Before it was “The Big One,” WLW-AM was the biggest one.

        Broadcasting on 500,000 watts, 10 times today's power, WLW-AM was the most powerful U.S. radio station from 1934 to 1939. That's why they called it “The Nation's Station.”

        Xavier University's WVXU-FM (91.7) has turned back the clock to Cincinnati's golden age of radio for an extraordinary achievement — a two-CD set, Cincinnati Radio: The Nation's Station (1921-1941). The 2 1/2-hour documentary will be offered during the fall fund drive starting today for a $108 pledge.

        The 10-year, $100,000 project captures Cincinnati's importance during the 1930s, when Powel Crosley Jr.'s WLW-AM was broadcasting's first superstation.

        Three national networks — NBC Red, NBC Blue and Mutual — beamed Crosley shows from coast-to-coast, making stars out Red Skelton, Fats Waller, Eddie Albert, the Mills Brothers, Peter Grant, Red Barber, Durward Kirby, Doris Day and Andy Williams and his brothers.

        They're all heard on Cincinnati Radio —a miracle considering they worked for WLW-AM years before audiotape. Producers Mark Magistrelli and Mike Martini, both born in the 1960s, scoured the country for 70-year-old recordings on deteriorating aluminum, acetate or paper records. Operations director George Zahn spent hundreds of hours cleaning up the crackles and pops on a $30,000 noise-reduction machine purchased for the project.

        The WVXU-FM staffers, who glow like old radio tubes when talking about broadcasting history, traveled to both coasts to interview more than 70 people. They talked to former WLW-AM writers Norman Corwin and Earl Hamner Jr. (The Waltons); stars like Mr. Skelton and Mr. Williams; and radio historians Eric Barnouw and Lawrence Lichty (who recorded interviews with Mr. Grant and others for his 1965 doctoral thesis).

        They also tracked down Phil Donahue, Carol Channing, David Letterman and other celebrities familiar with WLW-AM, and they wrote the script for narrator Leonard Maltin, movie critic and author of Great American Broadcast: A Celebration of Radio's Golden Age.

        The set includes samples of country music shows like Boone County Jamboree; Ma Perkins and other soaps; Doris Day's 1939 radio debut at age 15 with Barney Rapp's band; and an announcement inviting night owls to the Camp Washington studio for the 12:30 a.m. live broadcast of Avalon Time for the West Coast.(Before audiotape, performers had to stick around and repeat their shows three hours later for the “West Coast feed.”)

        It's an astounding collection. What's even more amazing is that tiny, nonprofit WVXU-FM has made the commitment to archive and restore Cincinnati's rich broadcasting heritage — while it's ignored by WLW-AM's owners, Clear Channel, the world's largest radio company.

        “I know we'll never recover our costs. This is purely a labor of love dedicated to the history of radio,” says Jim King, WVXU-FM executive director.

Race against time

        Cincinnati Radio is WVXU-FM's fifth historic radio compilation. A 12-hour collection of D-Day radio broadcasts won a prestigious Peabody Award in 1995. It also has produced audio collections for The War Years (1941-45), Ruth Lyons, Red Barber and WLW-AM's Moon River late-night poetry show.

        “We have never done anything this detailed. This makes the assembly of The War Years look like Tinkertoys,” says Mr. Zahn, 42. He made more than 2,000 edits on the two CDs. The Cincinnati Radio packaging will include a slot for a third CD, the full-length version of musical selections edited for the first two discs.

        “In terms of Crosley's importance, the radio years in the '20s and '30s outstripped the importance of Crosley in the early days of television,” says Mr. Magistrelli, who also is a WKRC-TV (Channel 12) promotion producer.

        WVXU-FM didn't always win the race against time. Mr. Kirby died days after Mr. Martini requested an interview. Mr. Albert, the former Green Acres star, wasn't as sharp as hoped, but a tape of him singing in 1932 jogged his memory.

        “He had tears in his eyes when he heard it, because . . . he didn't know anything existed from back then,” Mr. Martini says.

        “There's a timeliness to this,” Mr. King says. “If we didn't do it now, it would never be done.”

        Nobody at WLW-AM today knows the whereabouts of the station's 1941 Peabody Award for public service. But I know where to find the 1941 award ceremony and acceptance speech by Crosley Vice President James D. Shouse: On the new WVXU-FM CD set.

        It's not unrealistic to imagine WVXU-FM winning another Peabody next spring for Cincinnati Radio. It's truly extraordinary.

        Contact John Kiesewetter by phone: 768-8519; fax: 768-8330; e-mail: jkiesewetter@enquirer.com.

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