Totally with you on all points. I quite fondly recall the AM transistor radio on the kitchen countertop... WOR was on every morning. In the afternoon when mom was getting dinner ready, Bernie Meltzer was always on. I even remember the drives home from my grandmother’s in the ‘62 Ford Falcon Station Wagon... and Jean Shephard was on.
A few years back I found I was back in NJ again... and I set up an AM radio in the kitchen... mornings when I would be starting a soup stock or egg salad or some meal prep, I would just leave the radio be... and it would go from Rambling with Gambling to Joan Hamburg... I could not stand Joan, but there was just something “right” with the world because WOR was still the same... coming out of a lo-fi mono counter-top transistor radio speaker... as God intended.
I forgot about Bernie Meltzer!!! I remember him!