Big Star tribute featuring Andrew VanWyngarden on vocals (Photo: Alex Greene).
There was an unmistakable feeling of history being made at the Crosstown Theater on Saturday night, as the ultimate Big Star tribute band, featuring original drummer Jody Stephens, took to the stage and delivered a stunning set of power pop classics.
The quintet featured Stephens and latter-day Big Star alum Jon Auer, who performed extensively with Ken Stringfellow and Alex Chilton from 1993 until Chilton’s untimely death in 2010. Filling out the lineup were Pat Sansone (Wilco, Autumn Defense), Chris Stamey (the dB’s), and Mike Mills (R.E.M.). All players brought impressive vocal chops and multi-instrumental abilities to bear on recreating the band’s classic tracks from the 1970s, especially its debut, #1 Record. The show, presented by Mempho for community radio station WYXR’s Raised by Sound Fest, celebrated the 50th anniversary of that album, originally released in June of 1972.
As such, it marked an apotheosis of sorts for the band, which suffered from poor distribution in its heyday. While critics raved about their recorded output, the group never became the phenomenon that their debut’s title seemed to presage. Yet that was forgotten as the band played to a sold-out house last week, with the original arrangements lovingly recreated by the current quintet.
Auer’s Gibson SG launched the proceedings with the opening crunch of “Feel,” and with that, they were off. Sansone and Stamey often wielded Fender guitars, though both could frequently be seen manning the keyboards on stage right, which included a digital Mellotron. Mills, for his part, played bass on most of the tunes, though he relinquished that duty when he sang lead vocal, or, on “In the Street,” played cowbell.
Holding it all down was Stephens’ powerful drumming, true to his original parts nearly roll for roll, and bursting with the energy of a much younger man. Stephens has also come into his own as a singer, as made clear when he sang “Thirteen,” often associated with Chilton’s original vocal, with great delicacy.
Guest vocalists made brief appearances, with MGMT’s Andrew VanWyngarden taking the stratospheric lead on “Give Me Another Chance,” and Greg Cartwright of the Oblivians, Reigning Sound, and other bands, delivering “Try Again.”
After playing #1 Record in full, the group took a short break and returned with other songs from the band’s catalog, including Radio City standouts like “September Gurls,” “Back of a Car,” “You Get What You Deserve,” and “O My Soul.” After launching into the latter, the players seemed stymied in the middle of the song, and ground to a halt. With Auer quipping that they were playing “the single version,” Sansone struck up the band once again and they carried off the tune with aplomb.
Several Chris Bell songs were also featured, much to the crowd’s delight, including “You and Your Sister,” “There was a Light,” and “I Am the Cosmos.” Tracks from Third/Sister Lovers were also featured, including “Jesus Christ,” “Thank You Friends,” and an impassioned vocal on “Nighttime” by Stamey. Stephens and Auer also sang a song they co-wrote for the latter-day band’s In Space album, “February’s Quiet.” Generally, the band hit their marks expertly throughout the show: the guitars rocked or lilted, as needed, the vocal harmonies soared, and the grooves grooved.
The crowd was loath to let the band leave, standing for multiple encores. While many Memphis albums from 1972 are surely deserving of such an anniversary show, the fact that this one took place stands as a testament to the band’s panache and power, half a century later.
One striking thing about WYXR, a relative newcomer to the Memphis community radio game, is the synergy it’s been able to develop with its partners: The Daily Memphian, the University of Memphis, and Crosstown Concourse. Their ties to the latter really pay off when it comes to public happenings, and this coming weekend epitomizes that. The inaugural Raised By Sound Music Festival, presented by MEMPHO, will make use of nearly all the spaces available at the Concourse.
It begins Saturday with an afternoon of free music, in both the central atrium and Crosstown Brewing Company. Listeners can check out a remarkably eclectic lineup that reflects the station’s commitment to diversity. The atrium will feature Mak Ro (1:30), Whelk Stall (2:20), and Erin Rae (6:30), while Crosstown Brewing will host Lemon’s (3:10), Doll McCoy (4:00), Idi X Teco (4:50), and Nots (5:40).
