Listen to Your Heart

As many of you know, I'm about to be inducted into the Massachusetts Broadcasters Hall of Fame. It's a great honor, and my one regret is that my parents aren't alive to see it. But, while I am sure they'd be happy for me, they never did understand why I wanted a career in radio. And they absolutely did not understand why I was willing to leave Boston (and leave a career as a teacher) to go to Cleveland, a city where I'd never been before, and work as a rock & roll deejay. Teaching was secure. It was stable. And you got your summers off. But it wasn't what I wanted to do.

Don't get me wrong: I had some enjoyable times as a teacher. Agreed, some of the students were annoying, but others were eager to learn. It was the early 1970s, an era of turbulence and social change, and even in English classes, current issues were on everyone's mind. For some reason, the kids thought I was an interesting person-- I guess I wasn't like a lot of the other teachers. I was much younger, and I liked the same music they did. I could also understand a lot of what they were going through. I was strict if I had to be, but I was also someone who motivated and encouraged them. And so it was that I became sort of a combination counselor, mentor, and teacher. And when I finally got a part-time deejay job at a local AM station, they were able to hear me on the air. They thought that was exceedingly cool. This is a photo of me from the 1973 Hyde Park High School Yearbook. (Note the books on my desk: they were about rock music as poetry. To this day, I gravitate to songs that have meaningful lyrics.)

My students were disappointed when they found out I was leaving, but I don't think they were surprised. They knew that I loved radio, and when I had the chance to follow my dream, they knew it was what I needed to do. Some of them wrote to me in Cleveland; I still have some of those letters.  

When I left teaching to work at WMMS, ten hours and 600 miles away from Boston, I knew I was taking a risk. I was leaving the city where I'd lived all my life and going to a place where I knew no-one, just because I loved radio. I even took a cut in pay, as I recall, but it was never just about the money-- I mean, of course, I wanted to make enough to pay my bills. But while teaching high school English paid reasonably well, my heart was in radio, as it had been ever since I was a kid. I knew this was my big chance, the one I'd waited for; and I knew I had to take it.

Some of you know what happened for me in Cleveland--both the good and the bad. The good part included discovering a certain Canadian rock band and helping to launch their career in the US; having their first two albums dedicated to me was both surprising and humbling. I was also the chair of a committee on prison reform, and in addition to having fun as a music director and meeting a lot of rock stars, I did a number of speaking engagements and met some wonderful listeners. The bad part was never getting equal pay, and never really fitting in-- it was a time when there was a lot of drug use, and I've never done any of that. I probably was a huge disappointment to the folks at the station. 

To be honest, I wasn't sorry to leave Cleveland and move to New York, where I worked for Rush's label for a year, and then I got back into radio, working at a jazz station. My career took me to a soft-rock station in Washington DC for a while, and then, finally, back to Boston, where I eventually started my own consulting career. I did that for 28 years, traveling all over North America (I even had clients in Alaska. Hawaii, and Puerto Rico-- and Canada too). And when the radio industry changed in the 1990s, I had to reinvent myself and go back to school. Some of you know I got my PhD when I was 64, and these days, I'm an author, a media historian, and a professor.

And if there's a message in any of this, I suppose it's to think about which path will bring you happiness. You may need to take some chances, you may need to encounter disapproval, and you may disappoint some well-meaning folks who don't understand that what they think is right for you might not be what you think is right for you. (In the end, I hope my parents came to accept my career, even if it puzzled them sometimes.) And so, if you believe the path you're on will allow you to make a positive contribution, go for it. And while not every dream is meant to come true, there's definitely satisfaction in knowing that at least you gave it a shot. To this day, despite the frustrations and the obstacles, I have a lot of amazing memories. And looking back on it, I'm glad I took that chance, and listened to my heart.