More Good Radio Memories and Bad Management

My first program director was a bonehead, and how he ever got into radio as a PD is beyond me.  New music in those days would come in weekly on a large reel, as in reel-to-reel, and you would get 15 to 20 songs per week. The PD would listen to them, decide what to play and tell us to record them off on carts.  Carts were kind of like 8-tracks, for those of you who remember those. However, they were predetermined lengths of tape, and they were 4 tracks.  So if you had a 3-minute song you would record them off on a 3 1/2 minute cart. Sounds simple enough right? Wrong!

Big Dummy, my name for our PD, decided that all country stations sounded alike and he wanted us to be different.  So his brilliant idea was to set up the pitch control to speed things up a touch, so our music would sound more "up-tempo." Huh? Have you ever heard George Strait, "Amarillo By Morning" at mach speed? Big Dummy!

But that's not the biggest music snafu I've dealt with.  I once worked at a station that played classic rock where I was the Operations Manager,  and the owners hated it. One time, one of the owners came in with his normal frown and said, "I bought you a big-time editing machine. Do you know how to use it?"

"Why, yes Mr. Owner, I do!"

"Well, I was listening last night and you were playing some song called 'Freebird.'"

"Yes, Mr. Owner, it's quite the popular song for our kind of audience."

"Well," said Mr. Owner, "I don't like that long guitar solo in it, EDIT IT OUT!"

After I quit laughing at him, respectfully of course, I had to try and convince him that guitar solo was why the song was popular.  Big Dummies! Hope you enjoyed story time.