Brick Wall Broadcasting

Do you ever get discouraged on your job? Does it seem that despite your best efforts success eludes you? I found myself in such a situation at my second radio home. Just a few months prior to getting this job I had resigned from my first broadcast station leaving to pursue major market radio. I launched out not knowing for sure if I would land a DJ gig at all. Gospel 90 had offered me transfer to their 50,000 watt sister in Atlanta. Determined to make it on my own I, at age 20, turned down a sure thing and a 100 mile daily commute for something closer to home in suburbia. Had I made a bad move?

I was at this new home on 1520 AM only four months when the news came down that the charismatic church  that owned WSPZ was selling the facility. Budget crunched owners lost interest in the station shortly after their pastor (also station general manager) unexpectedly resigned. He championed our little station; with him gone the gloves were off. The deacons now had free reign to unload the little thousand watt daytimer that signed my paychecks. Key staff dropped like flies and I became program director having jumped two pay grades in short order. For all intent and purposes I was my own boss with a skeleton crew on a shoestring budget. We made the best of the circumstances with decent content and better than average talent   making a little money by adding high school sports coverage with both local and national sponsors.

The owners wanted $750,000 for the station and wound up settling for $70,000 three years later having kept us paid without fail. The whole crew, although discouraged, must have been surprised the station didn't go dark; to the owners' credit we were never laid off or asked to take pay cuts. Today's aircheck is my final morning show on April 20, 1990, for the church owned 1520 AM which ceased broadcast operations 4 O'clock that afternoon. Listen as I almost reveal the transition which was kept mum until it was legal later that day. 20 years have obscured details of officially passing the torch to the new owner. Such as it is, the recording remains.

©2010 Gospel Aircheck. All rights reserved.

800 Views

I feel silly calling it a milestone, but my Peanut Whistle videos on YouTube have had over 800 views. Woohoo! I don't know how the site calculates the number. I do suspect that the tally may be considerably more since demographics data is included in the "insight" profiles. How would YouTube know such info without each counted viewer signed in? Yeah, the number is small compared to all the silly cat videos that get a million plus hits; let me have my moment. With that in mind I figure that more people have seen the video tour of my fourth radio home than we had total listeners at the time the station was on the air. Click on the link above to see my YouTube channel. Make sure you subscribe while you're there.

Stay tuned

©2010 The Peanut Whistle. All rights reserved.

Brush with Country

In the years since today's audio post I have learned to actually appreciate some of the music my radio bosses had me play. Below is the final Southern Gospel aircheck that transitioned into the first with a new Country format on my 3rd radio home. Please allow a moment for the mp3 to load, then press play.

©2010 The Peanut Whistle. All rights reserved.

A Country Fortnight

There is some truth to what my grandmother used to say, "Your tastes change every 7 years or so." Although she was referring to food; I have applied it to music as well. As the name of the blog implies Gospel has been a focus of mine for many years. Its influence cannot be understated. 

Other musical forms consistently appeal to me: Classic Rock, Jazz, Classical, R&B, Blues and such. Every so often, let's say about every seven to ten years, I will revisit a genre that had been overlooked and unappreciated by me for a while. Country music was traditionally the music of the deep south until the likes of Garth Brooks, Travis Tritt, Vince Gill and others gave it a more youthful and universal appeal. That is when I got on the bandwagon. A couple of years earlier in 1991 I was a DJ on a new Country station just as the first wave of Young Country artists were about to hit the scene.

The opportunity had poor timing; it wasn't until '93 when I first saw a live country show at Opryland that I added the genre to my repertoire. Unlike many DJ's, I felt that I needed to be a fan of the music I played in order to seem genuine on-air.

Today's aircheck is an example of my first day; known then as Jim O'Neal, spinning the songs about mama, pick-up trucks, and trains.The recording is preceded by my last day with the Southern Gospel format. Have a listen and maybe a laugh at my expense, this Hillbilly gig lasted only two weeks.

©2010 Gospel Aircheck. All rights reserved.

St.Paddy's Day

Oh, how I enjoyed growing up in Savannah, GA; especially this time of year. The climate was mild as Spring entered. And, everyone was Irish (at least for a day.) Are you wearing your green?

We were told that our Saint Patrick's Day Parade and celebration was second only to that of Chicago. The way I saw it ours was much bigger considering the comparable sizes of the cities. All three network TV stations had live coverage. I assume that it's still a big deal down in the Coastal Empire although I can't prove it. I haven't visited in over 16 years. Well, maybe next year. Happy Saint Paddy's day everyone! Erin Go Bragh.

Stay tuned

©2010 The Peanut Whistle. All rights reserved.

