WDUV, The Dove

My mom drove me and my sister to school up 'til middle school. Although the radio had the usual number of buttons, the only station she ever played was WDUV, "The Dove." It sounds like a Christian rock station, but they played what they called "Beautiful Music." I've found out that "Beautiful Music" is an actual genre, or at least Jones College Radio in Jacksonville uses the same phrase.

If you were lucky, WDUV would play stuff like instrumental versions of Beatle songs, or string-heavy versions of "The Good, The Bad and the Ugly" along with your Sinatras, Streisands and lesser crooners.

WDUV still exists, so I took a look at today's playlist. Lou Rawls, Barry Manilow, Perry Como, sure. Wait, Billy Joel? Elton John? Those guys would have sounded like Black Flag at the WDUV I grew up with. They also seem to have retired a lot of their '50s and '60s instrumentals, branching out to more contemporary (i.e. late '80s) artists. Sellouts.

When I took driver's ed in high school, our instructor had a game. He'd put the radio station on and you couldn't change it until you correctly guessed the song. I could ruin the game in seconds flat.

"Oh, it's my turn? Well, that's "This Magic Moment." Jay and the Americans. Before that it was "Secondhand Rose" by Barbara Streisand. "Little Spanish Flea" by Herb Alpert started it, and we heard the very end of "There's a Kind of Hush" by Herman's Hermits."

"OK, you win. You get the radio for the rest of the class. So am I turning it to 98 Rock or Y95?"

"Nah, I'm cool. I think there's gonna be a Lennon Sisters marathon coming up. Don't want to miss that."