The Sunshine Bridge

This is The Sunshine Bridge - a show which highlights the diverse perspectives of Louisianians and the work of those who serve their community. I'm Elizabeth Eads.

This is my first real podcast, and if you know me, you know I've been doing the radio thing for years and years...and honestly at this point, years. I started out back in 1997 in Baton Rouge High's radio training program. And back when I was getting started, anytime before any break, I would have this swirl of thoughts: "Am I going to have enough to say? What should I say? Am I going to mess up?" It was always such a worry, but I always managed to make it through. And really, when I look back on that, and I think about it, I didn't have all that much to worry about. And the reason for that is because I had some pretty great teachers. Danny Dean and Rob Payer. These guys showed me the ropes of getting on the air, and it was because of their teaching that I found myself able to hold my own in circumstances that I never would have expected. And when it came time to enter into the real world of radio broadcasting, I found myself well prepared. Now, Danny passed away many years ago, but Rob Payer, thankfully, is still alive doing what he loves: that's being on air, playing Louisiana music, and teaching broadcasting. And I got together with him for a little conversation which happened where else but in one of the recording booths at WBRH/KRBH?

E E
You went to school here?

RP
I did.

E E
How long ago was that?

RP
I graduated in 1984.

E E
Really?

RP
So when I started as a freshman, and intro to radio class, the radio program was only a few years old. It's originally started in 1977. So I got here in 79,80. So it was still in its infancy, really. But....

E E
What kind of music?

RP
Well, it was kind of a mix, the station would not it was not 24 hours a day back then. We'd sign on, I think it's 6am, and we do a couple hours of big band music until about noon, I think, or 11. And from 11 to noon, we'd do a Broadway musical soundtrack.

E E
Nice.

RP
From noon to three would be jazz. And then at three o'clock, it was rock and roll. And we had a lot of people...that was like when school would let out. And kids all over the kids all over the parish, they'd lock in to 90.3, and we'd play rock music till about I think 10...about 10 at night, and then the station would go off the air and when shut down. And then kept that going in the summer and people would volunteer to come in, and it was a lot of fun. And I still have people that still remember, "Oh man, you guys used to play....Oh, man, first time I heard Iron Maiden was on your station, dude. Oh my god, man. It was it was so awesome. Why don't y'all do that again?" And I'm like - It's a very small audience, for people that want to listen to Black Sabbath and Judas Priest at this point, you know...there's you and the Dwight Shrutes out there. But uh....

E E
But hold up, because whenever I came to the station, it was smooth jazz. Nothing but smooth jazz. So what changed there?

RP
Well, I you know, I'm not sure because by that time I'd left. I think that it went to full time alternative rock. It might have been jazz during the day and then alternative rock, and we're talking about in the mid 90s here. And I think right around the time, right around the time right around the mid 90s. Right in 95, 96, it switched to the to the all jazz format. I don't know why that decision was made probably because...you know, there were others radio stations.

E E
It's right next to KLSU.

RP
Right.

E E
KLSU was doing rock, for sure.

RP
They were still playing...there was that competition there. So, I think the decision was made - Well, let's let's go with something.... And back then, you know that smooth jazz was really, really popular.

E E
Okay.

RP
We don't really call it "Smooth Jazz" anymore.

E E
What do you call it now?

RP
It's "Jazz and more".

E E
You changed the format somewhat from smooth jazz and started to ease in other types of jazz.

RP
Other types of jazz, anything that would fall under that umbrella, you know of jazz programming, just trying to broaden the appeal and get more people because if you say smooth jazz now, people think of Kenny G and...which is, you know, nothing wrong with Kenny G if you're listening Mr. G. We....

E E
In the 90s? He was just....

RP
He was a god.

E E
Right. Right, right, right.

RP
So yeah, the station has grown, and it's changed. It's evolved. And some things are still the same. You know, that rhythm and blues Saturday, which I think is probably our most listened-to day of programming and then classic jazz Sunday, which has also gone through some changes, but in many ways it's kind of still got the skeleton of what it's been like for decades now.

E E
Decades. It's been a while. Yeah. So you were a student. And then at some point, you became a teacher here.

RP
Yeah.

E E
How did, how did this happen? Did you did you go into radio first? Did you go into teaching first?

