First Steps - Pablo Picasso 1943
We took the first steps in our Freeform Radio project a few years ago. We built a website (HERE) as a place to archive material about that era of broadcasting. It was a time when artistry and artistic vision was the focus, where the music was delivered to a growing audience by new broadcasting talent in an entirely new way - respectfully! It was commercial radio but art was the first priority and it was a stunning success.
Building the website has put us in touch with a lot of interesting and talented people. The journey and not the destination, as the saying goes, but we’re trying to keep the goal in mind, too. We want to archive whatever relevant material we can uncover, our belief being that history is what’s stored in the basement and thrown out when we die. We want to make a living place for it. That’s part of the goal.
We want to honor the incredibly creative people who made freeform radio happen, the deejays especially, but also the newscasters, production teams, sales staff, and office staff who put on their sailing shoes and ventured off into unknown waters where none had gone before. It’s an incredible tale, perhaps the greatest story never told: how Freeform Radio birthed the Classic Era of Rock Music. We want to tell it and to reach the widest possible audience. We’re taking bigger steps to that goal now.
Steve Postell - credit: entertalkmedia.com
One of the remarkable people who has taken time to speak with us about how that Classic Era affected him is the extraordinary musician and producer Steve Postell, (HERE), who recently was featured in the documentary The Immediate Family (HERE). It’s the story of Steve and his colleagues, Danny Kortchmar, Waddy Wachtel, Leland Sklar, and Russ Kunkel, who collectively as studio musicians have more credits to their names than is comprehensible. As an example, Sklar has played bass on 2,600 albums! If you care about making great music, these guys are in the thick of it.
Steve had a lot to say about the influence of FM radio, especially Freeform Radio station WNEW in his hometown of New York. “It’s why I’m the musician I am,” he said, “no question about it.” When as a kid his parents gave him an FM radio and speakers, “it was like having a concert hall in my bedroom.” He listened into the wee hours and he learned. Who influenced him? “Hundreds really,” he said, but the Beatles, Jimi Hendrix, and Bob Dylan were the big three.
All the arts mattered as he was coming of age: film, theater, dance, and, of course, music. What was so unique and impactful about the time? “The arts were valued, they were accessible, and they were curated … by people who … did it because they loved it, not to get rich.” We can’t think of a better way to describe what was happening in the arts and in society back then, and what the story of Freeform Radio is all about.
Hale Milgrim - credit: Independent.com
Another amazing guy who’s become a supporter of our Freeform Radio effort is Hale Milgrim (HERE), who started out in the music business running Discount Records in California just as the Classic Era of Rock Music was coming to be and rose up through the ranks to eventually become President of Capitol Records in 1989 and later CEO.
More recently he did a weekly radio show called Go To Hale at KTYD-FM in Santa Barbara, and his Inhale Music produces shows there at the historic Lobero Theatre (HERE), where he is one of that venue’s major benefactors. His Quips and Clips presentations feature Hale’s running commentary as he screens concert films of the Sixties and Seventies drawn from his vast collection of musical memorabilia.
Hale is a great story-teller with an entire career worth of tales to tell. There’s a book in the future, no doubt. “I never expected to be president of Capitol Records,” he said to us in a discussion earlier this week. “I never thought it was possible, it never entered my head, although in there somewhere I knew I wanted to be a decision-maker.” What it was all about, he said, from working the counter at a record shop to running a major record company, was simply this: “I just wanted to turn people on to the music.”
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