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WHAT DOES A CLASSICAL DJ DO BETWEEN
SELECTIONS?
AN INSIDER'S STORY FROM BEHIND THE MICROPHONE
by Jim Stokes
email: heaven@mninter.net
August 2001
[Foreword -- This account from my radio
life is excerpted from my longer work, "A Radio DJ Life," an
anecdotal collection about what really went on behind-the-microphone in classical
radio as well as other radio formats,
from the 60s through the mid-70s. In this story-telling, I've re-introduced
the nearly extinct "series comma" for greater clarity. Therefore,
let's go forward, march on, keep going.]
SETTING THE SCENE
Ever wonder what a classical music (CM)
DJ does while the music plays? Drawing upon my own experience as a CM DJ
-- and it's similar to work at other radio stations -- it wasn't spent
dozing, reading poetry, or drinking espresso with my feet up on the
console! A plethora of duties befall any DJ when he's not on the air.
It's more so when classical records
may easily play a half hour or more, rather than the three minute pop music selections.
Well yes, there still may be those
rarified atmospheres in broadcasting where the announcer can read a book
between breaks, as was the case in the bygone days of television booth
announcing. However, nowadays that task is mostly pre-recorded. And there
are the Sunday morning pre-recorded religious and public
affairs programs, where an announcer might doze a bit between station
breaks. But that's far from the norm,
when you consider that the frenzied "rock jock" only
gets a potty break during the news.
I had the distinction of being the last
full time announcer/operations director at WLOL-FM -- "the Twin
Cities Voice of Classical Music" -- from 1972 to 1975. It was one of the
most memorable experiences in my life,
proving that real life overwhelms fiction.
The GM (general manager) Ray Ose and I
were the only full-time employees. There was a part-time weekend
announcer as well. Therefore, it
was a small operation that was destined to get even smaller, since the programming would eventually become
easy-listening music pre-recorded tapes, replacing all live air talent.
A LEGACY OF COMMERCIAL CLASSICS
The station itself, located at 99.5 MHZ
on the FM dial, had the distinction of being the first commercial
all-classical station in the area. And it was one of the first licensed
FM stations in the Minneapolis/St. Paul market -- which we call the
"Twin Cities."
I spun the last classical tune on the
turntable, Delius' "Prelude to
Irmelin" with Beecham conducting the Royal Philharmonic.
That lovely
low string counterpoint "groan" in the song said it better
than any words about the format
change. And it was some form of poetic justice since it was also the same hauntingly
beautiful theme for
New York
's WQXR noontime classics show. After the last note of that dreamy
music, the format changed from CM to
fully-automated beautiful "elevator" music. This programming move was also
the slippery slope to the demise of commercial classical music in
Twin Cities radio. I made one more
CM DJ move several years later to the very last ad-selling CM station in the area. Thereafter,
listener-supported radio of this traditional format became the
norm.
Ironically and prior to the programming
switch, WLOL-FM enjoyed a popularity that showed up in the Arbitron
listener surveys for the first time. We had "numbers." We
can sell more ads! Alas, it was too late to rescue the format. But more on that
later in this article.
PROGRAMMING
Here is the Monday through Friday
program schedule, before the format switched from classics to elevator
music. In addition, weekends were mostly pre-recorded automation tapes,
except for certain specialized live-in-studio block programming, which
included opera records with live commentary and a live German records DJ
show. A pre-recorded Scandinavian music program and an organ music
program were also run in automation.
---------------------------------------------------
GENERAL MONDAY THROUGH FRIDAY SCHEDULE
6 am - 8 am -- Live morning drive with
GM Ray Ose
8 am - 5 pm -- Pre-recorded automation
tapes
(5 pm - 10 pm -- Live programming, as
described below, which was my evening DJ shift)
-
5-6 -- "The Golden Hour" --
"Afternoon drive" light classics (between commercials :)
-
6-7 -- Sealy Dinner Hour (aka
"Silly Dinner Hour" to us), sponsored by the Sealy
Mattress Company. Light classics in quarter hour segments.
-
8-9 -- Longer works, sponsored by
Northern States Power Company
-
9-10 -- Classics -- mix of light music
and excerpts from ballets
10-Midnight -- Pre-recorded on duty by
evening CM DJ
Midnight-6am -- Simulcast with WLOL-AM
Talk Radio: no classics!
---------------------------------------------------
"THE GOLDEN HOUR"
My shift started at 5 p.m. with what we
insiders called "music between the commercials." Privately, I
called it "the golden hour" for a couple of reasons. First, what little
commercial time that was sold during the playing of automation tapes
was certainly made up in this "golden hour."
