Phil Collins, Elton John, and Gloria Estefan dominated Adult Contemporary radio back in the 1980s and '90s, yet have disappeared from modern radio. Seemingly, the only time you ever hear them is at the grocery store or your local CVS. This blog remembers the music, the stories and the quirky characters from my days working in Adult Contemporary radio.
Friday, September 9, 2016
Andrew Gold - "Thank You For Being A Friend"
I produced a morning radio show in 2003 that was one of the toughest gigs of my career. Management micro-managed the show from its inception...and for good reason. After recognizing the show wasn't clicking (with listeners and with the hosts), they changed the direction of the show from personality-driven to a music-intensive morning show with a couple short breaks each hour for content. We adhered to an eight-song per hour rule--meaning that we had to play eight songs every hour and, if we had time, could use the left-over time for content.
During one morning, the hosts discussed the previous night's Lifetime reunion special of The Golden Girls. After talking about how they felt there was something missing from the TV special, it finally hit me: the famous Golden Girl's theme song was missing. I quickly chimed in and shared my thoughts and the conversation ended. About an hour later, a woman dialed up our station's studio line and introduced herself as Cindy Fee. She explained that a friend of hers was listening to our station and heard us talking about her. I told her that maybe she had our station mixed up with our sister station, The Mix, as we always received phone calls from people wanting to chime in on whatever topic The Mix was discussing. Miss Fee said that she had the correct station and identified herself as the singer of "Thank You For Being A Friend"--more commonly known as the theme song to The Golden Girls. I quickly Googled "Cindy Fee" to see if her story checked out, and it did. Not only did Cindy sing the song that Andrew Gold made a hit in 1978, but she also lived in nearby Oak Park, Illinois and still performed with a jazz band. We put Cindy on the air and she bravely belted out "Thank You For Being A Friend"...over the phone...at 8:50 A.M. It was one of those "oh wow" moments that I'll never forget for multiple reasons--for one, I realized people outside of our tiny radio studio were actually listening.