But the highlight is undoubtedly an example of WYXR not only reaching across genres, but deep into history as well: a celebration of the 50th Anniversary of Big Star’s #1 Record in Crosstown Theater, with an all-star version of the band led by founding member Jody Stephens. Beyond that, there’s still more happening in The Green Room, where MGMT’s Andrew VanWyngarden and Bodywerk will DJ an after-party.
Big Star’s appearance will be a crowning moment in the band’s history, which began in 1971 with the high hopes, ambitions, and talents of founders Chris Bell, Alex Chilton, Andy Hummel, and Jody Stephens, but didn’t include large audiences or record sales — at the time. Now, of course, the band’s onetime cult status is recognized as the inspiration for many bands that came after, including R.E.M. and the Replacements.
The ultimate sign of their renaissance, long after Bell’s tragic death in 1978, was the version of the band led by Chilton that began playing in 1993, featuring Stephens and erstwhile Posies Jon Auer and Ken Stringfellow. Since Chilton’s death in 2010 (followed that same year by Hummel’s passing), lone survivor Stephens has curated a series of tribute shows, typically honoring Big Star’s Third/Sister Lovers album, but including other songs from the band’s catalog, built around a large, rotating cast of talents that often included orchestral players.
This time around, the revival of Big Star will bring it back to it’s founding principle: a tight, sparse rock band with an ear for dynamic arrangements, riffs, and vocal harmonies. Pared down to a quintet featuring Stephens, Auer, Mike Mills of R.E.M., Pat Sansone of Wilco, and Chris Stamey of the dB’s, this iteration of Big Star will likely rock harder than any version of the group since Chilton’s death.
To get a sense of how this quintet is approaching #1 Record‘s 50th Anniversary show, I reached Jody Stephens in Athens, Georgia, where he was waiting to play later that night. The group is taking the anniversary show on the road, but for Stephens, playing Memphis is ground zero.
Memphis Flyer:You’re playing Athens tonight. Big Star really had an impact down there, very early on.
Jody Stephens: Yeah, Mike Mills and Peter Buck were the first two musicians that had some popularity to start talking about Big Star. And then of course there were the Replacements and several others. But what initiated that was, first of all, John Fry was the genius behind engineering and mixing the Big Star records. So they sounded amazing. But John King made sure they got into the hands of all the rock writers. And he was really effective at that. And because he was able to do that at the rock writers convention, people who were into music, especially pop rock or alternative music, at least knew who Big Star was. The whole reason we can play these dates, celebrating #1 Record‘s 50th Anniversary is that we had a lot of things going for us in the early ’70s. Now, the music’s had an impact on us all. And then there are the communities that gather for these shows. And the various lineups we’ve had. This one in particular: Mike Mills, Pat Sansone, Chris Stamey, Jon Auer, and myself — being able to get out and play these shows means a lot to us.
I remember the sense of discovery I felt when a friend first played me #1 Record, back in our twenties. It felt like you were going into a parallel universe with a whole other body of radio hits. Every song was just a gem, so finely crafted, it sounded like the LP was meant to be a hit.
Thanks! That’s a good way to put it. A parallel universe!
I guess it was a hit, just in very slow motion.
Yeah. I’m glad we did that record early on in my life, or I wouldn’t be around to celebrate its 50th Anniversary. Or at least be capable of playing. You know, I just turned 70, and I don’t give up playing because I’d give up this community of people.
It must feel great to be doing these songs live. I suppose it’s the first time some of them will be performed live?
We’re doing “Life is White” now, and that was never performed live by Big Star. The Lemon Twigs joined us when we played the Wild Honey Foundation concert in Los Angeles, and they’re joining us again in Jersey City. And that’s kind of what prompted our doing “Life is White,” but we’ll be doing it in Memphis now, just as a five piece. Also “There was a Light,” and things like “Try Again.”