Secondly, during this "afternoon
drive" hour I got to play whatever musical gems fit in between the
commercials. I used a lot British light music from a little niche of
uncatalogued records in the music library, which also included concert
waltzes, Broadway show songs, marches, and an interesting collection of production
music from Radio
Netherlands
. Quite a rare and motley album cache!
And never mind if the records aren't
all stereo, since light music took an unfortunate nose dive about the
time that rock music dominated the air waves and stereophonic records took
over as well. Consequently, there was not a lot of light music
re-recorded or re-channeled into stereo since the record companies had
discovered a gold mine in rock music.
Amazingly, people would stop their cars
on their way home from work and call in from pay phones, since this was
the age before cell phones; and ask where they could get the music.
Sure enough, most of the inquiries were for the mono tracks. So, we were
caught in the quandary between playing fabulous out of print mono cuts
or play newly recorded stereo "cliché classics" like "Greensleeves"
and "Clair de Lune," which were highly available in record
stores, but ruinous to any imaginative, fresh programming.
The problem of finding refreshing but
neglected, non-cliché, light music was solved by laboriously going
through our heavy backlog of yet uncatalogued new stereo records and
making a separate Light Music file.In the process, I discovered little
gems that were used to fill out
longer, featured works on albums.
Some of those discoveries included
shorter works by such composers as Lars Eric Larrson, Elgar, and German.
This new file also helped add new selections
to the Sealy Dinner Hour, which relied on short cuts as well, and the new batch of automation tapes
that we recorded ourselves, replacing the older syndicated program
tapes.
GOLDEN HOUR MUSIC
At this point, I want to salute
Capitol/EMI for several stellar LPs, a couple of which I have now and
continue to play at home. Whatever
technology Capitol/EMI used to record these European performances
and whatever groove technology went into
the manufacture, these vinyl records have held up to this day!
"London Pops," with its
closeup Rolls Royce album cover had an extraordinary collection of light
music, with George Weldon conducting the Pro Arte Orchestra. The LP included
my favorites, Alan Langford's (Alan Owen) "Waltz for String
Orchestra", Haydn Wood's concert waltz 'Joyousness' from his
"Moods" orchestra suite, and Anthony Collins' "Vanity
Fair." I've yet to see an album like this with the aforementioned along with other light
concert melodies by Coates, Elgar, German, Fletcher, Quilter, Tomlinson,
Bayco, Vinter, Dexter, and Curzon. Indeed, the demise of traditional
ad-sponsored CM radio was also the end of this kind of music on the air.
About the only place you'll hear this kind
of music is via light music clubs located in
England
, some recitals, old time radio
shows on the internet, or old production libraries.
Another Capitol/EMI LP worthy of
mention had Britten's Matinees Musicales and Soirees Musicales, and
Malcolm Arnold's English Dances and Scottish Dances, played by the
Philharmonia Orchestra conducted by Robert Irving.
Then from among the steady stream of
new LPs, I discovered a most unusual album, whose music would fit nearly
every program format we had. It
was an RCA recording with Igor Buketoff conducting the Royal
Philharmonic Orchestra in
Arnold
Bax' Overture to a Picaresque Comedy. It was Bax at his usual best, with this
piece going back, astonishingly, to 1931. People would call and ask what
movie it was from. It could have been a score from a British
comedy/adventure movie. Music on this same record by other Brits included Richard
Rodney Bennett's "Symphony #1" and Lennox
Berkeley
's "Divertimento in B-Flat."
And I'll leave this discussion of
favorites with one piece also worthy of mention. It's Don Banks' "
Coney Island
," played by the Sinfonia of
London
, conducted by Douglas Gamley on Capitol. This piece has special significance
because when I was stationed in the army at Governor's
Island
,
New York
, it was often played by WPAT, the light music station in
Paterson
,
New Jersey
. And it made its way onto the play list as well on
New York
's "classic classical" station WQXR. Every time I hear this ballet-like concert waltz, I think of
the steamy hot, dreamy summers in
New York
. It could quickly metaphorically melt a sub-zero
Minneapolis every time I played it on WLOL-FM.
"MR. CLASSICAL MUSIC"
Whatever revenue WLOL-FM took in could
largely be attributed to our general manager, Ray Ose, whom colleagues
named "Mr. Classical Music." Ray was a born salesman, whether trying
to sell more radio time or trying to convince announcers to somehow put
in more hours without putting
in for more pay.
