How Getting Songs On The Radio Has Changed and Missing The Oldies
I want to start today with a "shout out" to Mrs. Baumann, Mrs. Conroy, and Ms. Ojala, who were all teachers I had at various stages of my education career that all scolded me for having bad study habits and never doing my homework. Well, my homework is a little better these days. And, while doing some this morning I see that tomorrow is Linda Ronstadt's birthday, Seeing her name got me to thinking about the songs that country radio stations are playing today.
My own personal conspiracy theory is that there are about 3 or 4 guys in Nashville that decide whose songs are going to get played by country radio. Country station's music choice is controlled by somebody at the corporate office.
35 years ago, when I was the music director of the station, I opened every envelope. I listened to every song that was sent to us. Then, I reported our "adds" to a couple of music magazines.
Now, I open up "songs" on our computer and, BOOM, all the songs are already in. This, by the way, is why we don't have every song. Sometimes we get requests for a song that hasn't been released as a single yet, so they haven't put in the computer. I know. Dumb.
And unless you've got a radio show that's live like ours, it's hard to get a request played. Which frustrates me, because when somebody loses a loved one and is trying to get a song played for them, they don't want to leave a message that might never get checked.
Had to stop and reread what I've written so far. I meant to talk about the artists who don't get played anymore like Ronstadt who was all over country radio when she, Emmylou Harris, and Dolly Parton were The Trio. Don't hear them played anymore.
Even someone like Brooks & Dunn who had 57 songs chart over their career and are still selling out in Las Vegas, aren't getting much airplay anymore.
I know that because of my love of the music, and even more because of my dad, that some kind of oldies show is going to be a "career must" for me. But, at least we'll get some good songs back on the air.