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.

Norah Jones - "Come Away With Me"

A good friend of mine was getting married on a warm Saturday in October of 2005.  Since I was the best man and knew someone working on the air that morning in Chicago, I set up a special on-air "shout out" that morning.  I let my friend know that the shout-out was coming up in a matter of minutes, but he freaked out because he and his parents were dining at Sophia's Pancake House a few blocks from his parent's Indiana home.  He then jumped up from his seat at the restaurant and went to the manager who was working the cash register.  "Can you change the radio station?" he asked.  The look on the manager's face seemed to say "no" causing my friend to blurt out: "I'm getting married today and the DJ on 101.9 The Mix is about to play a song for us!".  The manager quickly changed the radio station and then asked all his pancake-loving patrons to be quiet.  Following Norah Jones' "Come Away With Me", my friend and all of Sophia's Pancake House in Highland, Indiana were treated to a little shout-out from my DJ friend Nikki.  I'm confident that could have been the best wedding gift that wasn't on their registry.