C-O-U-N-T-R-Y- Radio remembered

My recent visit to The Ernest Tubb Record Shop in Nashville reminded me of my first country concert

It was 1976 and radio station WYRL, Melbourne sponsored a show starring Ernest Tubb. I was not sure who Ernest Tubb was but the DJ’s on that station were talking it up so much that I had to go. That radio station had a huge impact on my 13 year old mind. The station was programmed like a college station. The morning guy liked his smokes and coffee in the morning and would track live albums while he fixed. That was how I first heard concert albums by Waylon Jennings, Ronnie Milsap, Merle Haggard and others

Tracking a live album on a morning show will get a DJ fired these days, but again this was independent radio. The midday guy liked to work the phones and would take requests and play calls back on the air. Another DJ I knew about this time carried a thermos and it did not contain coffee. The night guy was a longhaired doper (you could actually catch him burning one outside the studio some nights). He played John Prine, Marshall Tucker, The Amazing Rhythm Aces and Jerry Jeff Walker. This was quite a progressive playlist for a station in Melbourne, Florida. It defied conventional country wisdom and defined what country music was to me. These jocks loved the music they played and the passion came through and made a connection that resonates 35 years later. That kind of radio is not gone, but it is rare. I caught a bit of a show on an Atlanta college station recently that was very deep. Some of the programming on WSM, Nashville (such as Jim Lauderdale’s Wednesday afternoon slot) connects that way. Public radio should make this niche part of its mission but the Roots music shows that lean country are too academic in their presentation. Inspired by my radio heroes, I would get into the act a few years later but the only country station I ever worked on as a DJ was my first one

(WTAI AM 1560-Melbourne, FL 1981)

I discovered you could make more money as a Program Director or writing reading news, so I went where the money was if only for ‘a few dollars more.’ Someday, perhaps I will program a country show. Until then, I will re-live the old days and create playlists and features in my mind; the radio equivalent of air guitar.