Voices from the history of popular music
At KZSM.org, your True Community Radio Station, our broadcasts are created by individual Program Hosts, so each one is unique. Many feature live interviews with an amazing variety of guests from near and far. Since our beginnings in 2017, musicians, office holders, scientists, poets, and passers-by have shared their ideas and their art.
On one of the first broadcasts of the open microphone show “Revolving Door” (Sundays 5-7 p.m.), host Rob Roark recalls that “my wife went out in the street, found these young students carrying a guitar, and convinced them to come in and play. They were nervous. Not very good. But gave it their all.” On another memorable evening Roark ran late and asked another volunteer, to open the studio so the Texas String Assembly band could set up. “When I arrived, he recalls, “I could barely fit in the door of the studio. The band had six musicians, and the piano player had wheeled in a 300-pound upright piano. It was all quite loud in the studio that day.”
Guests on “Revolving Door” might come in from the sidewalk; guests on “Philosophy and Popular Music” often call in from around the country with anecdotes and comments from the colorful history of rock ‘n roll. Sundays from noon to 2 p.m.
Paul Wilson and cohost Steve Jones converse with performers that Wilson has encountered as a member of the popular band, The Association.
One broadcast featured Chuck Negron, one of the original members of Three Dog Night. He talked about how the group came to record the hit songs “Joy to the World” and “Shambala,” responding to philosopher Wilson’s thoughtful questions about what makes a song, or a performance, memorable.
Wilson also interviewed Bill Cunningham and Gary Talley, founding and current members of the Box Tops, about the career of the band, which revived in mid-2015 when the two musicians reformed the band in response to continued requests by fans.
Like Negron, the two “were very personable and accessible to conversation.” “The most philosophically interesting episode perhaps was The History of AM/FM with DJ Joe Johnson and musicians Paul Beach and Paul Overly,” Wilson recalls.
Hosts and guests considered how the technological structures of broadcasting dictated formats and playlists in the heyday of each medium.
Tune in to KZSM.org for a conversation you won’t hear anywhere else.
