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.
Showing posts with label wedding reception. Show all posts
Showing posts with label wedding reception. Show all posts
Figuring I would have enough money, I opted not to go to the bank the morning of my first date. I budgeted enough money to afford two bleacher tickets and beverages at New Comiskey Park in Chicago. First things first: I had to wake up my brother who the night prior volunteered to pick up my date Megan. My Grandpa agreed to drive us to the White Sox game that June 1992 afternoon...it was senior citizen day, so his ticket was half-price.
Seeing as it was 10:00 A.M. and my brother still hadn't emerged from his bedroom, I knocked and reminded him we needed to pick up Megan. A few minutes later, he emerged...shirtless...and we hopped into his Nissan. "Oh, great," I thought, "Megan's gonna see Mr. Muscles here and dump me." After Eric dropped us off at our grandparents, my Grandpa was already outside waiting for us. We all piled into his car and headed to Chicago's South Side. At the ticket window, I gasped after noticing a hand-written sign "Bleachers: SOLD OUT!". After purchasing two outfield reserved seats, my budget was blown. I had enough cash to buy Megan something to drink or eat...nothing else. Somehow Grandpa must've noticed my body language because he pulled me close and said, "I see you're a little short on cash," and slipped me money. Now, you should know that my Grandpa was one of the thriftiest humans to ever walk the earth. He's send me with $2 to buy milk and ask for the change (plus the receipt). For him to offer me money was quite a feat!
With a newfound confidence, Megan and I headed to our seats. Grandpa made himself scarce after a couple innings to give Megan and me some alone time. Our seats placed us directly in the sunlight and before long I dipped into my precious stash o' cash to buy Megan a Coke. When I pulled out the money Grandpa gave me, I expected to find a $10 or maybe a $20 bill. Instead, a waded up $5 bill looked back at me. Well, it was better than a dollar.
Grandpa reappeared at the end of the game just before the White Sox lost the game. He found a friend from his old company and chatted with him during the game. Sun burnt, broke and out of conversation, I was ready to go home.
After someone cut off Grandpa in the parking lot, his infamous temper made a cameo. "Where the fuck do you think you're going," he growled. At some point on the drive home, Gramps turned on the radio and Bob Seger's "Old Time Rock 'n Roll" played. It was one of the few songs I remember him dancing to at my Uncle Bob's reception the previous June. Up went the volume and home went the three of us.
Megan decided we should be friends and that was that. I still blame my brother for not wearing a shirt.
Kenny G's popular Breathless album helped introduce him to mass-appeal audiences thanks to songs like "Forever in Love" and "By the Time This Night Is Over". For me, it became a staple of my Saturday afternoons. Working as a busboy at a banquet hall in my hometown of Schererville, Indiana, I spent Saturday nights working what was usually two to three wedding receptions. Arriving around 5pm, I'd make it in time to hear the DJs test their equipment. Like clockwork, they always cycled through Kenny G's Breathless album which led our senior busboy Nick to proclaim it "wine music". To this date, I'm still sentimental about it...
"HELP" read the subject line from my friend Laura.
"I'm calling in a favor," her email said. "We're thinking about wedding songs...do you have any cool ideas for that?" she pleaded.
Laura, who once lived next door to me, hung out with me and my two roommates during the three years we were neighbors. We all lived on the first floor of a two-flat in Chicago's Lakeview neighborhood that we lovingly referred to as "Club 1228" (the address was 1228). The building itself was a conversation piece as giant cement gargoyles that wore Cubs baseball caps adorned the top of our building. People were always stopping in front of our apartment to take pictures (long before the term "selfie" existed). Upstairs from our apartment, lived our landlord lived as well as a shady fellow named "Snow Ball" who wore an ankle bracelet after serving time for a white-collar crime. We never asked why he had that nickname out of fear for the answer. That aside, those handful of years contained some of my favorite memories from the carefree days of my mid-twenties.
Even though we rarely saw her date anyone during our years as neighbors, Laura was a catch. She was an attractive and tall blonde who taught Spanish and had a heart of gold. She always wore a smile, had an infectious laugh and never seemed to have a bad day. I knew she'd eventually meet someone who'd sweep her off her feet.
Enter Match.com and a man named Brian. The two connected on Match during a time when online dating was still considered taboo ("We met on Match," Laura once whispered to me when I finally met her fiance.). Online dating was still in its infancy stage and hadn't become socially acceptable as it is today. After months of dating, Brian proposed and the two started planning for their big wedding day.
Selecting a song for the first and father-daughter dance wasn't easy, so I happily provided Laura with a list of non-cliche songs that included "If I Ain't Got You" from Alicia Keys, "Come Away With Me" from Norah Jones, "Forever My Friend" from Ray LaMontagne, and "Someone Like You" from Van Morrison--a 1987 ballad destined for wedding receptions all across the globe.
The following summer, Laura's wedding day finally arrived. Her venue was a charming old barn in the middle of nowhere in Southwest Michigan that had been converted into an event space. In fact, I would return to this barn five years later when my other friends, Jeff and Kristi, married.