Always the deal-maker, Ray would
bargain with me to put in more hours with "comp time" in
return, which is time off, hour-per-hour, for the extra
time put in. Thus it was overtime without the overtime pay. At that
point in my life, I wanted the time off more than the extra pay, so that
was a deal.
Like other devoted salespeople, Ray was
obsessed with numbers -- Arbitron listener ratings, sales figures, sales
rates, and the like. A carefree lunch away from the station,
would morph into business talk. He'd figure on a table napkin how much
more revenue a new account might bring
in. We never saw him use a computer! And he would laboriously figure in
longhand, carrying the zeros, even after I tried to explain
the convenience of powers of ten.
It was essential that he have that
aggressive salesman ethic because, although the station has its listener
niche, it did not have heavy audience ratings. It was a continual
struggle to sell radio time. Later on in this article, I'll deal with the
changing market forces and how that led to a format change.
If you have the stereotype of a
classical music station salesman as someone stately and dressed in a
three-piece suit, that wasn't Ray. With his Nordic blond features and
Minnesota
farm background, Ray truly resembled
a Scandinavian farmer. He dressed "down home" as well. His year-round
business attire came from an eclectic collection of tweed jackets and
dress slacks. And he always had an earthy "Ole and
Lena
" joke, designed warm up
a sales prospect.
If you've never heard an Ole and
Lena
joke, here's a printable example. Many are rather ribald. The spellings,
below, reflect Scandinavian speech.
------------------------------------------------
Lena
went to the drug store to get some sweet smelling bath soap, so she'd
smell good to Ole.
"Have you tried, Oil of Olay, mam?"
asks the clerk?
"Yah sure, yew betcha!"
exclaims
Lena
. "I get Ole's oil on me all dah time fixin' the tractor. I came
here to get somethin' dat smells lots better!"
------------------------------------------------
When overburdened by his constant sales
call routine and programming work, Ray longed for a farm. Not surprising
after the classical music format
demise, he eventually bought a farm and divided his time between managing
the farm and advertising sales on his own. In the last couple of
years, I've lost track of him.
"HOW'D YOU GET THIS NEAT JOB?"
When I was a child back on the farm
near
Britton
,
South Dakota
, I had two ambitions in life -- to be on the radio and to be in the
movies. I've been incredibly
lucky to attain both those goals. That is, a little fame
without fortune. Eventually, I settled on being a CM announcer because
they had access to lots of music. That wish was prompted by my parent's
put-down of any phonograph. "What good is it?" asked my
father. "You have to
feed it records, and you can't eat it." One could hardly argue
that practical viewpoint!
KUSD, Vermillion, the non-commercial
University
of
South Dakota
radio station, provided my first opportunity to play CM on the air,
while I majored in English.
It was there I learned how to say "Vagner," not "Wagner,"
and the host of other composers' names correctly.
Along with a university degree, there
were two other essential items I acquired that kept food on my table for
many years -- how to type and a First
Class FCC Radiotelephone License. Paradoxical as it seems, the latter
was by far the most basic criteria to getting a job in broadcasting.
THE "TICKET"
There was a very practical reason. The
FCC (Federal Communications Commission) required by law that every
broadcasting station had to have a
First Class License holder either on duty at the station or on-call. An option was to have a Third Class
"meter reader" announcer on duty. It was
by far preferable to have a fully licensed "broadcast
engineer" on duty just in case an FCC inspector pulled a surprise
inspection. And that does happen. Stations are known to be fined, or in
worst case scenarios lose
their license to be on the air, because the chief engineer
was nowhere to be found or the transmitter logs weren't kept up. Thus
the night announcer at a small to mid-sized station might well be
an announcer stumbling over words. He may not have verbal skills, but by
golly, his First Class License was posted on the wall! (Until 1985, when you visited a radio station,
you'd see at least one First Class FCC License hanging on the wall
alongside several Third Class
Licenses. )
That essential license, aka a
"First Phone" or "ticket" could be acquired by
studying long hours from a license study guide, then taking
a series of Third, Second, and finally, the "holy
grail" First Class License exam. There were formal trade
schools a person could attend. But if you were already into electronics
as a hobby, which I was, it could be done by many hours of studying the
thick red Kaufman Manual from Ryder Publications. And now I've lived
long enough to be "grandfathered" into
a Lifetime "First Phone." No more running frantically to the nearest
FCC office to renew my license every five years, where if you missed
that window of opportunity, you got to take the test over again. 'Tis a
strange set of hoops to jump through!
