When longtime St. Louis radio personality “Radio Rich” Dalton was let go by KSHE 95 FM this past spring, the move was met with a social media revolt that coalesced around the Facebook page Bring Back Radio Rich. Though Dalton was largely unheard on the terrestrial side of KSHE by then, save for his stint on the Sunday night staple “The Seventh Day,” he had worked to create a respected role with the station’s second, digital channel; he was also loved by the station’s devotees, because he was a direct link to the station’s more freestyling past.
While some of the site’s harder-core members probably wanted nothing less than the return of Dalton to the airwaves, it wasn’t to be; as Dalton discussed with us earlier this week, it wasn’t even something that he was all that interested in by the end of his KSHE tenure. Relatively quickly, Dalton moved to nontraditional broadcasting and he’s now the programming boss at theroots.fm, which is delivering three separate types of programming to the web.
According to a release, “Some familiar favorite radio icons have also been announced. On The Roots, St. Louis Radio Hall of Famer Radio Rich Dalton helms the morning drive from 6 am—2 pm, followed by Michelle Holiday from 12 pm—6 pm. The Rock will feature veteran radio personalities Ted Habeck from 7 am—12 pm and Al Hofer from 12 pm—5 pm. Groove Jazz will be hosted by Jazz veterans Jason Church from 6 am—10 am, Kristi Carson from 10 am—3 pm and Eddie Becton from 3 pm-8 pm.”
We chatted with Dalton for a good half hour, his warm tones as soothing over the phone line as they are over the airwaves. Our conversation veered from discussion of radio’s future to the vibe he’s shooting for at theroots.fm, and even included this interview rarity: a nod to Raquel Welch. As 30 minutes of phone time go, it was delightful stuff.
What was the real start of all this?
I guess you could sort of say that it started with my arrival. John Stephens had been doing this before. He’s the owner of a TV production company and a public relations company and he’d always loved music. He loved the original KSHE style and he liked the idea of doing it on the internet. It started for him as a labor love. He hired a couple of people with radio experience in their pasts and they were doing it, but it was a kind of loose situation. No one had time to do it full-time and, so, when I became available in April, he got ahold of me. We wanted to do it in earnest. We got serious about it. So it started in April. What it reminded me of was the first days of KSHE, a bunch of people who loved music and had a new medium in internet radio. People who were frustrated with the confines of regular, commercial radio. There’s all this great music not getting played. In this (situation), it’s a very non-corporate environment. And it’s very interesting to do it that way again. No consultants, no corporate people looking over your shoulder. Just people who love music, doing it not just for St. Louis, but all over the world.
I can remember working at The Riverfront Times and hearing about the idea that people wouldn’t be reading news in print anymore, that it would all be happening online. Do you recall a specific moment when you thought about how dramatic radio would be changing and how quickly?
Well, part of it. I knew it was all going along pretty quickly. I realized it was a medium where you didn’t need some corporation. Anybody could get on the air on the Internet, as anyone on YouTube knows. They could do it without corporate influence, or business influence. These days, that can be a compelling thing. However, a lot of these people don’t know how to make a living, or even a buck or two. That’s something else. I really think that commercial radio has done a terrible job of adjusting to the Internet. Anybody can walk around now with thousands of songs in their pocket. Commercial radio doesn’t understand that they need to provide something you can’t otherwise get. They’re going in the opposite direction, playing fewer songs and tightening things up. They’re just not reacting very well to the incursion of the Internet. People don’t like commercial radio that much anymore, and they’re really failing to provide something that people like.
You mention that anyone with modest skills can get themselves on the web, broadcasting. But that doesn’t mean that they’ll be doing it for very long. There are a lot of people who start a project, then stop. Or they’re just not very good at it.
Exactly. That’s why we’ll prevail. I’ve been doing this since 1968. Our format is free-form classic rock. I know this music so well. Not only that, I’ve talked all my life to people who’ve been listening to this music. And to the people who’ve made this music. I’ve had all this experience. I’m the practitioner of a lost art, and that’s the skillful putting together of music. I’m programming in such a way that one song relates to another, putting together music that appeals to somebody more sophisticated than the average listener, and appreciates the presentation of the best music ever made, which is classic rock. I’m someone who treats it with respect. At KSHE, several years ago, they started referring to programming meetings as product meetings, and they think of music as product. They have no particular affinity for it, other than how it affects income and ratings and stuff like that. We don’t worry about that at all. We’ve got some of the best music ever made, with people who have experience and appreciate it for what we have.
How do you go about finding your audience?