After arriving in the nearby town where the hotel sat, my girlfriend and I found a diner and grabbed lunch. Just as we finished eating, a wave of panic hit me. In a hurry to leave on time, I stupidly left my suit hanging on my bedroom door...nearly 3 hours away! How could I forget my clothes for a wedding?!? I quickly paid for our meal and then scurried off to the nearest JC Penney in a nearby shopping mall. With approximately two hours to shop, return to the hotel, get dressed, and then board the shuttle to the wedding venue, there was absolutely no time to spare. After trying on dozens of dress pants that didn't quite fit, I settled on a pair that were about a half-inch too short. I begrudgingly bought the floods, found a shirt and tie, and then headed back to the hotel. After getting ready, we came downstairs to more bad news: we missed the wedding shuttle. After asking the hotel clerk if there were any cabs in town, she chuckled and said, "No" but phoned a chauffeur knew. Feeling like a complete loser who forgot his clothes, missed the shuttle and now stood wearing pants that didn't quite fit, this night had to get better, right? Moments later, I locked eyes with a guy standing in the hotel lobby who looked vaguely familiar.
"Dave?" I asked.
"Todd?" he curiously shot back. "What are you doing here?"
After explaining to him how my suit was hanging comfortably in my Chicago condo and how we hurriedly shopped for clothes and, in turn, missed the shuttle, he and his date laughed.
"Do you need a ride?" he said.
"YEAH!" I told him in a tone much like Laura's subject line of "HELP".
The four of us jumped into Dave's car and made it in time for Laura's big day. (I did, by the way, gave the hotel clerk $20 to give to the chauffeur we never ended up using.)
During dinner, the folks at our table thoroughly enjoyed hearing about my misadventures of the day and kindly complimented my JC Penney outfit. Soon thereafter, Laura and Brian entered the dance floor for their long-awaited first dance. As their wedding DJ fired up "Someone Like Me" from Van Morrison, I gasped. "They're using MY song!" I told everyone at my table (who clearly thought I was nuts). After all the day's drama, seeing the two of them dance made everything right with the world. Today, Laura and Brian have two adorable children, and my JC Penney slacks still don't fit.
Speaking of songs that should be banned at wedding receptions, Los del Rio stormed every mainstream radio station, sporting event, wedding reception, and soccer mom's minivan during the summer of 1996. That same year, my mom finally sprung for cable television, and I was treated to the video to "The Macarena" when it first aired on MTV and VH-1.
Soon afterwards, my friends picked me up and we drove around Northwest Indiana listening to the radio when (go figure) "The Macarena" played. I said, "I love this song is sung by two old Mexicans." My friend Matt immediately turned around and excitedly said, "That's the name of the band?!?" After I explained that the video featured two older Mexican guys singing, Matt was quite upset and claimed that Two Old Mexicans is a great name for a band.
When you've been to as many weddings as I had at the ripe age of 17, you've earned the right to create a "Do Not Play" list for the DJ at your own wedding. Along with four of my close friends, I worked as a busboy at a banquet hall during most of my high school years. Each Saturday night, three weddings took place and we were subjected to countless plays of "Achy Breaky Heart", "Celebration", and "Love Shack" from each respective DJ. There were nights where the "The Electric Slide" played simultaneously at all three wedding receptions and led us busboys to take an extended trip outside to "take out the garbage". One particular night, all of us busboys had enough of "The Chicken Polka" and huddled together to make an oath: we all agreed to NEVER allow certain hackneyed wedding reception songs to play at our respective weddings. The majority of these songs are part of a list that's made the rounds on the internet this week. Several years later, my friend (and busboy alum) Pat claimed he hired his DJ immediately after he showed him and his future bride a list of songs on his "never ever ever play list".
Many wedding receptions in the mid-70s likely featured the unmistakable voice of Peter Cetera fronting the Chicago ballad "(I've Been) Searchin' So Long".
Anne Murray was to '70s Adult Contemporary radio as Celine Dion was to '90s Adult Contemporary radio. With her country-pop ballads, Murray racked up a string of radio-friendly hits including the 1980 wedding reception favorite "Could I Have This Dance".
Originally featured in The Wild Thornberries Soundtrack, Paul Simon re-released"Father and Daughter" for his 2006 Surprise album. The song also gets plenty of spins during wedding receptions, so could Bob Carlisle kindly leave the dance floor?
Saturday nights during my high school years meant working as a busboy at a local banquet hall in Schererville, Indiana. The hall consisted of three decent-sized rooms that usually played host to wedding receptions. My evening started at 5pm with my first task being to fill carafes with wine and place them on all the tables. During this time, each disc jockeys would set up and test their equipment. This usually involved each DJ putting a CD into the player, pressing "play" and letting it run for the next hour while they walked around the room to do sound checks. More often than not, the CD was "Forever in Love" by Kenny G. It became an ongoing joke among the busboys that just as every DJ played "Celebration" by Kool And The Gang or "We Are Family" by Sister Sledge, they were also required to play Kenny G's CD during weddings (especially during dinner). One particular night, I remember someone at one of the tables asking fellow busboy, Nick, if he knew what kind of wine was in the carafe. Nick paused and said, "Cheap?".
I'm not a gambling man, but I'd be willing to bet that many early-1980s wedding receptions featured newly-married couples dancing to Crystal Gayle & Eddie Rabbitt's "You And I". I would also wager that Kool & the Gang's "Celebration" was also played since it would soon become the anthem of all wedding receptions (followed by "We Are Family", of course).
In 1997, the radio featured songs titled "Bitch" and "'Mo Money, 'Mo Problems." Out of nowhere, "Butterfly Kisses" arrived and gave us all pause. Christian singer Bob Carlisle gave us a a song about watching your little girl grow from an innocent infant to a young woman on her wedding day. Dad struggles to let go of his little girl, but ultimately thanks God for the blessing in his life. I remember Rick Dees sharing the story of Bob performing "Butterfly Kisses" at his daughter's graduation. When Bob finished singing the song, there was not a dry eye in the house. Similarly, daddy-daughter dances at wedding receptions finally featured a tune other than "Daddy's Little Girl."