Radio Days: Celebrating a Remarkable Time and a Remarkable Life

This week, my husband and I were at a memorial service of the wife of a friend of ours from the music business, a long-time radio guy, who was charmed with what we used to call the “golden voice." Richard Milne has kind of voice that the minute you hear the voice, all other sounds around you stop. Because all you hear is The Voice. You stop dead in your tracks. Your body freezes, your ears prick up, and you listen. When you hear a captivating voice like Richard's, it excites, it makes you smile, and makes you want to keep listening. Sometimes when you hear this type of voice, you are more attentive during the radio host breaks than when you get back to the music on the radio! That's what it means to have "the golden voice" a phrase made famous by radio personality Ted Williams . It's unique, not many people have it, and you can't create it or invent it or go to school to get it. But if you were lucky enough to be in an environment when you're growing up, for people to recognize the beautifulness of your voice and allow you to be free so you could discover yourself and find the path to radio, it could be pretty life-changing.

It's so different, listening to the radio now. Even though 82% of Americans ages 12 and older listened to terrestrial radio in a given week, according to Nielsen Media Research data published by the Radio Advertising Bureau , many of the remaining humans that are still on-air, their voices to me sounds sound super compressed, more bland, they talk really fast, really loud, some of them almost mirroring the near constant screaming you hear on the cable news stations, where people are debate-screaming 24-7. There is also automation on radio now, driven by algorithms that time the best windows for advertising. There is much less individualism, personality, and almost zero choice or autonomy on the part of the radio hosts. I can just feel in my body the machine learning behind today's corporate radio.

Richard Milne is the owner of Rank Entertainment and founder and host of WXRT ’s The Local Anesthetic, a show that championed, gave airplay and in-studio opportunities that helped launch the careers of many indie rock and country bands in Chicago, including ours, Utah Carol. Richard’s wife Charlene, his wife of forever, passed away after a long battle with frontotemporal degeneration , the same illness that Bruce Willis is now experiencing with his own family. Grant and I were there at Richard's home with his family to support him and celebrate her life. It was a beautiful tribute, and he was surrounded by his closest friends, all the Chicago radio guys from back in the day. And I say guys because they mostly all were back then. Which didn't bother me at all. You see, I grew up in an era where all the voices on the radio were guys. Every single voice, back then, were male and they were great personalities. They were funny, friendly, witty, calm, clever, sharp, and they told all kinds of rich stories, and as you say now, could "spit bars." These radio guys were interesting and full of knowledge and information, lots of facts and expertise on many topics. And opinionated. At the memorial service, there were a few radio women sprinkled around, and you couldn’t miss them, at least I couldn’t. I have "salesdar." I can spot a corporate saleswoman a thousand miles away. Except for the legendary Terri Hemmert who was there, she was the first woman radio host ever in Chicago. But most of the women then as in many corporate spaces toiled in the back, at an office desk, selling ads and selling space. That was what made the money for the station. The women in the back, working in sales. Keeping the station afloat.

It was fascinating hanging out with the old radio guys. They are SO interesting, smart, well-versed in many topics. Diverse in their thinking. These radio guys could have a conversation virtually anywhere talking about anything. Those of you that know me personally know that I too have curiosity powered by the gift of gab. As I was rolling through this memorial service, which was a celebration of this radio man's wife's beautiful life, I remembered what a rich audio world it was, back in the day when the radio guys ruled the airwaves. Full of life, colors, the discovery of music, the music debates, concerts, request lines, and contests.

I noticed that many there at the service were nearing or about to hit retirement or had moved on to other careers. There were a couple of guys at the service that were still on-air radio guys: Marty Lennartz , he's another OG of radio on WXRT, the inventor of "The Regular Guy" and Frank E. Lee , of "Saturday Morning Flashback " who I was actually talking to for a full 20 full minutes about time travel and physics, before realizing he was THE Frank E. Lee from WXRT.

And then we ran into the great Barry Winograd .