So there I was back in the summer of
1960 with all the essentials for making a living in broadcasting. I had
a university degree; I knew how to
type; and I had the "First Phone." There followed a succession
of jobs at radio and TV
stations in
South Dakota
and
Minnesota
, broken only by two years
draftee service in the U.S. Army. Alas, none of those jobs required
any knowledge whatsoever of classical music.
However, that opportunity finally
arrived in 1972 when I took a part-time engineer/producer job at
listener talk station WLOL-AM in
Minneapolis
, which led to my first commercial CM DJ job at sister station
WLOL-FM, which was tucked away on the opposite side of the same building
as the AM.
RIGHT PLACE/RIGHT TIME
Although a few radio announcer jobs
come by way of formal audition tapes and resumes, a great many jobs
follow the rule of "right place/right time."
Such was my luck at both WLOL's. At the time, I was the in-house PR and
Audio-Visual Director at a large health agency. A series of provocative and comic anti-smoking and
air quality radio "PSAs" (public service spots) that I
produced got the attention of WLOL-AM. That prompted my "radio
bug" to resurface. And I thought I was all done with radio
after my last experience as a producer/engineer for a frantically-formatted
Minneapolis
pop music station.
There's an old radio adage, "hang
around a station long enough and they'll put you on the air." It's
true, largely because of the large personnel
and format turnover. I kept coming in the door with my produced
PSAs and subject matter experts for the talk shows. In this case, my
return to radio was as a board operator/producer for WLOL-AM "Talk
Radio." The station had a fast-paced atmosphere that made my adrenalin
run.
FROM ALL-TALK TO ALL-CLASSICS
The fast-paced format required a bevy
of separate control board operators. And there was a lot of turnover for
part-time "board ops." Thus, my jump back into radio was
part-time at first, since I was the likely
candidate with my proven flair for production -- and the FCC license. It
was a great way to keep my AV day job, earn extra money, and see if I
still liked the radio biz.
That led to my jumping into a vacated
CM DJ shift on the FM side, since the former announcer had simply taken
some time off and never returned! That
tactic is done quite frequently in the transitory world of broadcasting.
For around two months I was an AV director by day and a CM DJ
at night.
Although I labored long over quitting
the AV job to get into CM radio at FM, there were the naysayers on the
talk radio AM side. "Are you NUTS? You
want to take a 'fool-time' job in radio when you have a good steady
day job? Let me know when you quit. I'll take your AV job!"
But I figured this
opportunity might not happen again. Thus, the quirky, marvelous
adventure began.
MULTI-TASKING What then is it like to work at a classical radio station as a "live
announcer?" Well, what you hear on the air is the tip of the iceberg!
The term "multi-tasker" applies here. Back when I worked as a CM DJ, as
soon as I keyed the mic switch off, there were administrative and
production duties to attend. There were several reasons for that. One very obvious reason was the
large amount of time available during the playing of longer works. For
that reason, longer works such as symphonies and ballets, running from
around half an hour to 45 minutes, were programmed back-to-back later on
in my shift. As aforementioned in this article, when I showed the
program schedule, the station was only live during the early morning
drive, which was handled by the station manager, and during my shift
from 5 to 10 p.m., when most people listened during the week. The rest
of the time during the week and on weekends, programming was almost
entirely via automation. And I'll recount an hilarious misadventure with
pre-recorded tapes later on in the article, so "stay tuned!" As you read on, you'll find that this multi-tasking had some comic highs
and lows. And at times, some drama! The prosaic job of typing the next
day's program log fell upon me, the night-shifter. Now, you'd think that
just sitting down and typing is a simple-minded task that shouldn't take
too long while a long musical selection is playing. It would be, had
there been no interruptions. For there was one element that disrupted
the entire multi-tasking process -- the telephone.
CHABLIS NOT CHABRIER Listeners would call to inquire, inform, and argue at the times when I
had the least amount of time to spare. "What did you just play?...I
can't pick you up over here in Kenwood...Didn't you used to work at a
rock station, I'd swear it was you!...What did you play last week at
this time?...You play way too much flute music!...Is your needle stuck
in 20th century romanticism?...You talk too fast...You talk too
slow...You sound sexy...Are you in a TV ad?...You don't look anything
like you sound on the radio." With tongue-in-cheek humor, I'd only admit I sounded sexy. And indeed I
was in a local TV ad during that time. And herein lies the other magical
show business paradox between what you hear and what you see.
