I'm not going to get my hopes up just yet, but I may have found myself a new radio station. Technically I have two radio stations; I enjoy both the talk station and the sports talk station. Unfortunately they both lack weekend programming that entertains me so sometimes I have to search for music. I've had problems in the past with the local music radio and that problem hasn't gone away. Then a couple of months ago I was browsing the AM dial and I landed on the Big Band station. Of course! The Big Band station! Why hadn't I thought of it before?
Technically I did think of it before, but that was in 1992. I haven't thought of it lately because when I'm looking for music it never occurs to me to actually search the AM dial. I only browse my presets and for AM I have five stations taking up the twelve presets. I have the talk station, the sports talk station, the secondary sports talk station, the station that broadcasts baseball games, and the college radio station. The channels I like best each have more than one button for convenient access because I have no real need for twelve AM selections. However, I'm hoping the Big Band station will bump me from five to six presets.
One Saturday afternoon I did decide to hit search on the AM band and I quickly landed at the Big Band station. The song they were playing was In My Room by the Beach Boys. Okay, that's not really Big Band but I do know from experience that they play a wide variety of music. The last time I checked them out was in 1992. I was seventeen, fresh out of high school and reeling over the loss of Z-Rock. I needed a new station but when I tried the Big Band station they were playing the Carpenters and that was a little disappointing. I think the Carpenters are good but I wanted to hear Benny Goodman or some other swing product. Maybe something jazzy like the music that Sweet Sue's Society Syncopators played in Some Like It Hot. Instead I got the Carpenters.
This time around I hit the jackpot. After the Beach Boys I heard Frank Sinatra and I got to drive around feeling all hep and with-it. Next up was a song that I thought was Dean Martin but it turned out to be more Frank Sinatra and I realized that I am not hep at all. Lucky for me this station is ready to help me work through my ignorance. Not only did they play two Frank tunes in a row, afterwards the DJ had long stories about the recording sessions that produced those songs and other assorted tidbits. Thank you! That is my kind of radio.
I enjoyed that kind of radio during my jazz phase. When I was in high school I went through a jazz radio phase and I loved their disc jockeys because they didn't just play songs, they educated listeners. They discussed side musicians, revealed the histories of songs, and threw in facts about the artists. For a novice jazz listener that information was invaluable (not that I retained much). Now I am getting the same treatment from Big Band radio. I like that because not only do I learn more, it also tells me that the disc jockeys care about their jobs and probably even love their work. They are helping to preserve music history so I feel it's my duty to be their audience. If they have an audience they can keep working and I will keep learning.
Subsequent attempts to listen to Big Band haven't been as fabulous but I have to keep trying. Since the oldies station has stopped playing music from the fifties I was hoping the Big Band station would pick up the slack. I figured that if they play the Beach Boys they can maybe find some time for Dion and the Belmonts. So far I haven't heard any doo-wop but I have heard quite a bit of music that I would place in a category with Anne Murray. It's been a lot of mellow seventies songs that I don't know. At first I thought, "Bah! Anne Murray?" and then I remembered that Joejung likes Anne Murray and Joejung is cool. Therefore, maybe Anne Murray is cool.
Earlier this week I asked Joejung, "You like Anne Murray, right?" and he answered, "I did when I was six. I was a dork." That wasn't quite the endorsement I was looking for but it's better than nothing. In the meantime I'm wandering in a mellow wasteland and every time I think about changing the channel the DJ will say, "That was Kenny Rogers," and I think, "Oh no! I didn't realize I was listening to Kenny Rogers. I like him." Either that or I will decide to give one more song a chance and they play Vic Damone and that keeps me from leaving. As of now I haven't tuned in for longer than thirty minutes at a time, so whether or not I have a new radio station is still up in the air. I do hope it works out because I could stand to know more about music, and being able to learn for free is an ideal situation.