You’ve done several as part of the Big Star’s Third concerts, correct? But not all of #1 Record.
Yeah, there are a bunch of new ones. All of these people treat these songs with great care and great feel. Chris Stamey has been brilliant in picking people that come with the right spirit and feel for this music.
This current quintet looks like the best ensemble you’ve had yet.
What we’re doing with a five piece rock band is something I’ve been wanting to do for a while. And it just happens to make it all more feasible. It’s hard to take ten people on the road, with string sections and brass sections, and even break even. But that’s the other cool thing: everybody comes to this with a heart to do it. Just to do it. So it’s cool. I’m excited about playing Memphis with this line up.
I suppose it’s freeing to be a more stripped-down rock band again, just as it all started. There’s nothing like a small rock band to rock a little harder.
It’s true — you can’t hide! There aren’t 18-20 people onstage, so what you do becomes a lot more pronounced and featured.
I imagine that it will be pretty emotional, bringing these songs to life in Memphis.
Yeah, it is. There are some wonderful people in Memphis, and we’ve had a lot of support over the years. We were lucky. Sometimes it’s hard for local bands to get support, locally. But we’ve always had a lot of support in Memphis, and the audience for Big Star has certainly grown over the years. It feels good. Memphis is home, and it’s really nice to be embraced by your home.
As a performer, with so much of the past wrapped up in these songs, is the memory of band mates and friends who have passed away a distraction?
It is from time to time. It’s a nice one. I know on “The India Song,” sometimes I get a little emotional, to the point of having to look away for a second. Because Andy was … I’d known Andy since the seventh grade, and I just had this kinship with Andy all those years. I was closer to Andy than Chris and Alex. I always admired him. So singing “The India Song” and certainly “Way Out West,” that Andy wrote too, yeah, it can get emotional.
I believe you sang “Way Out West” on the record. Did Andy sing “The India Song”?
Yeah, Andy sang it with Alex. There are two voices on “The India Song,” and it could be that Andy’s is the primary voice. And you know what, we might even have the multitrack of that. I know Chris [Bell] erased the multitracks for most of #1 Record. But I think “The India Song” may have escaped. But that’s another story! [laughs]. It got to the point where, on one of our tape boxes someone wrote something like, “Ten songs conveniently grouped for bulk erasure.” That was probably John Fry, or maybe Andy.
Like a little dig at Chris?
Yeah.
I suppose this quintet is playing the whole album, and then some.
We are. Things from Radio City, a couple from Third, and some of Chris’ songs. “I Got Kinda Lost,” “There Was a Light,” “Fight at the Table,” I think. Jon Auer will sing “I Am the Cosmos.” Chris did some great rock and roll songs. “Fight at the Table,” with Jim Dickinson on piano on that recording, is just raucous. Especially if you focus on Jim’s piano playing. He tore it up.
Big Star had some real rockers, right out of the gate. It was cool to see that the title for this tour is Don’t Lie to Me. It wasn’t one of the bigger hits. You’re highlighting a real rocker.
It’s kind of an action phrase, really. Chris Stamey asked me, “What do you want to call this tour?” And I thought about it and said “Don’t Lie to Me.” Because it’s a declarative statement. There’s no deep, profound message to it, it’s just declarative.
In a sense, “Don’t Lie to Me” really captures the sort of fearless vulnerability and radical honesty of the original Big Star aesthetic.
It’s true. It definitely does. That was the thing. Alex and Chris and Andy were all writing from that perspective. In an honest way, they were pouring out their feelings. It’s a reflection of where they were in their lives. And that’s pretty key to connecting with people.
I’m really looking forward to the harmony singing with this quintet. Everyone in the group has great vocal chops.
Well, we’ll have a couple of dates under our belt by Saturday, as a five piece. And you know the cool thing about starting in Athens is, we’re rehearsing at the R.E.M. building in downtown Athens. You walk in the space and… it was like the incubator for all those R.E.M. records. All the time and thought and creative moments that must have taken place in that space… it’s pretty inspirational. It’s a lot like going into Ardent and practicing and recording.