RP
Well, I immediately upon graduation was able to get a part-time job at an AM station, WLCS, which was a very popular radio station in the 50s and the 60s. That was the go-to station that, you know, teenagers would listen to because it was playing, you know, the music of the day. So, I had the opportunity to go to work there, and from that job it piggybacked to another job, piggybacked to a better job and another job in radio. So I worked about five or six different radio stations here in town. And then I was working doing traffic reports, and we'd go in the airplane and had the crazy pilot, and he goes straight up and cut the engines, and then you're kind of free falling with your pen, and your pad floating in front of you and....

E E
Hang on! You got to go on the plane?

RP
Yeah, I got to go in the plane.

E E
But did you get to go on the plane on a regular basis?

RP
No, it was like they would split it up. So, it was like a rotating...however many people were in involved in the traffic.

E E
So unfair!

RP
Well, you know, it sounds like fun. (laughs)

E E
Okay, I have been in the traffic because I did a little bit of traffic too. But, but me going in the traffic plane was just a treat because by that time they just had a pilot that was, that was just kind of reporting into to us and everything.

RP
Captain Randy? Captain Randy in the sky, the Skyhawk 5000. But I was doing traffic and one of those stations I was doing traffic for was...well, I'm jumping the gun a little bit. I I did mornings on...it was 100.7 The Tiger, I think, yeah. And then this was going to be in the early 90s. And that was pretty good. I really had a great opportunity during that to fulfill one of my dreams, which was to host a late night movie show on TV. And it was, I would do the radio in the morning, and then they had a late night, it was a midnight movie. It came on right after Saturday Night Live, and I would I would host it. And every week I do some crazy different character that had something to do with the movie, you know, that they were showing at the time. So every week I would come up with this craziness and elaborate stuff I kinda got a little trouble because sometimes I would go overboard a little bit.

E E
Oops! Oops! What station was this on?

RP
This was WVLA.

E E
Okay, so 33.

RP
Yeah, it was on right after Saturday Night Live.

E E
That's really wild.

RP
And if I I happened to be at a party or something like that. I'd making everybody stop and go turn the TV on? I'd say, "Oh, look look look!" -Oh, that's good. Let's go look at it for about five minutes and go, - "Oh, okay, that's great. Okay. Anyway."

E E
Whenever I got to BRH, you were working at Max 94 One.

RP
Right. So that's how I got that through doing traffic because I was doing traffic for WXOK, which was AM station.

E E
Gospel station.

RP
Right. Wait. No, it was WTKL. It was WTKL, which was a sister station of XOK, and Max 94.1. And the fellow who was the announcer, his name's Guy Brody. And Guy and I just immediately just gelled, you know, as far as our, our comedic timing and our appreciation for each other's sense of humor. So just immediately, we gelled and I had the opportunity to go work there full time at Max 94.1. And we were simulcasting in the Lafayette area. It was the number one, number one radio show. You know, number one show and number one and Lafayette number one in this market, and things are going great things are going great. And I was working there. And then I was also working here at the radio station at Baton Rouge Magnet High School.

E E
There's definitely a legacy that BRH has left.

RP
Oh yeah. Well, you know, like I said, the station's been since 1977. And that's a lot of people to go through here. And not everybody's gone into radio. You have, and some other people have. But not everybody does. But the benefits of it, I think are what's really important for this program. Because you were talking earlier to some of the students out there about what it means to take this as a student, you're experiencing things most other students don't get the opportunity to experience. And one of them is like getting on the air and talking on the microphone. And for some kids, it's mind boggling that they would have to do that, and they're very scared and very nervous. And to be able to find that self confidence, you know, and get outside of your comfort zone. I think it's so beneficial.

E E
What do you think about that now, now that we're in the age of YouTube and Tik Tok and all of these other ways that.... What I see is that the mic has been handed over to just anybody at this point.

RP
Sure.

E E
Anybody that that puts up a YouTube account, they're on they're doing their thing.

RP
And you can tell.

E E
(laughs) Right, right, right, right. So, but do you think that there is a difference with the students that come in now as far as their their feeling of self confidence and their feeling of getting on the air and feeling comfortable doing that?

