I know, I know. It happened 40 years ago, but I still think about it from time to time.
And it would have been a great segue … if I had only stopped at two recordings.
Let me explain.
It’s January 1983, and I’m putting together my broadcast of the Nightowl Radio Show on WHCL. Unlike today, where I pre-record my show and upload it to a server for Friday broadcast, in 1983 I’m doing the program live. With two turntables and the equivalent electronic equipment.
Prior to the broadcast, I had rifled through the station’s record library, looking for some content for the show. And I found this. It’s an early recording of Martin Luther King’s “I Have a Dream” speech – not the exact intonation from the Washington, D.C. march, but one recorded a few weeks earlier and issued on Motown’s subsidiary Gordy Records.
This is cool. I gotta play this.
And I know the perfect song to follow this. Back to the record library. Here we go. Stevie Wonder’s song about the importance of honoring Martin Luther King on his birthday.
I played the MLK speech … and followed it up with Stevie Wonder’s “Happy Birthday.” Nailed it. Now it’s time for me to read a public service announcement. And I opened up the PSA script book, and read an announcement about raising money for programs to benefit the blind.
And on to the next record.
The request line is ringing. I pick it up.
It’s WHCL’s program director, and she’s hornet’s-nest mad. ”Chuck, that was insensitive. How could you?”
Not understanding where she was going on this, I asked why.
“You didn’t need to make fun of Stevie Wonder with that PSA about the blind. Have you no shame? Ugh.”
I looked back at the PSA book. And it was then that I realized what had happened. Oopsie.
It wasn’t my intention to do that. But I had read so many PSA’s out of that book, it was almost second nature to read what was in front of me and not think twice.
Oh, well. Live and learn. My bad.
At least if I ever do this type of segue again … I’ll make sure to not add a PSA afterward.
Or if I do … it won’t be THAT PSA. :D
Man, 40 years and I still kick myself about that one.
Chuck The Writer 