In April 2001, Carter Alan was settling in to his second year at WZLX-FM in Boston, hosting a midday radio show that attracted more listeners than any other daypart at the station that’s today a key iHeartMedia asset. “I have a brand name in this market, and this station has a strong music image,” he said at the time. “It all seems to combine, and I’m excited, because I just do what I do, and it seems to keep the boss off my back!”
Now, listeners are saluting the air personality and programmer who previously earned name recognition at the former WBCN, as he’s announced his retirement.
The news came as Alan started his day a little earlier on Monday (10/19), joining the Chuck Nowlin Morning Show to announce that he is retiring after 47 years in Boston radio. Alan’s final show is scheduled for December 18.
Since 1998, Alan has served as an Assistant Program Director at WZLX while taking the 10am-2pm air shift. He says, “It’s time for my boot heels to be wanderin’! What an endless parade of friends, characters, stars and hopefuls; I’ve met and interviewed seemingly everyone. Time to move over, rover! Retirement means no schedule and staying up as long as I want – I’m ready for that!”
Once Alan exits, WZLX Program Director and morning co-host Chris Tyler will assume the midday time slot for the station.
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To celebrate Alan’s career, WZLX will air a special retrospective featuring highlights from the audio and photo archives, with additional content available on WZLX’s social media accounts. Alan will continue to make occasional on-air appearances following his retirement.
In New England, Carter Alan’s name is synonymous with the greats of Album-Oriented Rock radio, including the late Scott Muni and Jim Ladd, or perhaps Pat St. John, now at SiriusXM after many years at WPLJ-FM in New York. From 1979 until 1998, Alan was associated with WBCN, at the time a heritage Rocker in a changing marketplace. Eleven of those years were as Music Director, ahead of an ill-fated shift to rock-oriented Alternative and his shift to WZLX.
“I can tell a joke on the air, but I’m not as witty as our afternoon guy,” Alan said in an April 2001 interview with Adam R Jacobson for Radio & Records. “But musical knowledge is my hobby. When I was first offered the midday shift, [WZLX PD] Buzz Knight said, ‘Why don’t you just go out there and present your musical image? Let’s just talk music.’ I hadn’t been on the air, except for Saturdays, for II years. I was a little nervous about it. I hadn’t been tested in the ratings for a while, so I told stories about the groups and filled my show with things like that.”
The idea worked. “I’d been doing radio long enough where, after a year on the air at ‘ZLX, my old confidence came back to me,” he said. “People tune in to my show and stay there. And it helps that ‘ZLX has always been a music-image station. This is not the station where you can hear college guys being hooked up with bisexual women.”
Alan was also instrumental in introducing American ears to Irish rock act U2.
Perhaps one of Alan’s most exciting moments was listening to Permanent Vacation — hailed by many as Aerosmith’s best album — at a studio reception. “Usually at these events people come down to eat and yack,” he says. “But at this event everyone’s attention was just taken away by the music on the album. After all those years of drugs, Aerosmith had basically become a joke. I asked them to play the album again, and I just sat down and listened to the whole thing without any distractions. It was great to see that band’s rebirth, and it was a great moment for Boston rock ‘n’ roll to see Aerosmith come back from the dead.”
