It’s been nearly a year since two Nashville radio stations joined a growing number of nationwide outlets programming “old-school” R&B. This format, mainly featuring R&B acts from the ’60s and ’70s, has grown increasingly popular as more and more adults loose touch with newer styles like urban and hip-hop.
WGFX-104.5 FM entered the R&B oldies arena last December, when the station switched from a rock oldies format. It was joined shortly thereafter by WNPL-106.7 FM, which had abandoned its contemporary rock programming. But even if there’s some stylistic similarity between these stations, there are sizable differences in strategy and approach.
WGFX calls its format “Groovin’ Oldies” and aims for the middle ground between pop and R&B. “All the songs that we play were Billboard hits, and most of them crossed over to pop,” says Redd Kidd, senior program director for Dick Broadcasting, which also owns WKDF-103.3 FM. “We’re not as urban-oriented in our appeal, though we’re doing plenty of great songs. You could say we’re not quite as purist.”
WNPL-FM is more clearly targeting a black audience, billing itself as “your R&B oldies station.” As Jim Kennedy, operations manager for WNPL and sister station WQQK-92.1 FM, explains, “We’re doing something that’s been missing from this market, and that’s programming for the adult African American audience. You won’t hear any disco or Donna Summer on our station.”
During a typical broadcast day, listeners will probably hear The Temptations, Otis Redding, Aretha Franklin, or Diana Ross on both stations. But WGFX might include Merilee Rush or K.C. & The Sunshine Band, while WNPL will intersperse Cameo or Slave or Tom Browne. Both stations have thus far shunned syndicated fare and canned programming in favor of personality jocks and live shows, and each stresses audience research and interaction.
“We did lots and lots of research before we made this change,” says WGFX’s Kidd. “We continue to stress interactive programming; we’ve added shows at lunchtime and late night where listeners can either call in and contribute or get us online. We felt it was important to not just be a jukebox but to make a continuous impact and impression within the listening community. In my view, we have the best sounding example of the [R&B] format on the air in this market.”
Of course, WNPL’s operations manager feels much the same way about his station. “From the response that we’ve gotten, I think our audience truly enjoys what we’re doing,” Kennedy says. “When we started, we didn’t have any disc jockeys, but we worked hard and moved quickly to get people on the air we felt were at home with what we were doing. I feel we’re doing with this format and through our research for African American adults what our other station [WQQK] does for the younger audience. As far as I’m concerned, there’s not really anyone else in this market doing what we’re doing.”
While Kennedy says WNPL is considering adding some elements of the “smooth” jazz format recently abandoned by WJZC-101.1 FM, WGFX has already branched out in another direction entirely: It’s the flagship station for the Tennessee Titans, a connection that some in the radio and sports communities thought the station might jettison last year when it switched formats.
Neither frequency has thus far challenged ratings leaders like WQQK-FM, but both Kidd and Kennedy say their stations are growing and making solid improvements. Though it’s still too early to predict their ultimate fate, one thing’s for sure: Old-school R&B fans have plenty of options these days. Besides these two stations, there are WRVU-91.1 FM’s exquisite Wednesday-afternoon “Soulsville” broadcast and Morgan Babb’s maverick WMDB-880 AM, which offers a wide range of soul music from the ’60s through the ’90s.
—Ron Wynn
All that jazz
It’s hard to say if any tears were shed last month when AMFM Inc.’s WJZC-101.1 FM opted to change from its smooth-jazz format to contemporary Christian music. But what will be missed is the weekly syndicated program “The Legends of Jazz,” hosted by Ramsey Lewis. The Sunday-night show was an oasis in an otherwise bereft programming desert, with Lewis playing superb classic jazz dates and offering succinct, detailed analysis. While Murfreesboro’s WMOT-89.5 FM already boasts the superb nightly “Jazz With Bob Parloca” show, the station would be wise to consider adding Lewis’ program. It might make an already formidable lineup even stronger.
—Ron Wynn
A sly dog's day
Tarheel transplant Phil Lee and his band the Sly Dogs have been tearing it up in clubs around town ever since they moved to Nashville four years ago. But it’s taken a long time for Lee’s first-rate Richard Bennett-produced solo LP to see the light of day. That changes on Jan. 18, when Shanachie will release The Mighty King of Love, a high-spirited mess-around that connects the dots between Blonde on Blonde and the Sir Douglas Quintet’s Together After Five.