RP
Well, you have to acknowledge the fact that if they're just doing their own thing, that there are no expectations of them. I mean, other than what they're going to do, and I think there's just a little more structure and a little more expectation of professionalism, and the things that we can try and instill and that we've always tried to instill and I think the students understand and respond to the fact that okay, this is, you know, the FCC's, you know, monitoring so there's all these legalities and you know, we know that there's...we're streaming now, and people all over the world are listening and....

E E
And there are people all over the world...or at least all over the country for certain. I've heard people call in.

RP
Oh yeah, it's all over the world. Since we're streaming, we have the ability to get a documentation that shows people listening in Norway and Czechoslovakia. And that's cool.

E E
Yeah, it is cool.

RP
So when you know a student's thinking about that, I think it's just a difference between if I set up a phone or a camera, or a microphone, and I want to do a podcast about fashion or whatever, you know, I'm gonna do like that. That's great. You don't know who's gonna be listening. You don't, you know, you hope somebody is watching or listening. But here, it's a class, but it's also kind of a job. You know?

E E
Yeah.

RP
And what's expected of you, and again, that professionalism and things like that. I remember a student a couple of years ago said, well, is radio still relevant? You know?

E E
I've had people ask me this question a lot.

RP
Sure.

E E
And I think to myself...you know, heck, I don't know. A lot of people listen to podcasts, but at the same time, I'm still listening to the radio. And I think that people are still listening to the radio quite a lot. So I'm not.... I hear people say, Oh, I heard you da-da-da-da-da.

RP
Well, people have been asking, is radio still relevant since TV came along.

E E
Right.

RP
And that was what the 30s or something like that? You know?

E E
Yeah.

RP
And and here it is, it's 2021. Almost 2022. And yeah, radio. Sure it's still relevant.

E E
I've heard it referred to as the cockroach of media, that you just can't stamp it out, you know, that it just keeps doing its thing.

RP
(laughs) I read some millennial during the hurricane, and they were like, "I wish there was just some way we could get information like instantaneously, instead of waiting for a podcast or something like that." I'm thinking, "Hey, guy, it's it's called 'radio.' "

E E
That's exactly the reason it's survived.

RP
Exactly. Yeah, exactly.

E E
So, yeah. Because of the emergency service that it does provide whenever...and here, especially, you know, we have so many hurricanes and what not. Were able to do that. What...how is it that you're teaching things now, now that there are so many different platforms, and different ways to get information out? Or to broadcast at this point? How are you teaching it? Because whenever I was here, we had the AM station, and we had the FM station, we didn't have streaming at that point. All we were doing was just getting in the studio, and we would record a couple of breaks, and that was our thing. The first time that I got to run the board, you set me up. It was very Mr. Miyagi. You set me up with a pile of CDs. (laughs) Yeah, you set me up with a pile of CDs, and you set me at the board and you said, "Okay, when this thing has about 30 seconds left, fade down pot seven, put up pot eight, hit play. You know, and you told me to just keep doing that, and you basically left me in there for about an hour, and that's all I did. I didn't do anything else. I didn't talk. I didn't do anything else, and then later kind of got brought into - Okay, now it's time for you to do a break now. Okay, now let's throw you in and see how you do. And it worked out fine.

RP
Mmhmm.

E E
But like I said, it was very Mr. Miyagi. And, and today we don't even have that because... or is that how you're teaching them? Because we have just the the digital playlist now.

RP
Digital playlists? Yeah, there's um...and I have a student that bemoans the fact that we are not. We kind of backed away from spinning discs and the platters and you know, like, like, you think about what a DJ does, you know, a disc jockey, they're real hands on and they're, you know, they're queing music up, whatever. But CDs...kind of obsolete.

E E
Right.

RP
You know? Everything is digital now. So, what they're doing now is we are trying to develop their on-air personalities a little bit earlier.

E E
Okay.

RP
So that while they go into the studio, what they do now between breaks is they're doing research on the artists and the in the song and the music. What album is it off of? Did it win a Grammy? All of this kind of stuff so that they can create these breaks rather than just having a script. Because I think it was kind of....

E E
That's what I did.

RP
It was just a script.

E E
It was just a script is what I had.

RP
But we're trying to develop that that personality side of them and to be themselves and to find that inside themselves to create that on-air persona.

E E
For once I'm hearing that technology is not...not for once. Sometimes you hear that technology starts - Oh, where's the you know, how do I get to this? How do I press this or whatever? This thing's not working.- It's not even that. It's just...we've actually moved away and created less work so that you can get to the meat of something that you're trying to do.

