WAJR Morgantown...

If music be the food of love, play on;

- William Shakespeare: Twelfth Night

6 PM:  Network news.

6:05: Two 30-second spots for local furniture store and Bank.

6:06: Cue Intro <Background sound of a jet airplane taking off><music up with jet sounds fading (Herb Alpert Casino Royale: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vT4_ZVxKjEc)><Music background quieter for voice over>

“Hey there boys and girls in radio land…welcome to Night Flight, your top 40 source of music right here in Morgantown West Virginia.  This is Ted Dreisinger and I’ll be playing music and taking requests from now until 11 o’clock tonight.  So all you guys and gals out there that have a request for that someone special, or you just want to call in and say hi, I’ll be here spinning the discs just for you!”

<Theme music up for five seconds and fade for first record of the night:  “Ain’t No Mountain High Enough” by Marvin Gaye and Tammi Terell: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Xz-UvQYAmbg>

The next five hours top 40 music…

11:05 PM (after the news) Format changes to “after hours”…music for lovers.

12:00PM Sign-off

Memory trigger…

Clint Eastwood’s bio-pic adaptation of the Broadway Musical Jersey Boys, a chronicle of Frankie Valli and the Four Seasons, was about half way through when for some reason, I found my mind wandering back to WAJR, a radio studio where I spent three years playing music during college.  It was a part-time job that afforded a little extra cash for rent and an occasional night out on the town.   In those days $2.25 an hour was pretty good money for a someone “…working my way back to you babe…” er I mean, working their way through school.

The late 60s…

For context, in 1967 the Beatles were in full swing, among so many others like the Beach Boys, Gary Pucket and the Union Gap, Dianah Ross, the Stones, Spanky and our Gang, AND Frankie Valli and the Four Seasons.  The lyrics were simple, the tunes catchy and the feelings were generally pretty upbeat – find the girl/guy…love the girl/guy…defend the girl/guy, through which one would find eternal teenage bliss! 

The Beatles were the only mainstream group thoughtfully mind stretching with music from ‘Rubber Soul’ and ‘Sgt Pepper’s Lonely Heart’s club Band,’ but for the most part the music was light and airy…for the most part.

A brief haitus…

In the fall of 1968, I found myself out of school and off the air.  Not a particularly good student, I did not have the grades to stay in.  Leaving school caused me to depart Morgantown ending two years of radio work, leading my local draft board to issue an induction notice ‘join’ the U.S. Army (an acronym for Uncle Sam Ain’t Released Me Yet).   It would be three years and a tour in Vietnam, before I found myself back in a radio studio, playing much different music with the ‘on air’ name of Tom Edwards.

When I returned from the social isolation of Southeast Asia, music had taken a decidedly different turn.  I was in the war when Woodstock (1969) took place bringing people like Richie Havens, and groups such as Country Joe and the Fish, War, Chicago, Blood Sweat and Tears, and Crosby, Stills, Nash and Young – to mention just a few.  The shootings at Kent State University had happened (1970) and the country was ill at ease.  Harry Chapin and Cat Stevens were story-tellers who found their voices through song along with folk like Jim Croce.

Much of the music brought with it a grittier reality – not a lot of “…find the girl/guy…love the girl/guy…defend the girl/guy, through which one would find eternal teenage bliss!”  This transition was not as rapid as it appeared to me, but in the 13 months I was gone, the world I had left was put on static hold in my mind…the country was not, and when I returned it was like landing on a different planet.  The music seemed more open…less shallow…poetic, sometimes harsh,  reflecting sea changes in the fabric of the social conscience of American youth.

On the air again…

Nearly a year after leaving the military, I was back in school on the GI bill, working as a janitor for the college to ‘make ends meet,’ when I got an unexpected call from the program manager of WAJR asking if I would be interested in going back on the air.  It was basically the same shift with alternate Saturday nights and Sunday mornings from 6AM until 10AM.  By now, the station had moved to a new building with new ‘on air’ and ‘production’ studios…like getting a new house.

There are few things more powerful than music to return one to another place and another time.  Those years behind the microphone, playing that music, in that studio was one of the more enjoyable things I had done to that point in my life.  It was the first really independent thing I had done…something I had gotten on my own. 

That music, those artists, regardless of what went on in their personal lives, chasing the elusive golden ring of fame and fortune, in a way were my family…a kinship with the rhythm and lyrics that drove them.

Jersey Boys is a film worth seeing, regardless of getting a lukewarm reception from the critics.  If you are in my age bracket, it is more than music – it is a snapshot of a different place and a different time.  Like opening a scrapbook and seeing what you ‘looked like then.’  If you missed that era and want to simply hear music that will make you feel like stepping into the aisle and dancing a little…it is a must.

In the darkened theater as the cast performed this classic music, I found myself quietly singing along to familiar lyrics and seeing in my minds eye flashes of the people and places this music represented.

11:59PM Cue intro: <fade theme music up for 10 seconds><Music fade down for voice over…>

“And so we bring to a close our _____ continuous day of broadcasting….This is Tom Edwards for WAJR 1440 on your radio dial.  Good night.”

<Music up for 10 seconds and fade to silence…>

- ted