When a Portland radio station dunked “The Music of Your Life” format, those of us who have nostalgic feelings about popular music lost another source of warm memories. Coupled with historic tidbits and a variety of styles and tempos, the format produced a loyal following among AM outlets.

Popular, or contemporary, music is often taken for granted. Available today as the background for movies, it is a big part of the cell phone scene and it breaks the monotony of talk shows on the car radio. Yet, not too many years ago, popular music was on everyone’s mind. When was the last time you heard someone humming or whistling today’s most popular ditty? Or does such exist today?

Good music is being written today to support and enhance live theater, as always, but it’s not getting the exposure that charged and recharged music such as the great sounds of New Orleans, Nashville or Beale Street in Memphis. The individuals, from Sinatra to Elvis, have not been replaced by stars of equal note of glory. Talent, in its many forms, exists today, but there’s not the level of exposure and, in turn, publicity. Changing times and changing fame was never a more true statement.

Yet, as mentioned here a few weeks ago, on MPBN (Maine Public Broadcasting), Toby Leboutillier’s Friday radio session, “Down Memory Lane,” from 2-4 p.m., plays music covering a 60-year span (1918-1978 currently) and is in itself a historic look at popular melodies through the period. Throw in an ample sampling of corresponding news events and the program has a gloss all its own. You can find this at 90.1 FM.

Time Warner Cable’s Music Choice, heard on TV, offers the greatest spread of music available today, with more than 40 channels of continuous sounds to suit every taste, from channel 801, Sounds of the Season, to channel 848, Opera. The choices are vast, complete and noteworthy. Channel 840 offers Classical Masterpieces while channel 841 plays Light Classical. A personal favorite is channel 835, Big Band and Swing. Given that Music Choice channels are featured in a continuous pattern and there’s variety for every taste, it’s a remarkable music adventure.

Radio, for many years, was a stalwart of spreading popular music broadcasting remotely from hotels, supper clubs and wherever favorites of the day might be performing. From such increased popularity came the “Lucky Strike Hit Parade,” featuring a tabulation of favorites that would run from 1935 to 1955. The program was televised from 1955 to 1999. It was supposedly based on the results of a national survey of popular music on a weekly basis, but the actual methodology was never revealed. It was still a favorite on both radio and television. In its infancy, television went beyond talk by something called “TV Tunes,” aired by a Bangor outlet, simply to add a variety to the then limited on-the-air time.

Generally written, the great band years are considered by many to be 1935 through 1945 – reaching an apex during the World War II years. However, much memorable music was written both before and after those years. As a measure of progress, rock ‘n’ roll was postwar excitement and continues today in its many variations.

Years ago, we bought hundreds of 78 rpm shellac records and griped about the 35 cent price while taking them to dances in the high school gym and losing a few in the deal. Of course, sometimes when our records were returned we had some they weren’t ours – but that happened to everyone.