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.
Sunday, June 3, 2018
Stevie Wonder "If You Really Love Me"
"You'll never guess who called me on the request line tonight," Robin, the station's overnight host, asked me as I walked into the studio.
Still half-asleep, I replied, "Who?"
"STEVIE WONDER!"
"Wait. Stevie Wonder called....here?"
"YES! I mean, I think it was him. Someone dialed the phone for him and told me to hang on because someone wanted to talk to me. So, I did, and then Stevie Wonder got on the phone and told me he was listening to the station and really liked the music," Robin explained.
Most radio stations use a computer program called VoxPro to record and edit phone conversations. At some point during Robin's conversation with Stevie, she pressed "Record" on VoxPro. At some point during the long conversation, 1998 technology reared its ugly head and the computer crashed. Instead of a recorded conversation with one of the biggest musicians in the world, Robin simply had this ominous symbol:
She asked if I knew how to salvage the audio from our vintage Mac computer. I tried every trick I knew without any luck. The next weekend, Robin revealed that our IT department couldn't recover her conversation with Stevie.
