Linda Yohn

WEMU Radio

Linda Yohn

I love all types of music, but my favorites are jazz and blues. I also love the magic of radio, so I doubly love my job at WEMU. I’m not sure if I love paperwork, but that’s a big part of a management position; so I take care of business for WEMU’s music department and then enjoy the pleasures of the music when I host a program.

My mother and her father inspired my love affair with jazz, blues and the radio. My Grandpa McCoy fixed radios and televisions in Bucyrus, Ohio. He was also an early “hi-fi” nut with gold-plated Scott amplifiers and tuners, huge GE speakers and a “Voice Of Music” turntable. He loved music! Because of early onset arthritis, he charged my mother with learning how to play ragtime tunes on the piano and she obliged. She was an excellent pianist and a marvelous singer. Her professional repertoire was sacred and classical music, but she also loved the great American popular song as composed by Jerome Kern, Irving Berlin, Harold Arlen and Yip Harbug. And, my mom loved big bands and swing, especially Glenn Miller, Tommy Dorsey, Bob Crosby, Benny Goodman and Duke Ellington.

In the 1970s, popular music no longer enchanted me, so I rediscovered my mother’s music and found the roots of the rock ‘n roll, which I’d danced to in the ‘60s –the blues. Late in the 1970s I was offered the chance to host a jazz show on WBBY, a small station located outside of Columbus, Ohio. When they said jump, I said “how high?”. This was my dream come true. I worked for three dollars and ten cents an hour. I didn’t care. I had finally turned an avocation in to a vocation. What fulfillment!

In the early 1980s, I made the jump to public broadcasting and went to work at WKSU from Kent State University. If I though commercial radio was great, I had no idea how wonderful working in broadcasting could be. Public radio is it! You can be intelligent. You can be real. Sure, you have to know solid radio techniques, and for that I never regret working in commercial radio, but I have never regretted switching to public broadcasting. While at WKSU, I learned about remote recordings and broadcasts, satellite technology, how to work with record companies, how to do interviews, how to organize a record library and how to work with local promoters and presenters. I’ll never forget the ways the WKSU management let me try new things and those golden days.

In 1986, I thought I’d try my luck in the Big Apple. I joined Peter Levinson communications as an assistant publicist. I worked with many fantastic clients: Mel Torme, George Shearing, Monty Alexander, Milt Jackson, The Village Vanguard, Dexter Gordon, Blue Note Records, Joe Henderson, Woody Herman, Concord Records and more. I made some great friends in the jazz business, many of whom I talk with today or see at conferences. My job was full of challenges and opportunities to hear the best jazz artists. But, something was lacking—that creative outlet for me—being on the air. I volunteered at New York and New Jersey stations, answering phones and filing records, but that wasn’t the same as hosting a show. Finally, I began to consider quality of life. I learned that I also enjoy fresh air, blue skies, green trees, birds singing and a slower pace. I was beginning to regret my decision to leave the mid-west and the great quality of life.

When the position of WEMU music director opened up in 1987, I went for it. When I interviewed, I knew I could contribute and I knew I could learn more in this position. I have learned so much since I joined the WEMU crew. This station takes on significant projects with skeleton crews. WEMU holds it’s own in the most crowded public radio market in the nation with an alternative format: straight-ahead real jazz, blues and Latin music. Conventional wisdom says it shouldn’t work but it does because the music is teamed with ace local news and the best news programs from National Public Radio.

Each day I learn something about jazz or blues by listening to Michael Jewett, Michael G. Nastos, George Klein, Joe Tiboni, Jessica Webster, Peter Brown, Marc Taras, Arwulf and others. I learn about new technology from our engineering staff. I learn about current events from NPR and news director Clark Smith. I learn new ways to explain jazz, blues and the rudiments of radio to student employees. I learn something from a listener be it a story from the 1940s or a request for a disc we haven’t yet received. I challenge myself when I crack the mic; will I meet the expectations of the WEMU listener? But, I’ll never be able to answer that question. The day that I stop striving to find out what makes the WEMU listener most happy is the day I hang up the headphones. If the music gods are willing and the microphone is hooked up to the board and the transmitter, that day will never come.

Email Linda:  linda.yohn@emich.edu