- This free form, counterculture, 1970's FM radio station in Jackson, Mississippi rocked the mid-South and became a way of life for its young listeners. Hear the story from the DJs who made WZZQ great plus original on-air air recordings.
- WZZQ the Movie" tells the story of how creative brilliance yet again grew out of the primordial wilds of Mississippi, this time in the form of an FM rock station called ZZQ102.
The station began in 1948 as WJDX-FM, an FM sister station to WJDX (620 AM), and broadcast easy listening music in the early 1960s.
In 1968, WJDX-FM switched to a progressive rock format, calling itself "WJDX, the Rock of Jackson" and becoming one of the first stations in the South to adopt what was then considered an underground format.
In 1973, the call letters were changed to WZZQ. The station was a cultural influence and a creative force of nature. But in 1981, new owners switched the station to a country music format, changed the call letters to WMSI-FM, and adopted the name "Miss 103".
That's the bones of what happened. The story wrapping around them is as clear as the Mississippi river and has spun off a southern-fried mythology all its own.
102.9 on the FM dial, WZZQ had a staff of on-air musicologists who saw it as their mission to expose listeners to the best music they could find. And they did, seamlessly blending rock, blues, jazz, roots, local artists, and even comedy cuts and radio dramas, into themes that changed by the day and by the DJ. It was a live performance, in real time, all the time. It was the complete opposite of the silo'd, programmed, syndicated bluster that defines broadcast radio now.
If Muscle Shoals, Alabama was sending fantastic music out into the world, WZZQ was catching it and bringing it home to Mississippi.
Over 40 years later, people still remember and miss 102.9. Watch "WZZQ the Movie" and you'll understand why.
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