While rehearsing, have you had any drop-ins? Like Peter Buck jamming?
Peter lives in Portland, as far as I know. So not Peter, but Bill Barry will be coming around today. I’d love for him to sit in on drums. I know he’s gonna sit in on cowbell for “In the Street.”
That’s the ultimate ‘more cowbell’ song.
Yes. It is.
Working with WYXR was what caused this show to happen. What does WYXR mean to you?
WYXR and Robby, Kate, and Jared have been so supportive and accommodating over Big Star shows, and Those Pretty Wrongs, my duo with Luther Russell. That continued hometown support really initiated this tour. Without that Memphis show being the anchor, I don’t know that these other shows would’ve happened. So I’m very grateful for that.
When Wilco take the stage at Mempho Fest on Sunday, they’ll be returning to a kind of spiritual center for the band. As the band’s multi-instrumentalist Pat Sansone reflects, “How can you do what we do and not have a crush on Memphis? Whether you’re pulling from early rock and roll, or from Big Star, or Memphis soul and Stax — whatever it is, there’s gonna be a thread that leads back to Memphis, somehow. I mean the first Wilco record was done at Easley-McCain Studios!”
Wilco’s Mempho appearance will kick off another round of two- to three-week jaunts the band has been making since spring, in an ongoing tour marked by its balance between large halls and smaller rock clubs. “Part of the band’s philosophy is to bring it to the people,” says Sansone. “Just recently we played Red Rocks, and then a week later we played a 1,300 seat rock club in Bozeman, Montana. And that little club show ended up being one of our favorite shows of the year. We try to make it approachable. It’s the nature of our band — we’ve got little pockets all over the place.”
These days, the band will be premiering songs from their latest album, Cruel Country, an album they backed into rather unexpectedly. “As we’ve been working on lots of tracks over the last couple of years, it seemed like we were making two records simultaneously,” Sansone explains. “One batch of songs had a country flavor and was more acoustic, and another batch was more the art pop side of Wilco. We were going to focus more on the art pop, but as we were getting close to our festival we do every two years in North Adams, Massachusetts, the Solid Sound Festival, it occurred to Jeff and to us that we had this country/folky body of work that was not far from being finished, so why not put the finishing touches on it, and offer it to our fans at the festival? Kind of as a gift for coming to the event. But as we started digging into these tracks and putting the finishing touches on them, it became apparent that, ‘Oh, this is our next album!’ This is a significant piece of work for us. So it wasn’t really planned to be the next official Wilco record until just weeks before it was released.”
And as for the live show, Sansone says “we’ve been playing a handful of the new songs in the set. And then a grab bag of stuff over the years. There’s a lot of material to choose from at this point! But we try to represent the different records of the band’s life.”
Pat Sansone (Credit: Sansonica, Inc.)
After their Mempho appearance, the band will make a slight detour: “We’re going to do an afternoon set at the festival,” says Sansone, “and then we’re gonna run over to Crosstown with some guitars and a snare drum and do two or three songs and have a chat on [community radio station] WYXR. I really want to show the rest of the guys what’s happening at Crosstown. I think they’ll be blown away.”
Beyond having his own program on WYXR, 91.7 FM, Sansone has seen Crosstown evolve and blossom since the earliest days of its renovation. “It all started with my friendship with [WYXR executive director] Robby Grant. I was involved in the Mellotron Variations project with him, and spending time at the Crosstown Concourse because of that. And I got to know Winston Eggleston. But I remember before Crosstown was even completed, we were in town for a Wilco show, and Robby picked me up to show me the building as they were developing it. And a couple years later, we performed the Mellotron Variations there. So Robby kept me in the loop as he was developing the ideas for WYXR, and when it became a reality, he asked me if I’d like to do a show, and I said I’d love to. There’s a radio station in Boston that I really love, WUMV, and I turned Robby onto it, and we’d trade other internet radio stuff. So we shared this love of radio as a medium.”
