Public Radio

Public Radio

       I was over at the Public Radio station during the Fund Raiser, to talk up the idea of giving financial support. "We know you're listening, so why not send in a few dollars to help us stay on the air?"

With KDAQ Stn. Mgr. Lee Conger, doing a remote
from Doyle Jeter's Enoch's Cafe, Shreveport, 1990-ish.

       I have been associated with Public Radio for almost forty years, but have not been actually employed there since 1992. When I retired, I left them with my Christmas show — Cajun Christmas, co-produced by Lee Conger (right); it's a program which is still broadcast, annually.  Also, I will participate in the Fund Raiser if I'm in town. My wife, Marsha, will work on the phone bank. The fund raisers are getting a little more arduous, year by year — a 'slog' I called it this time and Wally Derleth, the local jazz host,  thought that was a pretty good characterization of the event. They were always difficult; most of us don't like having to interrupt the regular programming and ask for money. We are mostly artists, writers and musicians without much idea of how money is made. You can hear these "drives" on your local radio station, or see them at your PBS TV affiliate. They can be embarrassing, but the fact is: that's the way they make their money.  They also make money through writing grants to government entities such as the Corporation for Public Broadcasting (CPB) and private foundations, and by applying directly to wealthy corporations and businesses. Part of the very small staff works full time raising money and organizing fund raisers. It's hard, complicated work, and it's a slog.

With Public Radio dog, Cammie, in
our old broadcast studio at LSUS.

       The whole business reminded me, this time, of my own experience with this radio station. The studios are in south Shreveport, Louisiana, in a converted chapel on the edge of the campus of the State University. They are beautiful, functional, and purpose-build within the last few years. When I worked for the station, beginning in 1987, the studios were located in a "temporary" eyesore, a rectangular hut with aluminum siding and a couple of rooms full of junk. This structure sat next to a similar hut which housed our offices. The fact is, it worked perfectly well for about 25 years and, since it's radio, nobody noticed that it looked like crap.

Out in the field with Beethoven
NPR T-Shirt & cassette recorder.

       Back in the mid-80s Marsha and I had started a folk festival in Bossier City, (Grassroots,) and we visited the radio station looking to get some publicity. We probably got PSAs on two or three stations but KDAQ, this Public station, was the only one that asked me,"Would I like to start my own, hour-long, weekly folk music show?" I guess I leapt at the idea. I do remember a meeting with Tom Livingston, the lanky General Manager, when I said I'd like it to be about "Louisiana folk music." He agreed that would be a good idea and sent me off to make up a name for it. 
       I didn't know much about Louisiana folk music at the time, except that I'd been familiar with Leadbelly since my college days in Vancouver, B.C., and Marsha and I had visited South Louisiana and fallen in love with the culture of Cajunland. We'd also lured a Cajun band — Gene Savoie and his Playboys — to come up to Bossier City to perform at our Grassroots Festival. They stayed at our house, slept all over our living room, ate our food, and played for free. They were fabulous, and not all boys; Gene's wife played the bass.
       The festival was a great success; along with the Cajun band we had an Irish band, two Bluegrass bands, Clog dancers, Otis and Artis Johnson and their African drummers, the state fiddle champ Mary Grimsley, and  my wife and I. We did a set of mostly comedic folksongs like "Grandpa Went to Florida to Die" "My Son, the Preacher" and "Four Nights Drunk" about a woman who . . . oh, never mind! When I say "great success," I don't mean it made money or attracted a multitude. It just felt right; we repeated it the next few years. 

With Marsha and Swallow Records' owner Floyd Soileau.

The week following the festival I met with Tom Livingstone again to finalize plans for the radio show. In a burst of showmanship, I suggested we name it "Gumbo's Air Show," but Tom, a low-key scholarly fellow from Minnesota, seemed to prefer my second choice — "Louisiana Folk Music" — so we went with that. It was several months before we went on the air — an example of Tom's caution — I got a bit antsy but, truth be told, the delay allowed me to become much more familiar with my subject matter and I was able to gather quite an extensive library of 45 and 33 1/3 rpm records. 

       As the start date drew nearer, I had to go in for an hour of training, for nobody but me was going to engineer my program. There weren't enough staff to go around. Also, I was scheduled for 7 pm Saturdays (after "Prairie Home Companion:") and nobody likes to work on weekends. I would have to fly solo. In those days we were required to have a live body in the station 24 hours a day and for several hours on a Saturday, I was to be that live body. The night man, a hoary antique whiskey-voiced radio veteran named Leon Smith, didn't come on until 11 pm.

Robert Trudeau's blessing in the Shreveport
Journal — or was it Forum magazine? 

       I was not only to keep the station up and running; I had to put my own records on the turntables. Therefore, the first order of business was learning how to use the record players like a DJ would: turn the table to where the music began, then spin backwards one half turn and hold it. You had two turntables, so you could line up one disc ahead. I learned how to switch on and off the microphones and modulate the volume on air and on headphones. Over my first few weeks there were occasional technical blips and stretches of the dreaded "dead air," but I got through them without being fired and the program became an integral part of the regional airwaves. I don't think anybody liked what I was doing quite as much as I did.
       About mid-way through my Public Radio career, the new General Manager, Catherine Fraser, offered me a new, paid position as Arts Producer. Once again I leapt at the idea. Tom Livingston had been NPR's man to shepherd our new station into existence, and because he was successful, he was given the General Managership at one of NPR's flagship stations in Washington, DC.

My arm, microphone and Jazz man Danny Barker

 
        As Arts Producer I was to produce, which is exactly what it sounds like, a four to nine minute module to fit into Morning Edition on Fridays at 7:20 and 8:20. My subject was the Arts and my territory included anywhere our radio signal could be heard. 

        By the time I took up this expanded job, perhaps early 1989, the station had grown into a regional network. We had coverage to the south of us in central Louisiana at KLSA, Alexandria, and another station to the north at KBSA, El Dorado, Arkansas. By the time I left, in June, 1992, we had added a fourth station, KLDN in the Piney Woods of East Texas. We were then, and still are now, known as Red River Radio, and in the year 2019 we have yet another East Texas station covering Kilgore and Longview.
      My own personal goal, apart from making these modules as interesting and educational as possible, was to make them fit seamlessly with the slick, professional content of Morning Edition in general. I didn't want to sound like some clumsy local bumpkin, and I didn't want them to be boring. By the time I moved on from Public Radio I'm pretty sure I achieved my goal. And I loved my job. 

With blues singer Marvin Seals at Public Radio
89.9 FM broadcast from LSUS Theater. Nov.1, 1991

       At the beginning of this article I mentioned my radio program, Cajun Christmas,  which I created originally in 1990 as a live show and then as a transcription for a syndication by American Public Radio. It was broadcast to some one hundred radio stations in the Public Radio nation, and has been broadcast  somewhere annually ever since; on Red River Radio if nowhere else. One year I broadcast it on European Country Music from England.
       Cajun Christmas was done in the style of all my radio shows — with tape and a razor blade. It has been safely transferred to digital and exists in CD form, Tech time marches on and we have only a foggy idea of what in store for us in the next few years, but the robots are on the march and they are not learning to wield razor blades. Not for making radio programs, anyway.
     

Nunc Allie Young, a regular on
Louisiana Folk Music.

 As for fund drives, how does the future look? Whenever you start spending more time raising money than spending it, it's going to feel like politics. Maybe things haven't gone quite that far, but what can be done to keep costs in line? Or to treat PBS and NPR like Britain treats the BBC. Like necessities. Like the National treasures they are. Presently, things are looking a little shaky. Lets hope that Public Radio stays with us a few more decades. It's up to all of us.