Luther Vandross "She Won't Talk to Me"

That awkward moment when you leave your radio boss a voicemail...and your voice cracks. It happened to me while I was working part-time for a Chicago radio station while attending college. Throughout my early-teen years, my mom's friends would call our house and mistake me for my mother. Lovely. Finally, my voice changed during my freshman year of high school and cracked for years afterward...including this very inopportune moment. I know they teach you to just keep going if you make a mistake or slip-of-the-tongue but I decided to just out myself. Halfway through my voicemail I stopped and said, "Wow. The woman who holds my radio future in your hands and my voice cracks.". Luckily, my boss Lynne saw the humor in it.

Elton John "Bennie & The Jets"

Credit a single mother of three who worked at a Michigan radio station for "Bennie & The Jets" becoming a big radio hit. Rosalie Trombley turned her gig as a switchboard operator at Detroit/Windsor's CKLW into the radio station's Music Director in the late-1960s. At the time, Trombley took note what people bought at local record stores and the titles of the station's most-requested songs. In particular, folks keep asking record stores about Elton John's "Bennie & The Jets" -- a song not yet released. Trombley phoned MCA, Elton's record label, and urged them to release the song. CKLW added the song to its playlist and it became Detroit's #1 song. MCA released the song in 1974 which led to a phone call from Elton himself to Trombley to thank her for her input and for expanding Elton's audience. The African-American community embraced "Benny & The Jets" and, a year later, Elton performed the catchy tune on Soul Train.

Meat Loaf "Not A Dry Eye in the House"

My college girlfriend looked through my sock drawer one night and curiously asked why I had a handkerchief with the words "Not A Dry Eye in the House" printed on it.

The short answer: I got it from work.

The long answer: I had an internship where I assisted the radio station's midday DJ. This DJ, who became my mentor and helped me start in the business, doubled as the station's Music Director--meaning she was in charge of creating daily music logs, among other things. Record labels constantly contacted her in hopes of getting an "add". An "add" is when a radio station adds a new song to their playlist. Record companies would sometimes attempt to sweeten the pot by sending chotskies to get that elusive add. In the case of Meat Loaf's "Not A Dry Eye in the House", the record company created handkerchiefs with the song's title printed on them. The song never went on to be a US hit, but I held onto that handkerchief for years. I never used it, but was just excited to have something from my unpaid internship.

Toni Basil - "Mickey"

Being the low man on the totem pole at the radio station, I was assigned the 8pm to midnight shift on New Year's Eve in 1996.  I was all of 19 years old and (believe it or not) didn't drink, so me and my girlfriend manned the controls that evening.  My role was quite simple as the entire shift was voice-tracked (meaning someone else had already recorded all the intros to the songs -- my job was to play back those tracks).  The shift opened with an hour of 80s music ("The 80s at 8") followed by three hours of music.  I learned what happens when the music director schedules the music long before the commercials are merged -- as there was about 45 minutes of music scheduled and only about 5 minutes of commercials.  That meant I had 10 minutes to fill.  So, I quickly hurried to find music.  I found an 80s compilation CD and cued up the first song.  It was "Mickey" from Toni Basil.  Fine.  I hated the song, but I needed a song (or three) to fill out the hour.  After I started the song, I lowered the volume of the speaker in the studio and went back to finding another song to use as a time filler.  At some point, the hotline to the radio station started to ring.  The hotline is a special phone number for employees of the station to call if and when they need to speak to the DJ (I would later learn the Program Director only calls this number to yell at the on-air talent).  A strobe light illuminates whenever someone called this number, so it always got your heart racing as your inner voice screamed "What?!? What did I do?!?".  The person who called the hotline that New Year's Eve was the woman who did traffic for the station.  Our traffic folks worked at a remote facility and could hear the station through their headphones.  She told me how happy she was to hear the song playing while she was stuck working on New Year's Eve and how it was making her laugh.  Laugh?  Why would "Mickey" make her laugh, I wondered?  Anyway, I explained to her how I needed to fill some time and then she informed me that I was playing the SPANISH version of "Mickey"(!).  WHAT?!? (¿Como?)  I quickly raised the volume and sure enough...I was playing the damn Spanish version of the already awful song ("Mickey tu eres bien").  This was one of my first major freak outs in radio and I was convinced I would be fired or, at the very least, never find my name on the schedule again.  Thankfully, luck was on my side that night as none of the bosses happened to be listening (or they were already drunk) and it was never mentioned (until today).

Cher - "One By One"

I was an intern at the radio station when my boss (the station's Music Director and midday host) said that she wanted to play me a song.  She asked me to listen to the song and then tell me who I thought was singing.  I listened to the first verse and then shrugged my shoulders.  "It's Cher!" she exclaimed.  She admitted that she wasn't a fan of Cher, but that the song was an entirely different sound for her that she liked.  A few years later, Cher would capitalize on that new sound with "Believe"--one of the first commercial songs to introduce auto-tune.

Gloria Estefan - "Christmas Through Your Eyes"

Being the newbie at the radio station, I had the dubious task of working on all the holidays.  The first Christmas that I worked was in 1996 when my shift started at the pleasant 4am hour and lasted until 10am.  When I arrived that Christmas morning, the DJ who was on before me told me that we were running two hours early.  That meant that we were already playing music from the 6am when it was still 4am.  Today, you would typically pick up the phone and call your Program Director or Music Director and they would add some more music for you.  Since it was Christmas morning in 1996 and the Music Director was on vacation, I just chose my own music and prayed that the song wasn't in Spanish.  Most Christmas songs are short, so it was a struggle to find two hours worth of music to get us back "on time".  I played many Christmas songs that I had never heard of and probably shouldn't have played (because they were just plain bad ).  With my best efforts, that cold Christmas morning in 1996 saw a Christmas miracle happen on the 15th floor of the John Hancock Building: I managed to get us back "on time".