Physically, I resemble a construction worker. However, what's a
classical music DJ supposed to look like anyway? Then there were the more hostile calls. They were manageable at my end
of the line as long as I kept my sense of humor. Here's one conversation
I recall during the Christmas Holidays, where the caller had the slurred
speech of celebrating the season.
"Hello, can I talk to the announsher? He needzh a lesshon in
pronunciation!"
"Yes, can I help you?"
"I said I wanted to talk to the announcer, Jim Stokes. Who are you?"
"I'm Jim Stokes."
"You don't shound like him. You'd better not be puttin' me on."
"I've got to go on the air very soon. What can I do for you?
"It's 'Shah-bree-ay' (for Chabrier). Not 'Sha-bree-er.'"
"Thanks very much, sir. I know it's Chabrier. But I didn't play anything
by that composer during my shift. Uh, what station do you have on? Can
you put your phone up to the radio, please."
There's a big pause, a clatter, and then my "listener" plays another
station, loudly, into the phone.
"You're listening to another station, sir. Um, did they advertise some
wine perhaps?" Then I had an "ah-ha", recalling there were a ton of wine
commercials running on other stations. Our caller, although
classics-literate, was quite scrambled between wine and French music.
"So, please have another Chablis (Sha-blee) on me, sir -- and Happy
Holidays! Right now, I've got to play some music. Bye!"
DOUBLE-DUTY ON THE BOARD
Typing program logs and answering the phone were but two of the duties
as the records played. As the turntables turned and the console meters
bounced back and forth during the "air show," another task was before me
-- production. Never an idle moment!
Commercials had to be "dubbed to cart." All commercials came in on 7«
speed full track or two-track stereo open reels. New or revised
commercials with their accompanying sales contract showing the times to
be aired greeted me nearly every night when I came to work. These were
keyed to the daily program log. Some were "write-ins" on the log, where
I had to "field-expediently" run the open reel tape during the air show
as I juggled live spots and records. Then in my spare time, I duplicated
the open reel tapes to tape cartridge. In any event, the remaining spots
loomed before me as entries to be typed into the next day's program log.
And the log reflected the billing. Any errors of not logging the paid
spots meant lost revenue. Those spots had to run or be re-run. While longer records were playing, spots had to be transferred from open
reel to tape cartridge ("dubbed to cart") with a live-to-tape station ID
tagged at the end of each spot. That was to fulfill the FCC station ID
requirements and simply to let listeners know what station they listened
to, for it might be a very long time before symphonic music ended during
the day when the station was in automation mode. I was challenged to not only voice the station ID "trippingly-on-the-tongue" without a stutter or flub, but also to avoid sounding repetitious and to sound a bit different as I voiced the call
letters along with a varied slogan after each spot. For there was my
disembodied voice alternating amongst, "the Twin Cities Voice of
Classical Music, WLOL-FM, St. Paul/ Minneapolis," "WLOL-FM, classical
music from Minneapolis/St. Paul," and the like. There were something
like a dozen variations on the station ID! Correspondingly, my style
varied from enthusiastic to soft to matter-of-fact to casual. It helped
to have the dozen ID variations typed as I voiced and checked off each
one!
THE PERILS OF PRODUCTION --
RECORDING THE LATE NIGHT SHOW During my shift, I had to record the last two hours of CM, which ran in
automation from 10 to Midnight. Most of the time this task went very
well. Once in a while the big Scully 1280 tape deck would decide to shut
itself off, since it was mounted vertically and rather awkwardly against
the force of gravity. With hardly an inch to spare, the deck was mounted so that the
spring-loaded arm that guided the tape past the capstan would be
constantly fighting gravity versus the tape/capstan/motor path. The
quick fix was to tape the arm, so it wouldn't "de-arm," tripping a
micro-switch, and shutting the deck off. However, if the tape ever got
stuck or a reel jammed, tape and reel hubs would literally fly across
the room! So, if the tape deck stopped, I'd have to cue back to where
there was a break in a movement or track in the record and start over.
Of course, we had standby tapes.
OH MY GOD, IT'S FRIDAY! The real yeoman's task at any radio or TV station happens every Friday
afternoon. Advertising agencies have the "weekend runs," as they say in
that business, when an account executive (aka - "salesperson") takes
advantage of the good spirits of the client over Friday lunch or
beverages -- and a Friday-through-weekend spot buy is often signed,
taking advantage of weekend rates. Thus the Friday night and weekend logs are often cluttered with
last-minute ad buys such as weekend sales. At WLOL-FM Classics guess who
dubbed the spots and/or read the ads live-to-cart, including a station
ID, all trippingly on the tongue! C'est moi, the night CM DJ!
