The Best Little Whorehouse in Texas (Ben Brogdon)

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A few days ago I posted on getting an email from Ben Brogdon who used to work in radio down in my neck of the woods (Northeast Arkansa/Southeast Missouri). As I always do, I Googled Ben and got a hit on the Broadway musical, The Best Little Whorehouse in Texas. It ran from 1978 until 1982 (later made into a movie starring Dolly Parton, Burt Reynolds, Charles Durning et al) and Ben played in the Rio Grand Band, part of the original Broadway cast. I pinged Ben to see if he was “that Ben Brogdon”:

“Yassir, tha’s me. We had a western swing band in Nashville for the fun of it, and a friend of ours who produced Asleep at the Wheel (and some of Bob Wills later stuff, and Willie Nelson’s early stuff, and who also played with Buddy Holly when he was killed) hooked us up to the powers-that-were, and we went to New Yawk on a trial basis and just stayed a while. It was a great experience, and I wouldn’t trade it for anything, but I honestly didn’t like living there very much. I will have to say, though, there sure was a lot of great music to hear, and some incredible restaurants. The play, by the way, was a lot better than the movie. I still sorta keep in touch with one of the authors of the play, Larry L. King. He lives in D.C., and still writes some. Great guy with a great mind.

In case you’re interested, I’ve worked with some kinda big name acts, but most of them were country. (Stonewall Jackson, Dottie West, Donna Fargo, Barbara Mandrell, and others). I did work a club in Nashville where we backed a lot of different people doing showcases, or even just settin’ in, and got to play with Tony Orlando, Lou Rawls and others. All in all, I’d say I’ve played bass for about 150 name or near name acts. And the number of great instrumentalists I’ve been fortunate to pick with still amazes me. I don’t know if you’ve heard of some of them, but Lenny Breau and Danny Gatton, as well as Roy Clark, Chet Atkins and some others are some who I’ve gotten to pick for. Now, please, I’m not name dropping, but I’ve been in the bidness a long time and have been very lucky.

If you saw The Best Little Whorehouse In Texas in New York at the 46th street theater in ’78 or ’79, I was probably playing bass. I left and went back to Nashville after about two years. You’ll also see me on a blues website, I think, and I’m on a lot of steel guitar things.”

Talk about your brushes with near greatness! Ben has agreed to let me interview him and we’re working on the details but it sounds like he’s got some great stories to tell. Stay tuned.

Google AdSense for radio: Part Two

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From today’s C|NET story on Google and radio advertising:

“So why the excitement? dMarc automates the process of buying ads, placing them in time slots and tracking them, which is usually done by ad agencies over the phone, experts said. Automation could lead to efficiency, and that means lower prices for advertisers while bringing in more sales for the radio stations. … The Google-dMarc system would be a big change from the current ad-buying system, where ad salespeople establish personal relationships with radio stations. Advertisers could better quantify how well an ad campaign is doing and modify the ads quickly depending on the response rate from listeners.”

Which reminded me of this from Chris Anderson’s The Long Tail:

“Meanwhile on the other side, those ad-driven media have their own ad sales forces. They pitch the advertisers and their media buyers on the virtues of their advertising vehicles. If all goes well, millions of dollars change hands. All of it is labor-intensive and made even more costly by the expensive schmoozing that’s required in businesses where a lack of trusted performance metrics makes salesmanship and personal relationships key to winning businesses.”

Only time will tell if Google can make this elephant dance, but revenue in Google’s most recent quarter was $2.5 billion, nearly double what it was a year ago. And Google has the money and time to figure this out:

“What’s neat about this is the radio stations get to preview the creative copy and we pre-approve all rates before they get aired. Radio stations and Google will explore on a case-by-case basis which opportunities make sense.”

The scariest quote in the story for me was:

“The fact that (what Google is trying) is more electronically based gives advertisers more comfort that they are getting what they are buying.” Ad agencies and stations “are still faxing invoices to each other and typing up affidavits.”

