When I started my show 4 years ago It was with the understanding of taking my native gifts and doing positive inspirational work, building a brand which at its core is about substance over style. As William Faulkner said, "history is what's happening today."
First I had to develop my investigative journalistic chops which had been dormant since Boston University in the late nineties. Than I had to find my voice which really means having the nuts to ask questions of intelligent people about things that most aren't comfortable talking about in private.
I have connected on a very personal level with the greatest musicians of the past and present. The deepest hang with Cats like Steve Gadd and Bernard Pretty Purdie who were holding down Rudy Van Gelders fort in Englewood Cliffs, Or the drum chair at Mikells on the Upper West side strutting their Stuff with the late great Richard Tee.
My guest today has built his brand by staying on the cutting edge of giving people what they want.
Give the people what they want let the body dance be it
MTV, or South Park even Camp MTV.
But his business acumen has been shaped by his love of music. A love that was instilled in him by his mother who went wherever there was rhythm.
My guest saw the world at an early age. The 3rd world to the 2nd Power that his mom showed to him and his siblings helping them shape their views on social justice, tolerance and dignity. The harder the blues the harder it swings.....be it Carnival in Trinidad or the Steel pan bands and the Calypso that ultimately turned into Ska.
He is a music fanatic going to see the Night Tripper or catching the last Allman Brothers show with their manager Burt Holman.....
Holman, Holman, Holman, that name sounds familiar, that's right Scatico Your Face. The nexus between Bill and James, Boys Side Girls Side, 1A1B and now 1c .
My guest' name is emblazoned in the social hall where chicken fights of Color Wars Past conjure up memories of Flicks sermons, Lazy Days and the College Bowl Gold Rush.
My guest went to college in Boston just like this host except my guest came on the scene when radio broadband was cheap. On a fledgling FM Radio Station @ Emerson College my guest was heard round midnight in the late seventies playing Rastafari with a side of Ox Tail. Going into Dorchester and Roxbury finding the cats who were playing Dub Reggae scratching out Lee Perry Junior Murvin and Brother Bob Marley.
My guest has been masterful at identifying talented writers, hosts, producers, entertainers. accompanists who when put together create witty relevant programming that to its credit delivers the news more authentically than the strained major networks who placate institutions that have lost the trust of the American People no matter what their color.
You see it today in the streets of New York where young people can't breath and are trying to find the next leaders of social justice. Because leaders have vision like My guest who is able to identify talent and creativity not yet in its fullest form, he trusts his intuition and knows that you cannot do everything the best. That in fact there are others who can complement you and take something trendy and make it iconic.
.....MTV, Beavis and Butthead, The Colbert Report, the Daily Show South Park. These are not shows that last a few years and fizzle.....these shows are the gold standard of television entertainment.
It's that point of view, to know more is there than meets the eye. Being Rock Steady because the Harder They Come The Harder they Fall one and all....
Doug Herzog welcome to the JFS