Pittsburgh Community Broadcasting Corporation AAA 91.3 WYEP Pittsburgh PA will be turning over their programming on Thanksgiving Day to actor Tom Hanks.
From 8am to 7pm on November 24, the “Hanks Giving” day of music will feature 100 songs curated by Hanks from 1956 through 2022 while he was filing the upcoming movie A Man Called Otto in Pittsburgh. The station will also carry an hour of music from Hanks’ movies in the 7am and 7pm hours.
When you gather around with kith & kin to give thanks, let the nicest man in Hollywood fill your hearts with old-time cheer.
This Thanksgiving, @tomhanks takes to the Pgh airwaves to share his favorite songs with you.
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— 91.3 WYEP (@WYEP) November 17, 2022
Tom Hanks is making it another beautiful day in our neighborhood by programming the music played on WYEP on Thanksgiving Day!
Academy Award-winning actor Tom Hanks is taking over 91.3 WYEP on November 24th for a special “Hanks Giving” day of music. All of the music on Thanksgiving Day from 8 a.m. to 7 p.m. will be songs hand-picked by Tom Hanks exclusively for WYEP’s listeners.
Hanks is not only a beloved star of cinema, but he’s also a music fan with a far-ranging knowledge and appreciation of early- and mid-1960s rock ‘n’ roll—and the wealth of music that has been informed by those formative sounds of surf rock, R&B, and vocal pop that typified the era. His directorial debut, 1996’s That Thing You Do!, was an exuberant ode to that music and those musicians.
Between Hanks’ latest movie—the forthcoming A Man Called Otto which was filmed and set here in Pittsburgh—and his portrayal of Pittsburgh icon Mr. Rogers in 2019’s A Beautiful Day in the Neighborhood, he can by now be called an honorary Pittsburgher. A connection between WYEP and the new film’s production crew led to Hanks providing a song list for us to share exclusively with WYEP listeners for Thanksgiving.
Hanks provided WYEP with an eclectic and very fun list of 100 songs for the station takeover, with a 66-year timespan—ranging between music from 1956 all the way to a duet released a few months ago between Elvis Costello and Hanks’ wife Rita Wilson.
WYEP’s “Hanks-Giving” will air on Thanksgiving Day from 8 a.m. through 7 p.m. Additionally, the 7 a.m. to 8 a.m. and 7 p.m. to 8 p.m. hours will feature music curated by WYEP on-air hosts taken from soundtracks of movies featuring Tom Hanks.
This story first appeared on radioinsight.com