All of this brings back memories of Google’s earliest days. Everybody that used it said, “Damn, this is cool! THIS is how search is supposed to work. But, uh, how are they gonna make any money with this service if it’s free?” $2.5 billion last quarter. Maybe they’ll figure it out.

Prison Goodies

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Corrections Today Magazine (“Official Publican of the American Correctional Association”) is really pretty interesting reading. The copy I browsed included articles such as: “Jail Time Is Learning Time”; “Reducing Risk and Responding to Mental Health Needs”; and “Use of Force: The Correlation Between Law Enforcement and Clinical Care.” But the ads were even more interesting. My favorite was one for Keefe Group (“Everything you need for your commissary!”).

Prison Goodies

If you can’t hop in the pick-up and run down the the Quick Shop, where do you get the things you need to make a cell a little more liveable? The prison commissary. The coffee and snacks make sense. And if you don’t have AC, an electric fan moves up the appliance ladder. The corrections officers like the idea of see-through TV’s and MP3 players (?)… but what’s the deal on the moisturizing bar? And I seem to recall reading something about status associated with pristine white athletic shoes (stepping on a guys shoes can get you killed).

Right and wrong aside, I don’t do the crime… ’cause I can’t do the time.

Phil gets a MacBook

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Phil's MacBook Phil Atkinson, head of Learfield’s IT operation, was forced… I mean, he really had no choice… to purchase a MacBook Pro. As our company does more with podcasting and video and iTunes… having a Mac in the house will just make Phil’s life a little easier. At least, that’s the line he gave me. Here you see him closing the cover on the win box and opening the Mac. An image heavy with symbolism. He reports that Bootcamp makes it a snap to run OSX and XP (sound of cash register in Cupertino).

Webcasting to pork producers

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I am at the office, preparing to monitor a webcast/teleconference by the Indiana Pork Producers Assn. It’s panel discussion on what swine producers need to know about Pocine Circovirus Type 2. An hour of this would never air on a radio station, but it’s important to those involved in the pork industry. This is an example of The Long (Curly) Tail.

Hollie Farris and the Senath Light (Ben Brogdon)

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I recently received an email from Ben Brogdon, a long-time radio guy (KLCN, Blytheville, AR) who stumbled across one of my websites:

“I Googled my old hometown radio station, KLCN, Blytheville, AR, and found a link to your Early Days At KBOA site. I sat and read every word of it, looked at every picture, and finally went to bed at 6am.”

Ben is a musician at Dollywood and played in a jazz band in college with Wendell Crow (Sheryl’s daddy). We bounced emails back and forth for a few days before he brought up “the Senath Light.” This is (was) a well-known paranormal phenomenon (that I never witnessed).

“Actually, I never saw the light. Oh, we’d drive up from Jonesboro when I was living there playing in bands, working at radio stations, and attending class on occasion, and we’d sit patiently, not making a sound, those who smoked wanting a cigarette REALLY bad, and wait, but it never came out while I was there.

Others told me they had seen it, though. One of my jazz mates at school, Hollie Farris, a trumpet player who has the distinction of being the only white musician James Brown has ever had, and who QUIT a gig with Steve Winwood to go back with JB after he got out of prison, DID stand under that tree in the middle of the road and supposedly got KNOCKED CLEAN OUT COLD by the light hitting him in the head, which most assuredly changed his life and his thinking process from that moment on.

I also worked with a piano player from Caruthersville who could talk to spirits, and was told that he had actually TALKED to the light, which surprised me, since we all knew if you made a sound, it would disappear. BUT, having him sit in my house and tell me it was inhabited by spirits, which I had suspected, and then say once when we were watching a storm that it would kill 35 people, and it DID kill 34, I somehow believe he may have talked to the light.”

Why do I blog? So I can “meet” people that played with Holly Farris, the only white musician to play with James Brown.

