Pop-music doldrums are usually particularly frustrating because there’s always perfectly good hit music that Top 40 could be playing but does not. How different 1980-82 would have been if “Rapper’s Delight” and “Super Freak” had been more than grudgingly acknowledged, or if “Tainted Love” and “Mickey” could have happened sooner, rather than each needing six months and the extra support of MTV.

Shawn Faxon's Wolf Creek Radio Broadcasting is acquiring three stations from affiliates of Northeast Digital & Wireless in Laramie WY.

When the No. 1 success of “Sheila” launched Tommy Roe’s career in 1962, it did so with the help not just of radio, but two of radio history’s biggest names. In 1960, Roe promoted his first version of “Sheila” on Baltimore’s Buddy Dean Show. Two years later, then-WGST Atlanta DJ Paul Drew booked him for a local dance party that led to meeting producer Felton Jarvis, signing to ABC, and re-recording “Sheila,” initially the B-side of “Save Your Kisses.”

We know it’s hard to write a new holiday classic or even get traction at holiday radio with a new version of a standard. Even so, holiday music rewards those who do want something new every year with a steady stream of new releases that would be the envy of any contemporary format.