RP
Yeah.

E E
Which is what technology is supposed to do.

RP
Sure. Right. Exactly.

E E
Yeah, that sounds really.... Oh, I'm jealous.

RP
I did have one like I said one young lady. She was like when I like board-opping and playing the music and doing segues and things like that. I like doing that. So I find opportunities to try and you know...if they show interest in that, I will nurture that. But if they did want to go out and get a job in radio. You know, 75, 80, 85 90% of the time, they're not gonna be doing that.

E E
Right.

RP
They're gonna have - everything's on the computer screen and they're just, you know,

E E
Do you have any...do you have any LP players? Or are any....

RP
No work ones.

E E
No turntables?

RP
We have, you know, I've got a couple that I just, I'm not going to get rid of, but they're not hooked up.

E E
Okay. So like, if somebody wants to do turntable, disc jockeying?

RP
Ah, no.

E E
No? Okay. Okay,

RP
No. I had to show a student what a 45. They'd never seen a 45.

E E
Really? Oh man!

RP
She's like, "It's like a record, but it's so small." I said, "Yeah, there's only one song on this side. And you flip it over...." And she was just, "Wow! That is so cool!" But I know, you know, vinyl's kind of coming back a little bit.

E E
Yeah.

RP
But not to the degree I think where, you know, radio stations, "We're all vinyl, all the time!" You know? That's not gonna happen. Well, maybe it might. I don't know.

E E
You never know.

RP
You never know.

E E
You never know. But okay, so are you are you teaching them...is anyone loading anything up to different platforms here like to...?

RP
Yeah, we're digitizing and archiving a lot of old shows that we've got in the library, because they're just sitting around, but they're sitting around in CD and...or on mini discs, that we still have mini discs laying around. So we'll get those. We're archiving those digitizing everything, putting everything on our streaming sites. That's another cool thing now. All of our weekend shows are now archived on the streaming side. So, if you miss it, you can go back and listen. We've got song and title information and artist information on there that's in real time, so people can look that up. Stuff that I wouldn't have thought, you know, we'll ever be there. Yeah, something like that.

E E
Yeah!

RP
But it's a reality. And we're getting students more involved in doing news reports, current events, calendars, that they've got to research. They've got to do all of this work. So we tell them what we expect them to be able to accomplish, and show... give them the tools on how to accomplish that using various programs and editing devices and stuff like that and then set them free.

E E
That sounds really nice. Very cool.

RP
Next thing up, you know, podcasts we talked about, if students are interested in doing podcasts. I think at this age, there's still kind of, you can...maybe one or two will be - Well, I'll do sports. I like sports. We can do sports. - And well, you know, football season, you got to do sports, you got to do podcast, that's kind of year round. You know, you got to be able to hold people's attention. And I think some kids have an interest in doing that. It doesn't seem like a lot of them are there yet.

E E
I would think that maybe you have to really know exactly what you want to do.

RP
Sure.

E E
To do....

RP
And you have some authority on your subject or whatever you're talking about.

E E
Mmhmm. Do you think, you know, in the next few years, that that might change? That there might be even a greater confidence in...?

RP
I think so? I think so. Because, like you mentioned, you know, the fact that just anybody can, can can record a podcast or put something up on Tik Tok or YouTube or anything like that. They're getting that experience and that exposure and maybe that confidence a little bit.

E E
Did you ever used to do, like pretend radio shows when you were a kid?

RP
Ah, I wouldn't say I did pretend radio shows. I wrote plays.

E E
Oh!

RP
I wrote plays. So, I guess in a way I wrote I would write plays like in....

E E
Like Garrison Keillor-style type stuff or something?

RP
No. Usually involving vampires or something like that. You know, when I was in grade school, elementary school, every year around Halloween, I would assemble this group of kids and we'd put on "The Vampire Play." And everybody in that grade, they would make time in the school day to go and set up in one of the big rooms and watch this amateur hour vampire play that one of the kids had done.

E E
Do you have any other plays? Have you written any other plays since then?

