I am one of those rare birds I was actually born in the city where I get to play radio. Yep, a mere 21 years ago I was born right here in Music City. (Okay, I am off by a few years. Add on a quarter of a century or so).
I kinda landed behind a microphone by accident around 1978. High school was a demanding place back then and I was forced to write a trashy-novel like newspaper article about a subject picked at random out of a brown paper bag. I picked “Interview Radio Station Morning Disc Jockeys.” Being an introvert, that went over rather splendidly. Also, it just happened that the day of my one-sided interview of a well-known morning superstar, the overnight guy managed to “no show” because he enjoyed a bottle inside his own brown paper bag a little more than he should.
The general manager hired me on the spot for like $2.12 a hour with the promise that I did not have to actually EVER talk on or off the air, until I decided it was time. Bliss in a radio control room was born.