Dallas-based Jam Creative Productions is celebrating 35 years of making jingles for radio stations all over the world.
Owners Jon and Mary say they are proud of the work they have created for radio stations around the world, including BBC Radio 1 and Radio 2.
Jonathan Wolfert and his wife Mary Lyn founded the company in 1974, starting out in their apartment. Over the last 35 years the company has created over 21,000 jingle packages – not bad for a jingle collector such as Jon.
Jon Wolfert says , “All of our clients are important to us, and it’s difficult to pick favorites. But I’d have to say that I’ve always been proud of the work we’ve done over the years for stations like WABC, Z100, WCBS-FM, KOST, WLS and the BBC.
In the UK, JAM is represented by Steve England and since the arrangement was put in place 20 years ago, a large number of stations in the UK have used the company for re-sings of popular American packages.
Getting into jingle production was something Wolfert always wanted to do. Jon says, “I’ve been interested in radio, music and production since I was a kid, and got hooked on radio jingles early on because they combine all of those. Growing up in New York during the ‘60s, I had the chance to hear lots of great jingles on the big stations of the day. I learned as much as I could about them and decided that I wanted to be part of making those very special productions that really helped shape the stations’ identity.”
He moved to Dallas when he was hired by Bill Meeks at the legendary PAMS Productions. “It was great to work for a place I had admired for so long, and to be able to actually help create jingles for some of the stations I’d grown up listening to. But after a few years I wanted to do things my own way, and I left to start JAM.”
It came full circle in 1990 when JAM bought what remained of PAMS, which included the copyrights and original master tapes. “The PAMS packages are still in demand today, particularly by stations playing music from the 60s and 70s. For example, the “decades channels” on XM and Sirius Satellite radio have all used era-appropriate jingles from PAMS and JAM, as does Sirius XM today.”
