Killer Queen 12/4/19

Back when I worked at WOHO in Toledo, one of my many jobs was to transfer the records we played to cartridges (similar to 8-track tapes, but with only one song on them). There were quite a few reasons why this was done--one of the most important was that it eliminated "needle burn," the scratchy noise vinyl records made after they'd been cued up too many times. Anyway, there were always new hits that needed to be transferred, and I'm the guy who did it.

One day in early 1975, our music director Ken R. Deutsch (Remember him, Toledo friends?) came to me with a new record and asked me what I thought of it. He was on the fence on whether or not he should add it to our playlist. We listened a few times and agreed that it certainly was "different." I especially liked the "phasing" effect used during the song. To make a long story short, Ken decided to add it. He made the right choice. It went to #12 on the Top 40 chart in April of 1975, and not only did it turn out to be a "Great Song of the '70s," it became the first hit for a group called...Queen!