I have to tell a story about Barry. I grew up in a jazz music listening home. All kinds of jazz. My mother came of age when all the jazz clubs were popping on the south side. My mom saw all the greats perform, including Miles Davis and Sarah Vaughan, who were friends with my father. I also grew up listening to rock and soul, classical, blues, folk music since my mom grew up in the Allegheny Mountains. But jazz was music that was playing constantly in my mother's car as we were driving around my whole young life in Hyde Park. Jazz is just the kind of music that opens up your mind to every other kind of music in the universe. Because jazz is a unique and exceptional art form, invented right here in America by Black American Men, and so incredible and so free.

I have an ear for jazz. My songwriting partner Grant, who also happens to be my husband, also loves jazz. We have posters of the jazz greats hanging on our walls, and we attend live jazz shows between New York and Chicago. And somehow in all that music chemistry, we created a child, Dexter B. , that is now a jazz pianist, a sophomore, studying jazz performance at the Manhattan School of Music .

Yesterday at the service, when I met Barry, I almost cried. Barry's show on the weekends on WDCB Radio is one reason why we were able to keep moving forward through the pandemic. During that time, my son mysteriously switched from classical piano to jazz piano. I think he needed to feel more alive and free on the piano. Plus, he writes his own music and creates his own beats. Classical leaves no room for improvisation. In Chicago, the entire entertainment and restaurant businesses were not allowed to open. The music teachers, already hanging by a financial thread, were not working. The schools were all closed, which meant that our son Dexter could not get his musical education. On the one hand, I was devastated that he was not going to play classical piano anymore. However, jazz brought my son to another level of life. Jazz brought out his competitive nature, it brought out his discipline and focus and perseverance. It was incredible to watch him pivot, work so hard, and not give up.

We listened to WDCB every single morning. Every single night, in fact. Our alarm was set to WDCB for music in the morning. But Barry, too, has The Golden Voice. He is a jazz history expert, and we were able to listen to all his stories and be in awe of his knowledge around all of jazz not only nationally and globally but even the local jazz guys and the new ones too. And yes, the jazz world are guys too. Grant and I took a picture with Barry at the memorial. The only photo we took out of respect for the widow and his family.

I have to admit, I am just now starting to work through the mental and emotional trauma I experienced during the pandemic. As a working mother, with three sons that had no school for two years, with a business, running a new client contract that was thankfully focusing me on saving lives, and also just trying to keep my marriage going when my husband and I had nowhere else to go but ourselves and our family in our home, I feel fortunate that we made it out alive and we are all still together. We had good warm home, and we both kept our jobs that we could stay home to do. But every day, listening to the jazz radio guys on WDCB and then looking forward to Barry on Sundays was the sunshine opening up. And in our family solitude, we were able to have interesting conversations and arguments and debates with our first born and strong-willed son related to jazz music. It is a beautiful memory bubble that surfaced like a blossoming flower as I was surrounded by all these still full of hope and positivity radio guys, at a memorial service celebrating life.

I never want to lose the type of experience my husband and I had this weekend at the memorial for the wife of one of my favorite radio personalities of all time Richard Milne from WXRT. Richard made a human connection to us and our music long ago, and we've been connected ever since. I have followed along through occasional texts and his Facebook posts, showing his unbreakable devotion to his wife for many years as he helped her transition. There is nothing that can ever replace this type of love. And if you are the lucky human that can find it even once in your lifetime, it's a miracle worth holding on to.

As I was saying my goodbyes after the service, I realized the vitalness of human connection and decision-making in so many things. Music, art, articles, op-ed, new shows, opinions, and respectful debates, the art of conversation, hugs, meeting new people, and being genuinely curious, because these are the interactions where you can learn about the world from other people's ideas, perspectives and thoughts. This experience will never, ever come from a machine for me. And as humans, we must reject it if the machines ever try to imitate life. And if the feeling of realness and nurturing connection does somehow feel real to some of us, from a machine, it will certainly be a trick. The biggest and most devastating trick that humanity has ever seen. I hope that day never comes.