RP
Oh, gosh, no. Although at Halloween time, I do like to do like a Halloween themed show with sound effects and different voices and stuff like that. Radio plays have always fascinated me. When I was a student here, we would, you know, we did Ebenezer Scrooge Christmas Carol. And maybe War of the Worlds, I think, and I've always loved that kind of stuff. And I've thought about...I want this. I want the students to be creative. And I want them to create. I feel like that...if I can be completely honest. I feel like over the years because I've been here like 25 years, I guess. I've just seen a slow, kind of...uh, less exuberance and creativity.

E E
Really?

RP
Yeah.

E E
Huh.

RP
You'd think it would be...I don't know. I don't know why. I don't know if it's just over the course of the last couple of decades. I just, it doesn't seem that there's...everybody's got this creative spark, you know, and that was my experience when I was in school here. I don't know if you can say the....

E E
Oh! I think.... I think that we definitely had a creative spark going on. I will say that as time has gone on, when I think of doing something like a podcast, or doing something creative, and putting it out into the world, at this point, I don't have the same...and, of course, some of that's age, I imagine. But I think some of what I am experiencing is that there's so much stuff out there already.

RP
Mmhmm.

E E
Like if you think about okay - Well, you want to do a podcast. If you look up what your podcast is, there's someone already doing your, your show. Everything is so much more available.

RP
Oh, sure.

E E
So whenever you think - Oh, maybe I could go do this thing or something. It's, it's already out there. Whenever I was in school, we were still limited to cable TV and what was on the radio, and that was pretty much it. The internet was just starting to blossom.

RP
And when I was in school back in back in the...there were like three television networks. And that was it. Cable was just kind of starting to come around.

E E
So if there was some kind of niche, you could find it.

RP
Sure. You had only had so many avenues to find entertainment, or news or.... So everybody was kind of on the same wavelength. Now, obviously, like you said, there's a gazillion avenues that you can go down. And you can find something that speaks directly to you. Yeah. You know, as opposed to - Well, I'm kind of into that. So I guess I'll go with it.

E E
I'll go with it.

RP
But no, this thing directly speaks to me and only me.

E E
Yeah.

RP
And if there's nothing that I can find that's going to do that, then I'll do it myself.

E E
Right.

RP
So.

E E
There's pros and cons.

RP
Sure. Sure, sure.

E E
But that does that does hurt a little bit to hear that the students aren't as...feeling the creative spark as much?

RP
Well, I'm hoping to explore ways to get that to open up.

E E
What do you think would do that?

RP
And have them write a radio play themselves.

E E
Oh!

RP
Or create some kind of, I don't know, a little three minute skit and just have them brainstorm and sit around and talk about what can we do? You know? Or like if it's improv, throw them a scenario or - Come and give me give me three minutes on this.

E E
Yeah.

RP
Including music and sound effects and everything like that. That usually can can spark some people a little bit.

E E
That sounds like heaven to me. But you know, I don't know.

RP
I'm a weirdo. That's kind of stuff I'm into.

E E
Well, we're the olds now, Rob. I don't know if you know. We're the olds.

RP
(laughs) I'm closer to getting my AARP card than you are.

E E
(laughs)Yeah.

RP
But I'm still totally involved in my job, I still enjoy what I do here. I still, when I feel like - Oh, God, I gotta go do this again. - You know, that's when you kind of feel like maybe - What? I got to start looking at maybe retiring or something like that? - I'm.... That's not in my, that's not in my thought process at all. I'm still really, really happy to work with with all these young people. It keeps me young, I think, to a degree, and I want to keep seeing them develop and growing. And I want to see them continue to get the most out of this program. And I just want it to continue on after I'm no longer here. I want to make sure that the foundations are here for the next person that comes in to do this. And just want the program to keep growing.

E E
What do you think it is about it that makes you...it's definitely more than a job for you.

RP
Well, I'll tell you one thing about this job as opposed to like a job and commercial radio or something like that is the complete openness of what I want to do. You know, I can be as creative as I want to be. I can choose.... I don't have to follow the corporate's playlist. I don't have to follow these corporate rules and regulations of what can and can't be done. I can, if I think it's something our listeners are going to enjoy, I'm going to do it. And I'm going to get our format to follow that if I think it's something that is going to make us continue to be unique and not stale. If it continues to make us something that I think people appreciate to have on the airwaves, then I'm all for it. And if you're in commercial radio, you're going to make a lot more money. But you're not going to have the opportunity to have that creative side and to explore that. And so that's what continues to get me excited about this.

