the air for a more than a few years now and Kiss 108 has not played “Wishing on a Star” at noon on Saturday’s for a while. So today at lunchtime I’ll hum a few bars from the Rose Royce classic and think of “Sunny” Joe White and his cast of characters who played such a big part of my teen age years.
BosGuy 
I hope it’s ok to answer to this blog I just found this evening. I was Googling about SJW, maybe just turning 50 and all.. I’d imagine that today’s young guyz listen to that station with the same enthusiasm for today’s DJs and music as we did in the late 1970s and early ’80s.. But I can only go by my own memories, and KISS108 was the Cool de Cool, and Sonny was the Grand Master above it all!
Back then, he and his fellow KISS DJs played EVERYTHING..a little old Motown, the noontime “Star,” disco, punk, everything that represented how music was FUN and about joy in those days–not about dividing, anger and bling now. I even had the pleasure of bumping into and knocking over (accidentally!) SJW in Copley Place during Christmastime in the ’80s, ending up spilling and helping him pick up his holiday presents and boxes.
I wish him peace and rest wherever he is right now. Thanks for this blog entry that brought back good memories, and a smile to my face about a more innocent time that is really gone now, for the first in a long time! :j
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You forgot Joe Savone. I don't know how he spelled his name. I used to sneak and use my brother's turn tables when he wasn't home. I remember mixing Pat Benatar's Love is a Battlefield and David Bowie's Modern Love. Then heard Joe do a similar mix a few days later! It was so fun to listen to Kiss back then. Being a girl, my brother's friends were surprised that I could mix too as they could hear me mixing when they stopped by looking for him.
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