Having a radio show in the Bluff City brings things full circle for Sansone, who’s interest in Memphis far predates Wilco. “I grew up just hours away, in Meridian, Mississippi,” he says, “and I have an aunt and uncle and some cousins in Memphis, so it’s just always been a part of my life. Memphis was the big city. From a very early age, I felt the gravitational musical pull of Memphis. And when I was in my teens, and obsessed with the Beatles, I discovered Big Star and heard those half Southern/half English accents, and realized that this music had been made in Memphis, a place I had actually been to, I was hooked! There was no turning back.”
Wilco will appear at Mempho Fest on Sunday, October 2nd, 4:20 p.m., followed by a live appearance on WYXR 91.7 FM from 7-8 p.m.
(Credit WYXR) Real Talk Memphis With Chip Washington host Chip Washington inside the WYXR studio.
Chip Washington just can’t seem to stray too far from a camera or microphone.
He’s a former television news reporter and anchor with stints in Meridian, Mississippi, Jackson, Mississippi, Jackson, Tennessee, and in Memphis at Fox13 and WMCTV. In total, he spent more than 20 years in front of a camera.
He moved from in front of the camera (but not far from them) as a public information officer, a sort of liaison between government agencies and the press, for the Jackson Mississippi Police Department and the Shelby County Sheriff’s Office. Since July 2020, Washington has been the media’s point person for the Shelby County Health Department’s COVID-19 Response Team.
But the draw to broadcast called to him again back in 2019 with the opportunity to do a radio talk show on WMQM 1600 AM. Washington’s voice got a boost last year when he was invited to bring his show to the newly opened airwaves of WYXR 91.7 FM.
Since then, Real Talk With Chip Washington has been a platform of on-air conversation for a variety of guests talking about a variety of issues like police matters, COVID-19, and the Memphis airport.
We caught up with Washington to talk about his job and his show. — Toby Sells
Memphis Flyer: For many of us out there, the pandemic kind of seems to be winding down. What’s it like doing your job now?
Chip Washington: The city is, basically, over the vaccines. Although, the health department will get it back at some point. It’s still busy. Obviously, things are winding down. You see some of the bigger [vaccine points of distribution] are starting to close down. The vaccination process, while it is ongoing, it is slowing down.
It’s always a challenge to be continually and perpetually putting out the message that COVID, while it’s drastically slower, is still among us. Variants out there are still affecting our young people and that’s why it’s important for the population of those 12 to 15 years old get vaccinated.
MF: I was scrolling through archive episodes of your show and you’ve had some high-profile people on there: Pat Halloran, former president and CEO of The Orpheum Theater; Bobby O’Jay, radio veteran; Mike Rallings, former director of the Memphis Police Department; Dr. Steve Threlkeld, infectious disease expert, and many more.
CW: I’m blessed for that. You just have to call and find out if they want to come on. They have to answer the phone and they have to say, “yes.”
I hope that, after the hour is up, people can say “man, that was a really informative show. I really learned some things. That’s my focus and what inspired me to get behind the microphone.
MF: Well, just looking at the archives and, given your background in journalism, the show is bound to be informative.
CW: I wanted to make it conversational and to make it interesting. I really wanted to showcase programs or businesses that, maybe, people hadn’t heard about but they’d done very good work. I’m all about trying to be uplifting and help our people. This is a platform to allow folks to come on and talk a few minutes to. … showcase what they do.
If you enjoy any sort of music or news that’s slightly off the beaten path, you may ultimately have a bit of Scotch tape to thank for its availability on the radio. Back in 1967, when President Lyndon Johnson was about to sign the Public Broadcasting Act into law, the language was being debated up to the last minute, including the use of the word “radio.” In Listener Supported: The Culture and History of Public Radio, author Jack Mitchell describes how the words “and radio” had been removed from the document only days before heading to Johnson’s desk. At the last minute, the bill’s author used tape to add the two words back in, thus laying the foundation for the Corporation for Public Broadcasting, including National Public Radio and its nearly 50-year legacy of local affiliates.
