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Joe
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Since
starting in radio in the mid-60's, I've been heard on thousands of commercials
ranging from local market to natioal network campaigns in the US, Europe,
Asia, and Africa. I have also been featured as the promotional voice of
dozens of TV and radio stations as well as syndicated radio programs in
the US and Europe. My roots are in radio, having started as an on-air
personality:
KVIL
- Dallas, TX. 1965-67
I
got into radio for job security! While in graduate school I made money
to live on as a troubadour, pickin' and singin' at "The Rubyiatt"
coffee house in Dallas, Texas. I never knew, from one day to the next,
if I'd make any money. Until a local radio program director, who hung
out at the coffee house, decided that I was pretty good with an ad
lib and had a good voice. He convinced me to get my FCC 3rd Class
license and set me up with a part time job at KIXL-FM, the Dallas
elevator-music source at the time.
After
a few months of album segues and hourly "rip 'n reads" off the AP
wire, my mentor (the now legendary Charlie Van Dyke) took me on as
a newsman at his station, KVIL. They soon recognized that I was not
serious enough for news, so I was given my own air shift. Midnight
to 6am... the graveyard! I was jocking on a 119,000 watt FM station
at a time when almost nobody owned an FM radio! A few QSL cards, from
Panama to Chicago, helped me imagine that I had an audience
I dropped out of graduate school (a move
that caused my college-professor father to gnash his molars flat!),
and settled into radio. I loved it! And, in the production room, I
began to discover the "theater of the mind" that kicks in when you
start to play with sound. Charlie left KVIL to go back to KLIF.. The
#1 station at the time.. And, under new management, KVIL went bankrupt
in '67, leaving me without a job. Time to go back East.
OK,
so I was married, had a kid in diapers, was a graduate school dropout,
and was out of work. Solution? Move in with the wife's parents! This
meant wedging the cat under the accelerator pedal of an ancient Volvo
wagon and leaving a trail of blue smoke and rusty car parts from Big
D to DC.
Somebody forgot to tell me that you needed
lots of experience to get a job in major-market radio, so I didn't
think it was unusual that I landed the swing shift at WWDC in Silver
Springs, just outside of the nation's capitol. Of course, I was way
over my head! This was the era of "Tiger" Bob Raleigh, Murray The
K, CJ & Company, and other WWDC radio legends.
It didn't take management long to figure
out that I was too green for the big time, and sent me packing. But,
before they did, I got jacked up even higher on what quality audio
production could do with a little imagination. I took that with me
as I sank into the minor market radio training ground.
WHAP
- Hopewell, VA. (Richmond area) 1968-70
I
guess you learn the ropes by finding yourself on them, every so often.
After the heady atmosphere of the major markets the suburb communities
South of Richmond, Va. seemed like professional purgatory. But there
were good people to help me along and small radio stations where every
talent you possess... and some you never knew you had... get put to
the test. I repaired equipment that I'd never seen before, repaired
the toilets when they broke, made sales calls, did remotes, wrote
copy, and did lots and lots of creative production on equipment that
should have been in a museum, even then! And I kept getting kicked
upstairs toward management.
WHAP ("Happy Radio", for God's sake!)
gave me the title of Program Director and all the responsibility that
went with it in lieu of a raise. But one of our sponsors liked the
commercial I wrote and produced for him and decided to pay me to do
all of his commercials... Even to run on the big stations in Richmond!
When he went with an advertising agency he insisted that they use
my voice.
This ushered me through the door of my
first professional recording studio... the old Alpha Audio, the place
that introduced Sonex acoustic foam to the industry. I loved the professional
environment of Alpha, and they liked my voice. I started getting paying
voice work for the first time outside of the radio station!
WSSV
- Petersburg,VA. (Richmond area) 1970-76
Free
lance work began to increase and I moved to another of Richmond's
"bedroom" communities, Petersburg, Va., where I became the Operations
Manager of WSSV/WPLZ, as well as their morning drive-time personality.
Operations Management meant that I got to do most of the dirty work
at license renewal time and got a sampling of more of the pungent
flavors of middle management. But it was a great learning process.
I did a lot of live interviews on the
morning show, and actually started to show up in the big city's ratings
in spite of the fact that the signal was nearly dead by the time it
reached the nearest municipal border to the capitol of the Confederacy.
Free lance work was tough because I worked long hours at the station
and it was a long drive to the studio in Richmond. But I became the
voice of Sears' steel belted radial tire for a while, did national
campaigns for Stihl chain saws, Mail Pouch Chewing Tobacco, public
service announcements for American Forest Industries, and started
to realize that I was pretty good at this voice stuff.
Hearing a rumor that WBT radio, in Charlotte,
NC, was looking for a production manager, I decided it was time to
move back to the major markets if I could. Besides... Production was
what I really liked best about radio. I didn't care about being a
"personality". I sent a blind "to whom it may concern" letter with
enclosed tapes of my work to the Jefferson Pilot powerhouse, and waited.
WBT
- Charlotte, NC 1976-81
The
call was completely unexpected! It had been many weeks since, on a whim,
I sent off my little packet to WBT radio and I had put it completely
out of my mind... Chalking it up to a dead end hunch. ButI found myself
on a plane to Charlotte and discovered that this PD's idea of a job
interview was to spend the afternoon in a topless bar drinking beer,
shooting pool, and playing pinball machines. They had already decided
I had the professional talents and abilities they wanted, based on my
tapes. They just wanted to know whetherI was a relatively normal person,
or a lunatic. I managed to fool them and got the job.
For
the first time in my professional life I started to get some really
intense direction. I was forced to stop relying on my natural talents
and abilities; To stretch to become even better. To be more. It was
frustrating and exhilarating at the same time. But I noticed my free
lance voice work was increasing.
I worked like a red-headded step child,
but grew under the challenges and became very successful as a free lance
talent. When I realized that I was making more money in the few hours
spent in voice work than in my entire radio station salary it was time
to let go of the corporate "security" and try my wings! I walked out
of WBT in 1981 with no job, no regular paycheck, no company benefits,
and no guarantees of any kind. It was time to fly or flop.
....And I've been entirely "free lance"
talent ever since.
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