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.
The door to the on-air studio opened late one evening at the soft rock radio station where I worked as a board operator and in walked Keith, the station's chief engineer. Keith was a character. He told great stories, had an infectious laugh, liked his whiskey, and was rumored to take naps in the transmitter room. Keith told me that at midnight he was taking the radio station off the air so they could performed scheduled transmitter maintenance. Before this happened, he said I needed to go on the air and give the station's call letters. Since I was simply a board operator, I had never gone on the air (a board operator does everything a DJ does -- except talk).
"Do you have headphones?" Keith asked.
"No, why?" I responded.
"You're gonna need them when you go on the air."
I quickly found a beaten-up set of headphones that looked like they lost a fight with a hungry German Shepherd.
"What do you want me to say?" I asked Keith.
"Just do the legal ID which is the call letters and Chicago and then say that we'll be off for a few hours," Keith nonchalantly responded.
I could almost feel my heart beating through the clunky headphones as I muttered through Keith's check-list of things to say. It was the first time I went on the air at Chicago's Windy 100, but it wouldn't be the last...
Getting fired actually helped open my ears to all kinds of vintage soul music. What? Yeah, it happened at the end of 2004 as WNND-FM in Chicago switched formats from an '80s & '90s hybrid to "Love-FM". Out went John Mellencamp, Duran Duran and Rod Stewart and in came songs from Stevie Wonder, Al Green, and Aretha Franklin. As my role of morning show producer was eliminated, I spent the next six months as the station's board operator until the new jocks joined Love-FM. While I already knew of Stevie, Al and Aretha, this transition exposed me to "deeper cuts" like "Until You Come Back to Me (That's What I'm Gonna Do)" from the late-Aretha Franklin. The heartbreaking ballad was co-written and originally performed by Stevie Wonder.
My fifth grade Catholic school teacher suggested I take speech therapy classes because she claimed I didn't properly enunciate my "L's". Each week, I would leave class in order to play thrilling games like Word Bingo alongside a third grade student who also had some speech issues. With all due respect, neither my parents nor I thought there was an issue, but I went along with the program because that was the kind of person I was.
After a few weeks of speech therapy, I had enough and stopped going. A few weeks passed before my speech teacher found me in my classroom. Visibly upset, she wanted to know why I stopped attending. After a handful of excuses, I told her I felt dumb trekking it down to speech class each week to over-enunciate the words "lemonade" and "lettuce". My only recollection of her during that conversation was that she seemed visibly upset and nearly out of breath. She contacted my parents and, in order for me to get out of these speech therapy lessons, they had to sign numerous documents. My dad questioned why I was so opposed to it, and I just begged him to sign the papers and make the weekly Word Bingo games disappear. Ultimately, I finally elevated my social status to "cool" during the fifth grade and going to speech therapy classes didn't make me feel popular...not to mention, I didn't think I had a speech issue.
Fast-forward to my first paid radio gig: I was a board operator who played public affairs shows and five hours of recorded programming at WPNT-FM in Chicago. My shift began at 6 A.M. and went until 1 P.M. Between two of the early-morning shows, my boss permitted me to do an on-air weather report which was the highlight of my shift. Somewhere in the radio broadcasting Hall of Fame is my first weather report from 6:29 A.M. on June 9, 1996. While a cutesy weather jingle played, I started my report by saying, "Light lane this morning...". You can almost hear my 5th grade speech therapy teacher laughing...
While working as a Board Operator during the late-1990s, I always kept a list of "fill songs"...these were songs that were usually short in length from bands that usually didn't have any other hits. I would play them during hours in which I was "short on music"--meaning that after all the scheduled songs and commercials would air, there would still be time before the next hour. One such fill song was "Roll to Me" by Del Amitri. This quirky little song clocked in right around two minutes and became my ultimate go-to fill song.
My first real job title in radio was that of "Board Operator". A Board Operator (or "board op") did everything that a DJ did...except talk. In my case, I would show up each Sunday morning at 5am and play four hours of public affairs programming. At one time, the FCC required multiple hours of public affairs programming in order for a radio station to retain its license. That requirement is still in existence today, but it is far less strict than it once was. One particular show that was considered "public affairs" was a two hour religious program called "Face to Face". The show was basically Christian music with religious-toned themes in between songs. One such Christian act whose music was featured on "Face to Face" was DC Talk. Their hit "Between You And Me" crossed over into Adult Contemporary radio stations in 1996.
In 1997, I worked as a board operator for an AC radio station. A board operator did everything a DJ did...except talk. So, I just sat in a room and played music into the wee hours of the night (what a deal!). Around one o'clock in the morning, the afternoon DJ (who went by the nickname "Big Ken") called me and asked if I would play "Faithful" by Go West. He was out on a date with a young lady at the time, and she wanted to hear it. Without question, I found the CD and played the song. Doing something like that today would likely result in my being fired. I certainly hope that girl enjoyed her request, and I wonder how she thanked Big Ken.