[Editor’s Note:] As part of National Disc Jockey Day, MVO: The Voice-Over Guys asked some of the guys to share a story or two from their radio days.
Fully 50% of the stories we got back we can’y publish because we’re not sure if the statute of limitations has expired, questions would be asked (some by spouses, some by the police) and none of the MVO guys would survive a day in the clink. We know this because some have had the brief experience (allegedly).
So after tirelessly editing, here’s this radio story from MVO: The Voice-Over Guys’ ROWELL GORMON.
MVO: The Voice-Over Guys’ Rowell Gormon On-Air in 1975 at WRAL in Raleigh, NC
With my voice, I was an actual DJ very little of the time and a Production Director/Copy Writer most of the time. But…
I do remember that first radio job, at the home town station.
There was the time I got my first compliment (I think) from a listener who had come by to pick up a prize. He said, “You don’t LOOK like Rowell Gormon!”
Then there was the time I was alone at the station and one of the two turntables kept sticking near the end of each record I tried to play on it. This was not a prime time shift, so I didn’t have commercial breaks to use for switching records on the remaining turntable, so I wound up playing one PSA after each and ever record while I frantically tried to phone the engineer. Having no luck with that, I gave up and called the General Manager (knowing he also had a First Class License). He drove over to the station, came in, looked at my set up, and carefully moved a stack of 45 records one inch away from the back end of the turntable’s tone arm. Problem solved. I thought I was going to be fired, but he told me not to feel too bad…it had happened to him once before.
Also had a run-in with the general public one Forth of July. Phone caller: “What time do the fireworks start?” Me: “I would guess sometime after it gets dark.” The lady became irate and said she was going to call the Mayor and have my job.
Then there was another caller who phoned in during a BJ Thomas song to complain about that “hippie music you’re playing”. I was in college at the time and told her if she ever heard what the actual “hippies” were listening to she’d probably have a heart attack. She was not pleased.
And one last not-so-fond memory: I completely botched the local weather forecast, being unable to say the simple phrase “a few snow flurries”. It kept coming out “a snoo flow snurries”. My General Manager, who was also the Program Director, called to chew me out during the next record, suggesting I “learn how to read”. Unfortunately, the announcer on the shift ahead of me had done the IGA Instant Money Quiz the previous hour and had left the phone patched into the mixing board….so the call went out over the air under the music. I don’t know if anyone could really make out what was happening, but I do know my General Manager never called me during an air shift again.
Now you know why I went into Production!
[Editor’s Note Part Deux:The folks who own WRAL, Capitol Broadcasting, nicely highlighted Rowell work there in THIS feature.]