Living the Dream

A year ago this week I began a new radio station on the Internet called the GRIN, or Gospel Rewind Internet. It featured classic Gospel songs that covered a twenty year period from about the mid 1960 to the late '80's. We were about 70% Southern Gospel with some light CCM, Country and mainstream Gospel. GRIN was a hybrid based on the format of my first radio home, Gospel 90. At that station I was allowed to play broad range of songs now considered classics.

Technical issues plagued the GRIN. Hosting a 24 hour web radio station from my home computer I naturally blamed my equipment for the constant downtime and made the decision to kill off the GRIN after only a month and a half. Ironically, the problem was discovered in July of 2009; a bad modem supplied by my local phone company. It was a discovery made three months too late. Oh well, it's nice to live your dream; if only for a little while. Below is a sample of the GRIN in this netcheck. This is the first live show. Please allow time for the mp3 to load, it is a big file.

  

©2010 Gospel Aircheck. All rights reserved.

Radio Home Four

1992. I found myself at a small broadcast facility out in the sticks. Twenty five hundred watts on AM radio with a Southern Gospel music format; the best thing about this station was that I was purely a disk jockey having recently stepped down as program director at my previous gig. Below is a sample of my show there. Please allow a few seconds for the mp3 player to load, then press the play button.

©2010 Gospel Aircheck. All rights reserved.

Spring Forward

Just a very brief reminder for those of us in the United States in certain time zones; let's spring forward. Yes, it's that time again to advance our clocks one hour forward. Supposedly this was an attempt to save energy by making the daylight last an hour longer thus switching on our house lights later. That's probably no longer a valid reason, but I see it as the time of year when I cheer up considerably; spring is right around the corner! So, this Sunday morning at 2:00 AM set your clocks and don't be late for church.

Stay tuned

©2010 The Peanut Whistle. All rights reserved.

Hallelujah Meeting!

What a week it was for the Rhoden family. We lost a dear member, my aunt Sylvia. She was laid to rest yesterday in Marion County, Georgia; but, her legacy lives on in song. Today I am rerunning a Gospel Rewind podcast from last year that featured Sylvia's awesome singing. The first song You're Still Lord by Lanny Wolfe and Phil Johnson then a duet with her long time collaborator, Rev. Jerry Rice; the song: How Much more written by Rusty Goodman. The last song is sung by her big brother, my late dad, James Rhoden Now I have Everything. I know my dad and his baby sister Sylvia are teaching the angels how to sing. Please allow time for the podcast to load.

©2010 Gospel Aircheck. All rights reserved.

The Unwritten Rules

Now the mandatory first anniversary posting. Actually, a year ago I began this blog having been inspired by an old radio buddy's blog. He hasn't written a new post since then but I have labored on with two weblogs. No, I am not patting myself on the back. It has been difficult coming up with posts. Not for lack of ideas; inspiration strikes at inopportune times: at the market, while driving, etc. I have a small digital voice recorder that I occasionally carry around to capture ideas. My mission or purpose for writing changed. I decided to broaden its focus. Instead of just war stories from my DJ days I have thrown in more opinion and family life. I have begun sharing far more than I would have while on the air. Somehow my home life and career never crossed paths in what I would share on the radio. Regrettably some often humorous happenings never made the show. I edited myself thoroughly and often; one just didn't discuss his personal life with listeners. I was way too strict with my multiple restrictions. Through the years I have lightened up. The new Gospel Rewind Podcast is proof.

I am not referring to the obvious. The use of abusive speech; profanity and slander are never justified on the public airwaves. What I mean is the unwritten rules dee jays live by. Negative words about a sponsor, complaining about the station's management or coworkers were no-no's. Only the well paid shock jocks of the day could get away such behavior. It is common sense not biting the hand that feeds you. One time in my young career I shattered some rules, took a few risks, made fun of each other and the format, and had a blast.

Mylon LeFevre & Broken Heart were to appear in concert in my city at a local college in January of '86. It was very common in those days to trade airtime for free tickets. This was the one and only time in my career that free tickets were not offered to staff. Those among us were bitter towards the promotions company not Mylon. We loved his music and felt that the occasional freebie was compensation for our low salaries.The $15 fee for tickets seemed exorbitant. On this post Christmas aircheck in '85 a trio of us were on the same show making veiled references to the concert and being slighted by promoters. It turns out that it is one of my favorite airchecks. It was the one where I broke some unwritten rules, for sure. I truly showed my real personality not some Top 40 facade. It took me another six years to break away from the rules again two stations later. Tune in the non-conformist show below:

Stay tuned
©2010 Gospel Aircheck. All rights reserved.

New Tricks for Old Dogs

With all this new technology I have been playing with lately I got to wondering just what I could do with new digital audio tricks on old copy. Today I fiddled around with a very old script for a skate party set in 1984 at a long defunct radio station and skating rink. Take a listen:

©2010 Gospel Aircheck. All rights reserved.