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 Every Saturday night on Coast FM you can relive the well remembered and rarer songs of the 50s and 60s, 5pm to 8pm during winter and 6pm to 8pm during summer.( This accommodates the races which goes an hour longer in summer.) Coast FM played this type of music every day once but in recent years the station has adopted an Easy Mix format from 6am to 6pm weekdays. That doesn’t mean there is less interest in this music. In fact the first Baby Boomer (born in 1946) have not reached official retirement age yet and the population of the Central Coast and most other places in Australia, is getting older which means Baby Boomers are living longer..

 The first half of the Baby Boomer population was brought up with the sounds of the true Rock and Roll era. Artists like Ricky Nelson, Roy Orbison, Sam Cooke, Brenda Lee and Gene Pitney etc dominated the air waves from about 1954 to 1964. This was the pivotal changing point in popular music. It was the music responsible for the change from the crooners like Perry Como to the music of today. Some people thought this change in music style was too abrupt but we young dudes thought it was great. We listened to the Hit Parade on the radio and added many 45s to our collections.

Most of Coast FM’s Shake Rattle Rock and Roll presenters have their own collections and listeners are often surprised at what we play on the show. “ I haven’t heard that one since I was a teenager”. There is also a wealth of information about the music and  artists shared with listeners. Shake Rattle Rock and Roll is shared between six presenters who alternate on a regular basis. This guarantees a variety of interesting selections of music. The presenters are Jean Abbott, Mark Muller, Paul Greaves, Geoff Roberts, Peter Cooke and Dave Frazer.

If you’ve been looking for the music of the Rock and Roll era on the air waves, you have now found it.