Until then, Phil-o-philes can check out Lee’s remake of “I Got Stripes” on Cash on Delivery, a Johnny Cash tribute album on the CMH label. The disc also boasts American Indian activist Russell Means on an apocalyptic version of “Ballad of Ira Hayes,” L.A. hard-core band ADZ thrashing their way through “Jackson,” and Motor City MC Wayne Kramer breaking down “One Piece of a Time.”
—Bill Friskics-Warren
Sensorship
Trey Mitchell, cofounder of the local underground-arts magazine Sensored, has a new listing to his résumé in addition to editor, publisher, and photographer: promoter. With the magazine just celebrating its first year around town, Mitchell has taken the opportunity to start booking weekly shows every Wednesday at Jody’s Bar Car. Previous shows have featured DC roots band Last Train Home, Park Ellis, and Mancy A’lan Kane, and next Wednesday’s show features singer/songwriters Melanie Thom and Dave Berg.
“We’re trying to focus on smaller projects at first,” says Mitchell, who publishes Sensored out of his apartment. (He’s in the same apartment house as InReview’s “Under Nashville” columnist Heather Nelson, which makes it something of a bohemian media compound.) But the shows are only part of his broader ambitions, which include art openings and, later in December, a Green Room production of A Christmas Carol starring actor Mark Cabus.
Why leap into the fray? With Sensored picking up some name recognition and ads, Mitchell says he hopes to use its influence to make Nashville less of a “five-year town” for the arts. Watch for Sensored’s first-anniversary issue at Tower Records, Bongo Java, and other locations.
—Jim Ridley
This year's model
Elvis Costello has left the Ryman, but at his astonishing show Oct. 27 he gave the city a gift: a stunning new song he’d finished that afternoon, which he played for the very first time on the Ryman’s stage. Called “Heart-Shaped Bruise,” it’s apparently part of a song cycle called The Delivery Man, but it definitely stands alone—no exaggeration, it’s the prettiest country ballad we’ve heard in Nashville all year, maybe longer. Indeed, all the new songs Costello played here—the concert opener “Alibi Factory,” “You Lie Sweetly,” the ingenious “45,” and a dramatic tune called “Suspect My Tears”—had the lyric directness and melodic punch of instant keepers.
Picking a favorite moment from the show’s 37 songs and four encores is like choosing a favorite child, but the ending was undeniably magical: Costello singing “Couldn’t Call It Unexpected No. 4” without a microphone on the Ryman’s apron, accompanied only by Steve Nieve’s piano and a thousand people humming in the dark. But throughout the show, he played the mic and the Ryman’s vaunted acoustics like an instrument, using space and silence to staggering effect. At one point, before his final encore, he actually blessed the Ryman’s stage. That was only fair: It certainly blessed him.
The last word on the show goes to Lifeboy’s William Tyler, who said in the lobby, “I’ve waited all my life for this.”
—Jim Ridley
Elliptical dispatches: Local singer-songwriter Joe Nolan has three tracks from his new Plain Jane LP in the top 40 on MP3.com’s folk-rock chart—including one cut, “San Francisco Girl,” at No. 5. Help Joe get to No. 1 by requesting the track; you can access the page through his Web site, www.joenolan.com....
Mark your calendars for a remarkable Anhedonia Presents show at the Belcourt Cinema Dec. 11: Josh Rouse, Lambchop, Lullabye for the Working Class, and a special appearance by Vic Chesnutt. No word yet on whether Rouse and Lambchop’s Kurt Wagner will perform any tunes off their outstanding new Slow River/Rykodisc collaborative EP Chester....
Don Walser, the Pavarotti of the Plains, saw his well-deserved Grand Ole Opry debut Oct. 30 go off without a hitch—almost. In his hotel parking lot after the show, the exuberant Texas yodeling king stumbled and fell, chipping his elbow and cracking his ribs. Ever the trooper, Walser refused to cancel his Sutler gig Halloween night, playing the show in a cast....
Speaking of The Sutler, the Franklin Road nightspot had a surprise guest show up Oct. 29 at its “Left Off the Dial” low-power radio benefit with Tommy Womack and the Sovines: former Minutemen/fIREHOSE bassist Mike Watt, who was playing a solo Exit/In gig across town later that night. A champion of the low-power radio movement, Watt made an impassioned (and from all reports, impressive) pitch for the cause before the show. For more info on low-power radio, check out http://www.lowpowerradio.org.
By the way, call off the hunt—the petition full of signatures finally turned up....
