However, a mile down the road, a neighbor's jackass is braying his silliness to the whole area, as if anyone care's what a jackass has to say.
Foggy mornings kinda put a foggy spell on a person, calling for extra coffee to get you perked up and going. Even Old Buck The Collie is laying extra close to my feet, as he scans the foggy bottom along the creek, watching for a deer to emerge.
I always hated to have to drive, after a show, heading to the next town, in a foggy night. Particularly in the mountains, your lights reflecting back from the fog, coming around some of those hairpin curves, man, I hated that. Radio is all that got you through it.
In the years before Serius- XM satellite radio, traveling folks learned where the good stations were, the powerhouse, all night stations that cut through the fog and kept us going with good country music. WBAP in Ft. Worth, with Bill Mack, WHO in DesMoines with Mike Hoyer, WSM with Ralph, WWL in New Orleans with Charlie Douglas, KVOO in Tulsa with Billy Parker, WJJD in Chicago with any number of good jocks, and in the daytime, up on the East Coast, it was TomCat Reeder, when you could find the station, there was WPLO, in Atlanta, and WIL in St Louis, that had my friend Chuck Lowe (Lowrance), out in Witchita, Don Powell was the man...the traveling musicians knew them all, and we knew we were always welcome to stop at the stations and spend time on the air with our favorite jocks. But, the main service that the jocks did for the long driving pickers, was that they gave us a sense of family...the country music family. We were out there on the road, far from home, and the country radio connected us to something solid.
Through the years, I have made a special effort to contact these country music jocks of legend, the ones I have listed and many, many more that were out there also, the country music jocks that played our music, that made us welcome, helping us build a career to feed a family. As far as I'm concerned, they were the heroes of country music. The worked long hours at the mike, for very little money, particularly the all night jock, they had a real interest in the lives of the pickers and they were dedicated to our music.
In the 70's, while I was building a theater just outside of Branson, I did an all night stint on KTTS in Springfield. I'd come in to the station at 11PM, to pull the records, go on the air at midnight, and try to stay awake till 6AM...not an easy chore for this hillbilly. I lasted a little over a year, and finally said, "Dang, I gotta get some sleep!". But it was enough to show me just how hard a gig a disc jockey job can be.
So, to all the ones that were on the air in the 50's, 60's and 70's, sending country music into every corner of America, big stations, little local one, it doesn't matter, the result was the same....country music had a voice, and they were it. You are the veterans that kept us going, when rock and roll threatened to put us all out of business, who stayed true to the music...and to you all, I say Thank You, my friends. stan
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