WYSI information from Billboard Magazine, July 2, 1966.
WYSI began broadcasting around 1963 airing a Top 40 format. By 1966, the station had adapted a country music format, and later changed to a full-service format, similar to Detroit's WJR or Ann Arbor's WAAM. The WSDS call letters ("We Serve Detroit's Suburbs," a reflection of the station's new strategy of focusing on the western suburbs of Detroit) were adopted in 1968.
Sources
- Wikipedia: WSDS
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WYSI / WSDS Story – Part One: Rock’n'Roll Years, Car City Country, November 27, 2012
By 1965, WEXL radio Royal Oak, in a Detroit suburb, had already switched to a full-time country music format. WYSI also added a few country programs, hosted by Dave Carr, and Andy Barron. Musician Red Ellis, who also worked at WAAM radio Ann Arbor as an engineer, performed his brand of country gospel over WYSI, which he recorded for various local labels, as well as Starday Records of Nashville, Tennessee. WYSI paperwork revealed Ellis bargained to trade commercials for a piano from the Ypsilanti Piano & Organ Company in 1965.
- Ypsilanti Man Counted Lawnmowers in His Sleep, Dale Leslie, AnnArbor.com
Bob Skinner was a good ole boy who in 1966 operated his own lawn mower repair business out of his modest home site on Clark Road, just east of LeForge Road, next to the WYSI radio station in Ypsilanti.
In 1965 Red moved to station WYSI (later WSDS) in Ypsilanti with the same duties he had at WHRV. After less than a half a year, he moved to station WOIA / WOIB AM & FM in Saline, Michigan.