SURROUNDED BY MEMORABILIA It doesn't take a lot of real estate to house the actual production part
of a radio station. While the transmitter and antenna take up several
acres of land, the studio itself may only comprise a 9x12 foot room. For
instance, the separate studios of WLOL-AM and WLOL-FM were housed in a
small brick building in St. Paul, Minnesota on a bluff near where the
Minnesota River joins the Mississippi River, and the bigger river makes
a huge curve and heads south to the Gulf of Mexico. The building included the 5KW (5,000 watt) AM transmitter. It was the
same hulking model that RCA made since 1945. And from the looks of the
transmitter, it may very well have been made in that era. Out back were
the three WLOL-AM towers, from which emitted "the Talk of the Twin
Cities" at that time. WLOL-FM, "the Twin Cities Voice of Classical Music" at the time; was
allotted a tiny manager/sales/administrative office and a cramped
control room at one corner of the building. Our CM FM signal was feed
via equalized telephone line to a transmitter and tower located on the
northern bank of the Mississippi River, upstream, several miles away
from the studio. It was, literally, a highly strategic location because
from there the line-of-sight signal offered good coverage to Minneapolis
and St. Paul. Back at the studio, the FM program logs were typed in the station
manager's "catch-all" office, which adjoined the control room. The
office would have made a marvelous set for a movie comedy about a radio
station. But this was for real! At one wall was a desk that looked as if
would not hold one more piece of paper. Somehow there was always room as the shelves extended up to the ceiling,
ready to retain and devour any messages, radio spot sales contacts, and
the taped spots themselves. Interspersed with the paperwork was an
assortment of open reel tapes, packed randomly into cubbyholes. At one
time in the station's distant past, it may have been a studio since
whatever walls that were visible were covered with white soundproofing
panels. Not only was this the manager's office, it was also the classical music
library, which held its domain on two walls, from floor to ceiling.
Nearly every time I rummaged around for office supplies or pulled my
records for the evening shift, a memo or radio spot contract from
yesterday to ten years ago would float to the floor. And it's almost a
scientific principle that tiny rooms accumulate the most memorabilia.
In the nook and crannied walls opposite the classical record stacks were
a hodgepodge of forgotten albums. It wasn't until the last days of the
station's CM format, that I discovered the likes of a rare (Mr.) Fred
Rogers & Josie TV Show record among a vast array other children records,
left over from the days when the AM station had what used to be called a
"variety" format. Next to that was another forgotten section of LPs from
the now defunct FM "Spoken Word" program. Included were a set of
mint-condition Shakespeare dramatizations, and a vast, entire program
series "French Music and French Musicians" from ORTF -- all of which I
was invited to keep when the station changed format. Several years
before that sad day of format change, these treasures were all rendered
"not-for-air play" anyway because they were guilty of being monophonic.
But they were kept "just in case," the motto of the packrat! In those last, sad days before the format change, we announcers were
invited to take whatever duplicate stereo records and any
"broadcast-obsolete" monophonic records we found in the cramped
library/office before an inventory was taken. Those remaining records
were given to KUSD, the University of Minnesota radio station, and KSJN,
the Minnesota Public Radio flagship station, to boost their record
collections. That small handful of records were a small, but
still-treasured perk. And I still play them often at home. Many are
British light classics. The monophonic spoken word and children records
made for good listening by my children, who were elementary school and
pre-school at the time. Many of those records wound up at the public
library. And I imagine it might yet be an ever-ending cycle of
enjoyment. But a format change was not to happen until several years later.
Meanwhile, I settled back into my "dream job" as a CM DJ. The rewards,
along with the usual harried "beat the clock" routine, were many. For
over the years, I have decided that it is not the leisurely times I
reflect back on, but the times that were full of ups and downs, with the
adventurous highs winning out as wonderful memories.
VINTAGE, RELIABLE GEAR I found delight in the older, but rock-solid control room equipment.
There was the old-fashioned looking, but excellent quality, Altec 639B
microphone set on cardioid pattern, which gave a hearty low frequency
boost to any announcer's voice. The closer you got to the mic, the more
boomy it sounded on the air. Then there were the standard broadcast Collins turntables with high-end
audiophile cartridges. Two or three Gates cartridge machines, one of
which was used for recording spots, took care of produced commercial
playback. And way back to the rear of the room was the aforementioned
Scully 1280 open reel recorder for playback of agency spots and
recording automation program tapes. To the right of the Altec microphone was the FM transmitter remote
control readout unit, from which the announcer wrote down the plate
current, power output, and all the other necessary functions on the
transmitter log.