E E
Right. You get a little locked in, in commercial radio.

RP
Oh yeah. Very much, very much. And the opportunities are far less, I think, for commercial radio. I try to steer the students now towards - Stay in non-commercial radio, you know. Public radio is awesome because there's a lot of opportunities there for you to be able to do different things than go into commercial radio. And now commercial radio, I mean, there's so few local stations now are still local. I mean, it's like satellites, these big, you know, shows are syndicated that come out of Dallas or Chicago or wherever, or LA, and you lose that personal appeal, the local market and talking about local things, you know. We just had the hurricane, you know, but if you got a radio show that's coming in from from New York or Chicago, they're not talking about that.

E E
No, they're really not. Hmm.

RP
So that's, that's a good thing for I think the students if you want. If they do want to go into broadcasting, I try and steer them towards that. Towards non-commercial. Right.

E E
Cool. There is a pledge drive that's coming up. I'm not sure when I'm airing this, but I know that one, the pledge drive is going to be happening one way or another at some point when this thing airs, or when I put this up on the web because there's always a pledge drive that's happening(laughs).

RP
It seems like that. We try and keep it twice a year. We actually were going to do it last month, but again, the hurricane, you know, and it's you can't. It didn't feel right asking for people to contribute financially when they were in such a horrible state, and people are still recovering. But it's just it's necessary. We have we have to do that so that we can continue to operate. That's one of the things about public radio or public TV: You have to lean on your listeners or your viewers occasionally. It does seem like some entities are doing it all year long, you know?

E E
Right. Yeah.

RP
But it's fun though in a way because it gives the listeners the opportunity to be like - Hey, I'm part of that. I'm a part of that.

E E
So I guess I want to give you just the opportunity to say whatever you'd like to say, regarding the pledge drive or anything else, really, that you're just thinking about? Yeah.

RP
Well, I'll follow. I'll continue that thought. You know, listeners say, "Man, I sure wish that this was a program like this when I was in high school. That'd been really cool." And yeah, sure. Well, you're out of high school now, but you can still be a part of this program, you know, by contributing, and there's lots of reasons to do it. The music, obviously, we play a lot of Louisiana artists, a lot of local artists from right here in Baton Rouge. And they know that this is one of the seldom ways that they're going to be able to get their music heard.

E E
For the longest time, we did not have Louisiana music in Louisiana.

RP
That was something that I am very proud of because that is something that I strive to play as much of our musical community because it's so diverse. You know, that's why our AM station, KBRH, which plays a ton of, you know, Blues and Zydeco and Roots music and all of that is extremely popular, like in Europe and Japan. Surprising...not surprisingly. I mean, people go crazy for Louisiana music. And I think, you know, sometimes we're right here in Louisiana, we take it for granted, you know, that we've got the best food and the best music and the best, you know, of some things. So, you're supporting that. You're supporting the incredible educational benefits for the students who are in the program now and who have been in this program since it began in 1977. And so it's a legacy now, you know. It's a part of the community. And, and it's just, it's just pretty darn cool too.

E E
I agree.

RP
I think so. It's pretty darn cool. So, if people do want to contribute, you know, they can do it through our website. Can I say it?

E E
Sure.

RP
It's wrbh.org. You can donate any time through that. Or if you're around and we're around during the day, we're doing the campaign, you can call us at 225-388-9030

E E
Awesome.

RP
Thank you, Elizabeth.

E E
Thank you so much for chatting with me today. Rob.

RP
I enjoyed it tremendously. And don't be a stranger. Come on back.

E E
For sure.

RP
Okay.

E E
Definitely.

EE: This is The Sunshine Bridge, a new show which shares the diverse perspectives of Louisianians and highlights the work of those who serve their community. Get in touch! The show's email is thesunshinebridge@gmail.com. Music is by Arnav Srivastav. Special thanks to Justen Walker, alumnus of Baton Rouge High's radio training program, class of 2002, who a year ago called me up and said, "Hey, what are you doing?" and when I said, "Nothing," he said, "Come on. Let's go do a pledge break for WBRH." By the way, as Rob said, you can always donate to the station at 225-388-9030 or online at wbrh.org. I'm Elizabeth Eads. Keep shining.