WGUN – Atlanta, Georgia

In the late summer of 1974, I remember thinking that I really should bear down on trying to get my personal act together. It was August, and it always seemed like this time of year was a new beginning of sorts. After all, that is when school starts, fall is in the air, the new TV season hits, football season is already underway, and so it always seemed to me like we were starting the year to end the year. I started calling some stations looking for part time positions and landed a positive response from a station about 1 mile from my apartment. I received a call back from the general manager, Ben Akerman, from radio station WGUN. My shift would be Saturday mornings and Sunday afternoons. I immediately decided that in order to play music and do the Saturday shift, I would have to stay up all night when I was gigging on Friday night, and then go in directly to the station at 6:30am on Saturday. I was only 21, so I was pretty much able to beat myself up in those days, then and bounce back fairly quickly. It just so happened that I landed the job at the right time, as I was immediately needed to fill in for 2 weeks for a fulltime employee who was going on vacation. I remember having to be at work at 6:30am every morning for the first 2 weeks, and I was wondering if I could do it. I was worried about it so much that my dad called me every morning at 5:30am to make sure I made it in. That was in the days of one big phone company, and long distance was something you did only now and then.

          After the first 2 weeks of filling in, then I settled into my regular weekend shift, which I kept for quite a few years. If my memory serves me correctly, I think I consistently worked the weekends well into 1982. I was then mislead into thinking my music career was taking off, when in reality, it was just a façade. The guitar studio was doing fine, but the band I had put together was having the usual ego issues and inner rumblings that are unhealthy for success.