As a kid DJ (A/C and Top 40) out of work and looking for anything, I took a DJ job at an FM progressive 'rocker' provided through a reference of some friends and an audition tape that the FM PD liked because of the way I read the news! I knew nothing about the 'heavier' music except for some pop Fleetwood Mac 45s and some tracks by Mountain. And I had taken the job solely for some income while I looked for work at the A/C stations in the market.
The station put up with my learning period for some reason. And after them hearing what I'd found to air when that every-fourth-Folk-song came around on the format wheel, they subsequently asked me to comb through their 'Folk' library to suggest the cuts.
See, the rest of the staff was very much into the lyrics, the message, the protest scene, the progressive voyages -- and swore by the Blues. Mayall's 'Room To Move' was a few years old at the time but was treated like the station's national anthem. Can't tell you how many times I played it myself and marveled at the gymnastics and timing.
Such odd culture swapping within the dichotomies of the same studio opened my ears for sure. The format wouldn't be called 'AoR' for a few more years, but when the ratings came out we had gone from 'Shrug' to Number 2 in the market and even Number 1 in two breakdowns. After seeing that spike of response -- due greatly, of course, to the times being so ripe for change anyway -- I was hooked. I became an AoR jock without hesitation. The next gig was at an AoR in a major market, where I made it a point to go through every single cut on every album in their library and make note of a few thousand that gave that 'sound', that pop-progressive accessibility, that atmosphere, either the hook or the message.
For helping give me that inspiration to explore and compare the effectiveness of the numerous rhapsodies that made the format theee dominant one for several years, I have to say 'Thank you and God Bless, John Mayall'.
variety.com