Not long after that, in the mid-1970s, there was an explosion of independent, listener-supported community stations. And since then, public (NPR-affiliated) and community (volunteer) radio stations have offered the best alternatives to commercial music and news radio. For all the touting of “choices” offered by market-driven institutions, commercial broadcasting can take on a dispiriting sameness. As brilliant as pop culture may be at times, let’s face it: A city’s creative life depends on art that rises above the demographic- and market-driven ethos of commercial media.
Memphis might have been very different if nonprofit radio had not taken root here. But take root it did, and now the city boasts four non-commercial stations that are driven and supported by their listeners. April is an especially auspicious time to honor that legacy, it being the month when two of our most venerable stations were founded. Here’s a look at the state of non-commercial Memphis radio today.
Darel Snodgrass and Kacky Walton show off their NPR temporary tattoos. (Photo:courtesy of Darel Snodgrass)
WKNO (91.1 FM): The Mother of Mid-South Public Radio
“In April of next year, the station’s going to be 50 years old,” says Darel Snodgrass, director of radio at WKNO-FM. “We went on in April of ’72, which was only like three months after NPR was formed. The only program they had was All Things Considered, so all the rest of the time was filled with classical music.”
As Snodgrass points out, that twin commitment to both news and music has defined WKNO ever since. “There are not many stations that do what we do anymore, that have programming that mixes news and classical music. Most stations have added HD channels and split it, with all news on one and all classical on the other. There are only about five or six stations in the country that do what we do, and mix them. It makes us kind of unique.”
Though one might imagine that a kind of homogeneity pervades NPR stations across the country, there’s actually a lot of diversity among them. For one, stations differ radically in the degree to which they weave local news into the content of national programs. Snodgrass is justifiably proud of WKNO’s commitment to Mid-South news. “Doing local news is hard. It’s a lot of work, and we’ve got people now who do wonderful work. That’s one of the things I’ve been so pleased with over the last 10 years: the growth in our local news reporting.”
But it’s no surprise that the onetime music major and current music host is even more proud of the station’s commitment to his preferred art. As he explains, it is not just music in the abstract, but music as curated by devoted DJs in real time.
“This [NPR] station is unique in that we individually program our own shows. We pick our own music. This just doesn’t happen anymore. Even other classical music stations have a program director who’s telling them what to play. And of course commercial stations are all heavily programmed, mostly from New York and Los Angeles. So Kacky [Walton] and I consider ourselves to be extremely lucky. We can use that freedom to respond to things. If it’s a gloomy, rainy day, we can play something uplifting.We can react to things both locally and nationally, which a lot of people just don’t get to do. It’s kind of amazing, honestly.”
Kacky Walton, the station’s music coordinator and other music host, agrees. “You can respond to events,” she says. “The best example was after September 11, 2001. We just had news for I don’t know how many days. But when we finally went back to music, there was still that feeling of sadness, and you had to be really mindful of playing something with the appropriate mood to it. It was difficult, but at the same time, I discovered a lot of music that I hadn’t really played before.”
This was especially true as the lockdown conditions of the pandemic set in last year. Radio took on a new importance in people’s lives. “In hard times, radio gives you a sense of community,” Snodgrass says. “We heard a lot from folks who were listening to a lot of classical music. They may have previously been going to their jobs every day. Now they’re at home, listening to classical music, because it’s a haven, it’s a refuge. It provides a sense of security and continuity. These are pieces that have been around, in some cases, for hundreds of years. And they’re still there.”
WKNO was one of the first affiliates to join the NPR family, benefiting from the largess of the Corporation for Public Broadcasting, but not long after its launch, there arose an alternative take on nonprofit radio in the heart of Midtown. In fact, for many years, it was only in Midtown, because the station’s 10-watt broadcast couldn’t reach any farther.
