I hopped in the car to drop Pepperkat off at a friend’s house and return some movie rentals before heading down to (finally) sell the Tele, like I was going to do last month. When I got rolling, I flipped on the radio and had to do three or four double-takes. Could that be Hank Locklin’s Please Help Me I’m Fallin’ coming out of those speakers?
I started listening to WPRK, the radio station of Rollins College months ago when I first heard The Cramps on the way to choir practice on night. I’ve always loved college radio, because it’s so free and unpredictable. Everything else on the Clear Channel dominated spectrum is one of 5 or 6 stock formats.
Anyway, there’s a new show on from 11-to-1 Saturdays that plays old-fashioned country music. After playing Jim Reeves’ He’ll Have to Go, the DJ said something like, “Man, you don’t hear voices like that anymore on the radio. And you know why? Because all the so-called country stations wanna play is fricking Tim McGraw and Kenny Chesney, when they could be playing something like this…” and launched into Ray Price’s Crazy Arms.
Yeah, so maybe I was just overtired from staying up too late, but I actually teared up. Sad, huh?
Tell me they played Patti Page, too.
But tell me, did they play it on a Telecaster?
They also have a show on Thursday nights (or did) that features fifties-era obscure rockabilly vinyl. And UCF has a good jazz station for their radio station. Orlando has Miami (land of all-pop, app-the-time, and one anemic-signalled college station that was obsessed with rap the last time I listened to it) beat hands down in the radio department.
Um, that should be “all-the-time.” I need to go to bed.