"JUST REWIND THE TAPE!"
A MOST MEMORABLE MEMORIAL WEEKEND
If anything went wrong in automation, it would most likely be on the
weekend -- and especially on a holiday weekend when the regular staff is
gone. One fateful weekend over Memorial Day in 1973, took the prize for
tape mishap. The AM combo newsman/board operator had the added
responsibility of changing and cueing up the FM CM automation tapes,
which were on special mammoth-sized, 14-inch tapes. Following the
age-old pre-recorded program norm, the tapes were wound "tails out."
That's a key phrase! "Tails out" means the tape has to be rewound before
it's played. This custom was carried over from the days when magnetic
tape would tend to print-through the next layer of tape, if not rewound.
Then the tape would have a weird-sounding pre-echo on music or a
person's voice, that could be so distracting that the tape would be
unplayable for broadcast. That rule certainly applied to the ancient,
syndicated tapes we still used. We had been slowly phasing out these
(gasp!) monaural tapes. After this weekend, no more of the syndicated
programs ever ran again on weekends! And they were all very simply
"heads out." Just thread up and play.
But back to this fateful weekend. Enter a new AM news/board op, who had
never encountered the norm of rewinding "tails out" automation tapes.
His experience was entirely with tapes wound "heads out," ready to
instantly play. So, he threaded the tapes without rewinding them.
The result was some very interesting music -- all played backwards. Not
only that, the usually 50 Hz inaudible cue tone imbedded on the right
track, which switched the big tape deck to the cart machine, was now
quite audible. What did it sound like? Well, this normally inaudible
very low tone sounded like flatulence, the "Bronx cheer, the "raspberry"
over the air.
Manager Ray Ose had anticipated problems with a new AM board op, so I
was summoned to "keep an ear" on the FM. I'd been invited to a golf
tournament and was mainly enjoying the weekend over beverages in the
club house. I had a portable radio kept low.
Sure enough, the tapes were running backwards. I frantically dialed the
unlisted AM station number. An equally frantic news/board op answered
the phone. I told him to "just rewind the tape," which he did -- over
the air! "Whirl," (flatulence), "whirl," (flatulence) went the gigantic
tape.
"Jimmy, the cart machine is going nuts!"
"Forget that. Just get a tape rolling the right way." He finally got a
tape on the air. I ran to my car and drove through red lights to the
station. Fortunately, the police were out on the highway trying to catch
speeders drunks on Memorial Day weekend.
I laboriously re-loaded the carousel cart machine, which was jam-packed
with spots for this memorable weekend, then made sure all the spots that
were missed were re-run and logged as "make goods," since the paperwork
for missing these many spots was akin to filling out an accident report
for the government!
Sure enough next weekend, all the automation music tapes were heads out
and ready to play.
FUN & GAMES
On the evenings when I missed supper, I'd take a supper run to Zapata's,
the closest fast food eatery which was two blocks up the hill. It was a
bit tricky in that it was best to make a mad dash out the door right
after I introduced the long work on the Northern States Power Company
show. I'd make a deal to bring something back for the AM DJ, if he'd
look in on my record.
There was always the danger that the record would skip or catch in a
groove and no-one would attend to it. And I'd time myself, to see if I
could surpass my speed record. Try as I might, I never made it up and
back in less than 10 minutes. And I never had a stuck record!
One of my most embarrassing misadventures in radio was on a Sunday
morning several years earlier at another station when "The Lutheran
Hour" program electrical transcription (phonograph record) stuck on the
phrase, "go to hell." I was dozing at the console and wasn't aware of
the sticky message until the phones started ringing!
Then there was the ongoing "we hear next" inside joke. That came from
Ray's catch phrase in introducing records in automation, "We hear next."
Within the monitoring technology of the automation equipment, his
disembodied voice coming out of a pre-recorded commercial cart would
fill the AM control room. This was the rather jarring signal for the
engineer running the console in the control room to log the time and the
spots, since AM kept track of the FM program log during the weekdays, as
well as on the weekends.
Thus, our AM colleagues adapted "we hear next" as a running gag. I can
hear it now. Long after the rest of the staff left the building, the AM
announcer would sometimes wait by the door of the FM control room and
sneak in behind me when I was on the air, whispering, "We hear next,"
imitating Ray's Minnesota nasal baritone. It invariably made me laugh,
since I have no composure for jokes.