“I think I came to the station in 1978, two years after it went on the air,” recalls Judy Dorsey, the longtime station manager for WEVL. “I was strictly a volunteer. I was just interested in it. I’d read about it in the paper and couldn’t believe we had something like this in Memphis. Granted, it was only 10 watts. You could only hear it in certain areas of Midtown. But just the fact that it was there and people were doing this was very exciting to me. And when I first went down to the house where it was located, I knew, ‘Here’s my people. I found ’em.’”
That esprit de corps fueled much of the counterculture, of course, including the little station that could. “There were a lot of what you might call hippies and assorted musicians. They were drawn to it almost immediately. And curious people like me, people who liked oddball music that wasn’t being heard.” As with the hippies that started the Memphis Country Blues Festival, there was an inclusiveness to the WEVL volunteers’ ethos that lent itself to diversity.
Judy Dorsey (Photo: Karen Pulfer Focht)
“I remember the first time I heard a live performance on the air,” Dorsey recalls. “I think it was [local blues legends] the Fieldstones. They played live on there several times, because we had connections with them. And they had what they called a Blues-a-thon. And I remember opening the door and there was Rufus Thomas up at the top of the stairs, doing the Funky Chicken!
“That was the first night that Dee ‘Cap’n Pete’ Henderson ever came to the station. He lived way over in Box Town, and had gone to Radio Shack and bought a big ol’ antenna, and stuck it up on his roof, just so he could hear the Blues-a-thon, because he’d read about it in The Commercial Appeal. Then he called the DJ on the air and the guy told him, ‘Come on down here! You know more about this stuff than I do!’ So he came down.” That encounter led to the late Cap’n Pete becoming one of the station’s preeminent blues DJs, whose shows are still rebroadcast to this day.
Homemade antennas and chance encounters capture the spirit of WEVL well, which has become a local institution on the strength of its do-it-yourself attitude. It persisted even as the station outgrew its original wattage in 1986. “Our first transmitter building, when we went back on the air in ’86, was all built with donated materials and volunteer labor. I don’t think we paid for anything out there,” says Dorsey.
The same personal commitment, and reliance on local pledges, has helped WEVL weather the cycles of funding and attrition. The Carter years were a good time to begin. “You had a lot of little 10-watt stations starting up at the same time as WEVL. A lot of them were born in that part of the 1970s. We’re charter members of the National Federation of Community Broadcasters — we were some of the first people to join it. Our first station manager and program director were getting paid through grant money from the federal government, and when the grant money ran out, that’s when they left. There were all kinds of different grants in those days. When all that stopped, that was a bad time. It was Reagan, he ruined everything. That was sort of a dark era, because we didn’t have any money to pay anybody. There was a period where it was strictly volunteers. It was a bit chaotic.”
But sometimes you can make chaos work for you, as WEVL’s longevity bears out. Today, they carry on much as before, still using the homemade record shelves made years ago, the epitome of listener-supported radio, with last year’s mid-pandemic pledge drive being one of the station’s most successful ever.
Marcella’s Memphis Soul Stew hostess Marcella Simien (Photo: Courtesy of Tommy Warren)
WYPL (89.3): Serving the Underserved, Dishing Out Memphis Magic
Though WEVL’s original 10 watts may have been rather weak, a station now using one of the region’s most powerful transmitters had even more humble beginnings. “We are now a 100,000-watt station, covering a 75-mile radius from the tower in West Memphis. That tower was actually donated to the library in 1997, and its power and size is a bit of overkill, but that’s the situation we’re in.” So reflects Tommy Warren, broadcast manager for WYPL, the station based in the basement of the Benjamin L. Hooks Central Library.
Yet the station still retains its original mission of offering the vision-impaired and others readings of current newspapers, magazines, and books — one of only two such stations in the country. “It started out in 1978 as a ham radio kind of situation,” says Warren. “I am only the second radio manager here since then. Before me, there was a manager who was himself vision-impaired. He organized volunteers, and they’d sit in a little booth and read, and you had to have a ham radio at home to pick it up. It operated like that for about 15 years.”
