Maxanne

WBCN Program Director Sam Kopper hired 20-year-old Maxanne Sartori from Seattle’s KLOL-FM to take over the afternoon shift on Friday, November 13, 1970. Certainly no bad omen, that day marked the beginning of a fruitful and famous association that lasted nearly seven years.

It was quickly evident that Maxanne, as she called herself on the air, liked to rock. As ‘BCN’s first female deejay Debbie Ullman observed, “I was motivated by the counterculture – Jesse Colin Young, The Incredible String Band, Jefferson Airplane – [but] she was really into rock ‘n’ roll. She was much more tuned into what [would be] happening with ‘BCN by the later ‘70s.”

SPRINGSTEEN ASSOCIATION, BOSTON ARTISTS CHAMPION

Maxanne will always be remembered for her association with a young Bruce Springsteen, who dropped in on the afternoon show with a truncated version of The E Street Band for a pair of famously-bootlegged and beloved unplugged performances in January ’73 and April ’74. Indeed, the unique and hilarious performance of “Rosalita” from the latter visit is easily one of the most memorable nine minutes in WBCN’s entire history.

Notorious for running the studio speakers at maximum volume, Maxanne is credited with championing now-famous Boston acts including The J. Geils Band, The Cars and Billy Squier, but she also counted less-known names from the area among her favorites, like Fox Pass, Reddy Teddy, Nervous Eaters and Willie “Loco” Alexander. Then there was Aerosmith: “The first person ever to play our record was Maxanne,” according to frontman Steven Tyler. She persistently championed the group to program director Norm Winer, who refused to let her play the band at first. “I thought they were too derivative,” he said. “But, of course, she was right.”

By the time Maxanne left ‘BCN, on April Fool’s Day 1977, she’d become the station’s most powerful and distinctive personality. Trading in her headphones, she took a job doing regional promotion for Island Records, then worked in the national offices of Elektra-Asylum before becoming an independent promoter.

(by Carter Alan)

Carter Alan is a former WBCN deejay now heard on WZLX-FM in Boston. He’s the author of Radio Free Boston: The Rise and Fall of WBCN (University Press of New England, 2013).