Well, my idea is to make people feel passionately devoted to the station, and you do that by hooking them, by playing music that really rings their bell. A classic example was today: Michelle Holiday was doing her show, and was playing a song by a group called Sonia Dada; it hadn’t played on her show before, and she was blasting it in the studio. “This is great! I used to play this all the time!” You hook people, give them something they haven’t heard before, or something they haven’t heard in years. Then they realize that when they come, they’ll be pleasantly surprised; we’ll play things that they’ll want to turn up. I’m not so worried about them tuning out; they all will, for various reasons. I want them coming back, in the hopes that they feel that they’re missing something good. I’ve learned over the years what kinds of songs affect people. We get those and play them on the air. Not everybody likes everything, but in the long run, they know that they’ll hear stuff they love. In time, they’ll consider us their home. We’re saving a lot of music that’s totally neglected by commercial radio.
Are there acts that you can point to that have been dropped by commercial, classic rock radio?
Well, Thomas, there are lots of them. An almost better way of thinking about it is that they’ve totally abandoned songs by The Stones, The Doors, Jimi Hendrix, The Who, Led Zeppelin, Bob Seger. You know that you’ll just get “Stairway to Heaven” and “Won’t Get Fooled Again” and that’s it. They’ve totally abandoned all the tasty secondary and tertiary tracks from these acts. They don’t care about them and the [songs] don’t see the light of day. That’s almost worse that not playing certain groups. It’s become incredibly shallow. Most stations go with 300 or 400 songs. And that’s it. You and I both know that there’s a galaxy of wonderful music out there. And the other things they don’t seem to realize is that people are walking around with hundreds and hundreds of songs on their iPod. This shows that people have a greater capacity than just a couple hundred songs.
You talked about acts that you’ve talked to in the past. How do they react to Internet radio and its impact?
I think they are going into a happy situation, with people who appreciate them and can play them and make intelligent comments about the music. That’s true for almost any act, any group. They like to know they’re being appreciated. A few are out there, making money and being rock stars. Most artists, though are making music for people and they love when the stuff they’ve created is being treated with respect. Over the years, I’ve interviewed a lot of people, and when they come in—especially when it’s a morning show-type of situation—the questions they’re asked are idiotic, stupid things. “I’ve heard you’ve been seen going around with Raquel Welch.” When you know them and their music, you can almost hear this relief on their part. They might be guarded at first, then they’ll open up a little bit. They’re very happy to talk to somebody who knows about them and appreciates the music.
There are services like Spotify or Pandora, whether they’re free or premium, who give you exactly what you want to listen to. But what you don’t get with those is the human voice. Tell me what you think is missed by not having that.
Really good question, Thomas. That’s one thing that we’re big on, and mention on a routine basis. This is music that’s put together by human beings, not algorithms. We are people with experience with this. We’re not a corporation guessing as to what you’ll like. We’re putting this stream out there, and we’re serving you. If you choose to listen to us, we’ll take care of you. People have food at their house, but they’ll still go to a restaurant and the reason is that they like to be served, or have the chance to get something that they wouldn’t at home. Same with us. We put together music in an intelligent fashion. I’ll tell them a story that’ll hopefully enhance their enjoyment. And there’s always a chance they’ll hear something new. It’s got humanity and that’s an underlying theme to The Roots. All the music we pick and everything we do is with the idea of music’s ability to calm people down and soothe them and distract them. We live in a time with so much change and so much chaos, and music has this great ability to calm people down and make them feel better. All of this music is basically meant to make people feel better. I quote from Jim Morrison that “music is our special friend.” It’s one of the greatest gifts we have, and it’s more important than it ever was. If you’re angry, you’ll make bad decisions. The simple ability to make people calm down a little bit is incredibly important. That’s the underlying theme of everything we do.
One last thing. Can you talk about the time at which you left KSHE and the social media campaign was underway to bring you back? Did you think that your time there was done? Did you want to come back? What were your general emotions over that time and did any of that make you feel self-conscious?
It was an amazing thing, Thomas. I like to walk in the woods a lot; I do my best thinking there. Two or three days later, I knew I wouldn’t look for another job in commercial radio. I went home and somebody called and said, “look at this Facebook page, Bring Back Radio Rich.” It was astonishing. Anybody wants to know that if they do something in their life, people appreciate it. It’s an amazing thing, a wonderful thing to see all of these people so angry. The other thing that amazed me was the disappointment that, not just with KSHE, but commercial radio. It’s become what we were the alternative to. On that site, somebody put a gravestone and put on it, “The Death of KSHE.” At the time, I thought it was a little bit over the top. But they finally realized that radio just hadn’t been the same for a long time. Cutting me loose put a cap on it. Needless to say, it’s wonderful to be appreciated. It really is, it’s great to know you’ve made such an impression on people and they’ve picked up on what you’re doing. I’ll make one other comment on that. One of the hallmarks of what we’re doing is authenticity. I think that’s more and more an important thing. They realize [as listeners] that we just want to play music for them and tell stories, and that’s it. I have no other ulterior motives, and they pick up on that. We also try to bring authenticity to The Roots. It’s something you can count on with us: we’re regular people, playing music for regular people.