HARBINGERS OF CHANGE
Things were going well for WLOL-FM during 1974. It was going so well
that we showed up quite well in the Arbitron listener ratings in the
second quarter for the first time. Ray was able to sell more time, and
we all sounded a little happier on the air. In the next Arbitron, we
slipped a bit, but it was all right, going into Thanksgiving and
Christmas.
Then around the middle of January, 1975; Ray told me, most seriously and
cryptically, "If I were able to sell out all the time on all the breaks
inside all the hours, we would still only gross (he gives a $ amount
here, which I figured was rather respectable.) However, I was not
actively involved in sales. He repeated what he had just said. I
shrugged and we both went back to work.
It wasn't until I sold radio time several years later did I know what he
meant. Grave concern for sales after the first of the year might well
spell "format change" or "station sale." By summer of '75 when a
consultant was hired and thereafter when new automation decks were
installed, was I finally told that the FM format was changing. By then,
I finally connected-the-dots from all the hints given me!
A CHANGING MARKET
Thus one of the oldest FM stations in Minneapolis/St. Paul, and the
first commercial all-classical FM station in the area, would change its
format to beautiful music. Why? FM radio ownership was no longer a
matter of a breaking even or just making it in sales. FM had matured to a
viable commercial radio enterprise.
Adding to the mix was the competition. Previously the only
heads-on competition was St. Olaf College's WCAL AM/FM, later
WCAL-FM, Northfield, Minnesota, which broadcast a combination of
classics and and public affairs. KUSD-AM, the University of Minnesota,
broadcast even fewer classics, in their mission to provide a mix of public
affairs, education, and classics.
But the most formidable force was KSJN, St. Paul, the flagship station
of MPR (Minnesota Public Radio), which was expanding their radio empire
via additional stations around the state. Their bulwark was the classics
network feed, which originated at KSJN. In fact, if you're driving
around the U.S. today, you may very well tune in the vast MPR network
affiliates, carrying classics originating at KSJN.
The other factors that spelled format change for WLOL-FM were the
aggressive promotion and fund raising tactics of MPR, which built a
massive listener loyalty. MPR listeners felt they were a fundamental
part of this public radio service. And they were treated to discount
tickets to concerts and retail stores.
WLOL-FM had only the free listeners program guide, and there was no talk
about any other business tie-in, promotions, T-shirts, or coffee mugs!
And what of the beautiful music that replaced two full-time employees
and one part-timer? Well, that lasted several years, after which,
WLOL-FM was sold. And the irony! What goes around, comes around -- as
the old saying goes. For today, the same old 99.5 MHZ WLOL-FM spot on
the dial is now KSJN, the home base of Minnesota Public Radio! And
sister station WLOL-AM, 1330 on the dial? It's now WMIN-AM, the all-news
station of MPR.
ON COLD WINTER NIGHTS
Sometimes on cold winter nights, when I miss working at the little
cubbyhole studio where we worked so hard to keep a good on-air classics
sound, I wonder whatever happened to all those ancient memos, sales
contracts, equipment, and tapes? Perhaps one of those old tapes, still
tucked away in a corner, was an audition tape from Jim Stokes or Ray
Ose?
WANT TO KNOW MORE?
This account of what it was like to work at WLOL-FM classics is one of
several adventures I had in radio before and after this station. In fact
two years later, I joined Ray at KTWN-FM for our last go-around in Twin
Cities classical music radio. If you enjoyed my adventures at WLOL, KTWN
had its own quirky milieu of a radio tower in a swamp, snowed-in roads,
strange listeners, stranger music requests, bizarre sales calls, and
great expectations at the last Twin Cities commercial classical station.
And like WLOL's sister AM, KANO-AM was the kibitzer of KTWN!
That account, along with my other adventures in radio from the 60s
through the mid-70s is in "A Radio DJ Life." Here are only some of the
bizarre and hilarious happenings, including "the record that would not
die," "the snarling tiger in the sales office," and "the falling tape
machines."
My years spent in radio (and television) were unlike any other work.
It's not so much a job, as a lifestyle. There were times when it was if
I were in a movie, but it was real life! Speaking of movies, I've also
written/directed/produced "Beethoven's Tenth," an action/drama about two
musical sleuths who find the lost Tenth Symphony of Beethoven. It has an
original score in the style of Beethoven's music. Copies are available.
THE END
by Jim Stokes
email: heaven@mninter.net
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