Smitty: What was your feeling when you heard all of this happening at the time of your release of this record?
BB: Well, at the end of the day it’s about the music getting to the people, so I wanted to make sure that there was something there for Smooth, but my music includes pop, includes gospel, includes urban, and it includes contemporary jazz, so I just felt that the record spoke to those people who buy my records and at the end of the day that’s the most important thing. As long as we can get it to them, then we’re okay, so if it means that radio will not be there, then you have to rely on going out here and doing some dates, which you know I have no problem doing.
Smitty: Yeah, well, you’ve also gotten your feet wet in the radio business as well, haven’t you?
BB: Yes, I started in ’81. I interned in New York at WBLS, which was at the time the number one FM station in New York City, and that was the home of Frankie Crocker. I had a chance to intern under him and that’s where I developed some really, really key relationships moving into the 90s and the year 2000. Pat Prescott is somebody who I met at that time and so Pat was very instrumental in playing a lot of my stuff early in my career before she moved out to Los Angeles at The Wave. She landed a job in 1988 at CD101. Did a little news over there for a while and then I worked at 1010WINS, which was a Westinghouse/Infinity station, and then I got into the music for a number of years and then came back to radio. I always had this thing about radio.
I wrote the jingle for CD101 which ran for about seven years straight before they flipped their format to what they call New York Chill in ’05. In ’04 I did some music consultant work in Jacksonville at a Smooth Jazz station there and then I helped open up a Smooth Jazz station down in Bermuda in ’06. I did that for about six or seven months of going back and forth there and just developing instrumental music in that market and worked my way back up to Atlanta, where I was doing some consulting work for WCLK in Atlanta, which is Clark Atlanta University, and so now I’m at WJZZ, which is a Radio One station, so I’ve made my rounds, man.
Smitty: Yes you have.
BB: But it’s been a fun little journey so far.
Smitty: Yeah, man, and you gotta be having a great time with it.
BB: Oh, absolutely. It’s just nice—I mean, there’s a few cats out here that are musicians that also do radio. Of course, Dave Koz comes to mind, Chris Botti was doing it for a while, Boney James, Mindi Abair is doing it now, Ramsey [Lewis] is doing it.
Smitty: Yeah, Norman Brown.
BB: So yeah, it’s nice to be in good company.
Smitty: Yeah.
BB: Alexander Zonjic over in Detroit.
Smitty: I think Gerald Veasley’s doing radio in Philadelphia, isn’t he?
BB: Right, right, so I think it’s a really cool way for musicians to protect their craft, protect their art form, and really bring something special to the genre, and it gives some credibility and some personality to it.
Smitty: True that.
BB: Not to say that the ones, the people in place aren’t personable, but when you’re living and breathing the genre and now you’re on the radio talking about it, you have some personal experiences you can share with people and I think people appreciate that.
Smitty: Absolutely. I have to applaud you for that because as a listener, when I hear a song, I want to hear some interesting tidbits about it.
BB: Mm-hmm.
Smitty: I love those tidbits, you know? I miss that in radio and I talk to people across the country that tell me they miss that. People used to tell me how they were listening in their car and after that song is over, if they didn’t know what that song was, they’d pull over and pull out their pen and paper that they had in the glove box especially for that reason and write it down song and album and then go buy it.
BB: Exactly, right, right, that’s right. I think the people who are listening to this music that are really into it, they’re passionate just like that, like you said. They will pull the car over to the side of the highway and get your pencil and write it down because, I mean, I’ve done that myself.
Smitty: (Laughs.) Absolutely, I remember those days.
BB: And I think the format misses that. It misses that personal connection that the jocks had with people and maybe they’ve over canned it so much where it’s kinda lost some of that heartbeat and I think it needs to come back to that.
Smitty: I totally agree. So keep doing your thing, brotha, because you’re definitely on the right track of attracting the listeners and giving them what they want. Isn’t that why we have radio? To give them what they want?
BB: Yes, absolutely, and give them a variety and, like you said, tell the little stories behind the music.
Smitty: Right on!
BB: Yeah, I’m on WJZZ, which is Atlanta 107.5, and you can also listen online at 1075WJZZ.com.
Smitty: Oh, cool.
BB: Saturdays from 6 to 10.
Smitty: They have some great guys down there too. You cats are doing your thing. Love what you’re doing.
BB: Yeah, thank you, bro.
Smitty: Yeah, so now talk to me about Bermuda, man. How did you get hooked up with Bermuda?
BB: You know, believe it or not, there’s a young guy down there named Terence who works a day job at a phone company and he wanted to start a radio station, so he rented out some space at the phone company where he worked and took some equipment and wanted to start a Smooth Jazz station. So he started surfing the net and then located me and found out I was doing some radio through the stuff I was doing down in Jacksonville, so it was basically through I guess a Google search of me and we just hooked up. He originally wanted some jingles and then when he found out that I did more than just jingles and I told him that I could help him with programming some of the station, we just had a nice little connection. He’s a young guy and just was really ambitious and passionate about putting the music out there, so that worked out really nice for a while, man. We did about five or six concerts down there since then just to kinda help promote jazz music in Bermuda because up until then there really wasn’t a whole lot going on, so it was kinda cool to be involved in it, so I was glad to be a part of that pioneering.