When Warren came on board, he added an element to the readings by tapping into the huge digital archive of Memphis music in the library system. That has seen its audience increase dramatically, especially overseas, where the station can be heard online.
“We started doing all the music shows five or six years ago. Now we’re bringing in DJs like Randy Haspel and Lahna Deering and Barbara Blue. People who actually play Memphis music also come in here and produce shows.”
The new emphasis on music has made WYPL a real player on the community radio scene, although they, unlike the other stations mentioned here, do not depend on public donations. “Because we’re paid for by the city of Memphis, we feel there’s an obligation that we have to live up to. Especially through COVID. When there are emergencies, people turn to over-the-air radio for their first source of information.”
Jared “Jay B” Boyd, Shelby McCall, and Robby Grant (Photo: Jamie Harmon)
WYXR (91.7 FM): The New Kids on the Block
Yet another player in the nonprofit world of the airwaves arrived right in the middle of the pandemic lockdown last year, but the timing does not appear to have slowed its roll. Its frequency was already familiar to Memphians, having been where the University of Memphis’ station, WUMR, had lived on the dial for decades. But sometime in 2019, the U of M decided the jazz-only format and station management needed a change of course.
Robby Grant, executive director of WYXR, describes the process as an evolution of goals. “The University of Memphis knew they wanted to do something different with the radio station. They had an existing relationship with the Daily Memphian, and reached out to them, but the folks at the Daily Memphian said, ‘We don’t want to run an entire radio station.’ So they approached the Crosstown Concourse. The U of M wanted to get more connected with the community, so this was another way for them to reach outside of their campus. It made sense for it to be a partnership.”
For Grant, who has a background in software and web development, a crucial element was also making the most of digital technology to archive every show put on the air, which community stations in other cities have implemented. But once that infrastructure was in place, the shows themselves had to be created. (Including Flyer Radio, a show produced by Flyer staff featuring news, interviews, and Memphis music, and airing every Friday at noon.)
“They brought me in,” he says, “and I brought in Jay B [program director Jared Boyd] soon thereafter to really shape the programming. I had some ideas. I knew free-form radio allows a lot of flexibility for the community to be involved. I wanted some talk programming. I felt like that was missing. There’s some talk programming on a national level, but I thought there was a way to elevate more of the community talk. The Daily Memphian has their news part of it. So I was working on the nuts and bolts, bringing that together, getting agreements in place. When Jay B came on, we hit the ground running with the programming. We built on our networks, along with the applications process, to find DJs.”
By the time of their debut broadcast on October 5th of last year, they had 70 volunteer DJs, arguably with a greater programming diversity than any other station in the country. But it felt a bit like a minefield. As Boyd explains, “Frankly, moving from WUMR’s jazz-lover focus to a new format, a free-form radio station, was going to be a hard change for a lot of people, no matter what our content was. We were taking something away from the community that was extremely needed, in some people’s eyes. And that can be rough.”
Nonetheless, Boyd was determined to raise the stakes of the diverse programming. “People may not expect to hear community radio in Memphis, in the South, that has a space for hip-hop, house music, or punk. But the reality of Memphis is that those people are as much if not more representative of our community than the genres most people think of when they consider community radio. So how and why could we be representative of the community if we’re not representative of those people?
“And there are still places where we haven’t been able to find the right person, who understands what we do, and can present to their segment of the community. Like the Latinx community. But also the Vietnamese community and the Chinese and Japanese and Ethiopian and Somalian and Kenyan communities. There’s tons of cultures who pair their origins with the identity of being American and being a Memphian. But there are only 24 hours in a day, so we have to be creative about how to bring everybody on.”
Though there are more ambitious plans ahead, Boyd feels that the mix WYXR has settled on passes one key test, perhaps the toughest test of all: “The feedback we’ve been getting is that people don’t know how to explain what we do, except that it just feels and sounds like Memphis,” he says. “I wanted to lead with that.”
Editor’s Note: This month, WKNO, WEVL, and WYXR all have their seasonal pledge drives. We urge you to tune in and give generously.
