You know WGRD as the place for Free Beer & Hot Wings in the morning and your favorite rock music throughout the day, but back in 1961, it sounded a LOT different.

Grand Rapids resident Tom Carter posted this video to Facebook Sunday, and I happened upon it. It's the morning show host from back then, Bill Merchant, promoting an event they had coming up at the Grand Rapids Armory (located at Michigan and Division). The name of the show? The WGRD Disk Jockey Record Hop.

All of the DJs from the station were in attendance, and music was provided by Tom Carter's band, The Ramrods. Back then, WGRD was a Top 40 station, playing songs from artist like Jerry Lee Lewis, Roy Orbison, Elvis Presley, and Chubby Checker.

(As a side note, this is when WGRD was actually found at 1410AM on your radio dial. WGRD moved to 97.9FM in 1971. 1410AM has been a variety of different things over the years, most recently it was the former home to our sister station Magic 104.9.)

Thanks for sharing this bit of GRD history with us, Tom!