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blocks(Continued from Page 15)Spencer, West Virginia 13 years ago, said radio was still “a I'un job” with “no two days the same.”Unlike Michaels, who expressed an interest in someday becoming a programming consultant for radio stations having difficulties with their musical format, Boling said his interest for the future lies mainly in advertising and sailes.It’s been a leap from the frying pan into the d.j.’s saddle for John Banks of WBLB in Pulaski, Banks took his sign-on (at Sunrise) to noon job at the country station after a fire put him nut of his trailer in Blacksburg at the end of last year and he needed a full-time job to survive the winter.Before starting there January 1, Banks worked at about a half dozen other stations in the Roanoke area, all on a part-time basis. He was also chief engineer at Tech’s FM station, WUVT.You might envisage a haggard veteran, right?At age 20, Banks seemingly shoujd adopt the name, “Btfv Wonder.” Banks said he “skipped a couple of grades, but that’s a long story,” so that’s how he found himself a freshman at Tech at the Methuselahan age of 16.And it was at Tech that Banks first tasted the joys of projecting his voice over the air waves.“Some people joined fraternities and some people joined the cave club,” Banks said, “I got into WUVT.” At first talt;di^\Yprk was just “a hobby,” then he became more serious about it. His orientation towards radio sets him apart from some of his colleagues. •”1 don't consider myself as much a d.j. as an engineer,” he said. This is what he’d like to enter into eventually, he said.But as long as he’s a jock, Banks is happy to be on a country station. “If you’re a rock disc jockey, you try to be funny, Banks said, “If you’re into country, you want to be personal,”Banks explained that, in his opinion, rock music appeals to younger fans, thus the need “to be funny,” while country music demands a more “^rsonal” approach to an olderaudience, he said.Another d.j., Jim Kichards, 22, of WPUV, Pulaski, said that “very few” jocks are able to maintain their initial enthusiasm for a song after it’s been on their playlist for a long time.“You get a song and it could be on the charts for 18 weeksRichards has worked since May at the station which has a “bloc* format.” He explained this means that different styles of music, pop or country or combinations of the two, arc played in “blocks” during the day ( his station also plays from sunrise to sunset).“Like a lot of people, I got into radio by accident,” Kichards said. He was picked for a summer internship by a station in his native Maryland and, he said, “The more 1 got into it. the more I felt like doing it.”“It’s constantly changing,” he said., “It's not the same thing day in and day out.”Kichards said he has worked on a newspaper before and doesn’t rule that out of his future. “There’s more time to collect your thoughts on a newspaper,” he said.«His broadcasting-style has changed over the four years he’s been in the business from a “low-key” approach, he said, to one of trying to “have some excitement in your voice.” This is now an “unconscious” thing for him, Kichards said.Asked about his future goals, Kichards mentioned New 'fork. “I talk about it as a goal,” he said, “But I don’t know if I’d want to work there.”Ralph Steward of WJJJ, Christiansburg, got his start in radio cfoing work that allows him to now look at least part way down the success ladder at the bottom rung and know he’s been there. You see, Stewart began at the station in 1968 working as a janitor. And in 1967, at the age of 17, he was on the air (he later attended Tech and, like many local jocks, is a former WUVT announcer).“Radio,” he said, “Was the only thing I could do and get paid for doing. I guess it soj*t of grew on me.”Stewart is now operations manager for the station and only jocks on a fill-in basis. He said one of his main talents is doing voices “that nobody else could do.” A current example he gave was “the stranger from Deadwood City.”Like Banks, Stewart is shooting for an engineering job. He is also getting more into the production (advertisements) end of it. This is the more lucrative side of radio work, he said.There’s an old rock standard that goes, “The best things in life are free, but you can give them to the birds and bees, I want money. . .” This, it seemed, was a refrain that many, but not all, d.j.’s in the New River Valley were singing.
Newspaper Details
Pulaski Times Journal
Pulaski, Virginia, US
Sun, Aug 07, 1977
Page 8
Full Page
Clipped by
Anonymous
USA 29 Nov 2019
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