He left radio to become a clown

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Radio Iowa News Queen O. Kay Henderson emailed this affiliate update:

“As you know, KICD news director Brent Palm left to take a job at Minnesota News Network. His replacement is Tim Torkildson. Mr. T worked in radio 12 to 15 years ago. He left radio to become a clown and ringmaster for a traveling circus. He’s now left that career, settled in Spencer and is starting his third week on the job.”

Welcome back, Tim. I’d surely love to interview you for smays.com.

Trent Tomlinson on Stern

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Sirius might be a great satellite radio service but I think their website sucks. My plan was to record Trent Tomlinson’s appearance this morning by streaming the audio from the Sirius website. Couldn’t get their three-day-free-trial to work. Even borrowed a password from a subscriber and couldn’t get that to work. So, unless one of you recorded this, we won’t get to listen. It shouldn’t be this difficult to steal part of the guy’s radio show.

Quick Google search found an amazing website called MarksFriggin.com. It appears this guy posts a detailed description of each day’s show. I’ll add the archive link as soon as he puts it up (tomorrow?) but if you find the show for 7/24/06 and scroll down to 7:30 a.m., you’ll find his account of Trent’s segment. Here’s a portion:

Miss Howard Stern Performs With Trent Tomlinson. 07/24/06. 8:30am
After the break Howard said he was listening to country singer Trent Tomlinson warming up during the break and he was wondering why they were letting Andrea come in to ruin it. He said the song is a little more than country and he’s not sure how he missed the song. He’s not into country music so that’s how he missed it. Trent told Howard about how he came up with the lyrics for his song ”Drunker Than Me.” Howard told the guys to perform the song before Andrea came in since she was probably going to ruin it.

Trent and his band performed the song ”Drunker Than Me” (from the album Country Is My Rock) which is the song that Andrea sang while drunk the last time she was up there at the Stern Show. Howard said he was amazed that Andrea could remember the lyrics to the song because they’re not easy to remember. Trent said he even has trouble with them sometimes.

Howard said that Trent has opened up for bands like Bon Jovi and John Mellencamp so it’s not strictly country fans that he’s performing for. Trent told Howard that one of his guys used to be in The Black Crows but he had a falling out with them. The guys said that he’s talking to the band now but he had to get out back then because they were playing too long for him. They turned into a jam band and would just keep going on and on while playing.

 

Howard spent some time talking to Trent about his career and how his father actually wanted him to be a basketball player. Trent said his father used to play himself so he tried to groom him for the same career. He said now his father is happy with what he does and calls radio stations trying to get them to play his songs.

Miltenberger Family Reunion

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Jan, Lew and MA

I didn’t take a lot of pix on recent trip to Destin because Barb’s brother Chris is a damned fine photographer and snapped about 500 images. I added 20 or 30 to my flickr set.

Someone hired a professional beach photographer to get some family shots. For some reason, all beach photogs have a thing for khaki pants and white shirts. There’s a proof page here (very lo rez) but not for long. I like Chris’s images better.

Nobody’s reading books

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These statistics –compiled by Dan Poynter– explain so much. I found these on a Buzz Machine post last week and have been haunted by them since.

  • One-third of high school graduates never read another book for the rest of their lives.
  • 58% of the US adult population never reads another book after high school.
  • 42% of college graduates never read another book.
  • 80% of US families did not buy or read a book last year.
  • 70% of US adults have not been in a bookstore in the last five years.
  • 57% of new books are not read to completion.
  • Most readers do not get past page 18 in a book they have purchased.
  • Customers 55 and older account for more than one-third of all books bought.

I confess to being something of book pimp. I get really jazzed about a book (a la The Long Tail) and bore the shit out of the people around me about it. And I frequently “loan” books to people who really don’t want to “borrow” them (let alone read them) but they don’t want to hurt my feelings by telling me so. So they take the book and put it on a shelf or in a drawer and that’s as close to reading it as they get.

It isn’t their fault. If they wanted to read the book, they would have gone out an bought it. So no more loaning books unless I hear these words: “May I PLEASE borrow that book? I can’t find it anywhere and I’m dying to read it. I promise to get it back to you next week.”