From CMA Stages To Studio Booths: The Life And Legacy Of Voice Icon John Willyard

Chapters

• 0:00 Meet The Legendary Voice
• 2:25 Early Newsrooms And Radio Mentors
• 6:45 Finding A Signature Sound
• 8:15 CMA Awards: Big Rooms, Bigger Stakes
• 12:30 Doobie Brothers, CRS, And Backstage Serendipity
• 16:05 Unusual Gigs From Inaugurals To TV Specials
• 20:40 Craft, Outtakes, And Producing For Producers
• 25:05 Live TV Nerve Center And The Red Button
• 29:20 AI In Imaging: Limits And Risks
• 34:10 Careers On The Line And The Human Factor
• 38:20 Fans Who Tune In For Imaging
• 41:30 Acting, Auditions, And Winning The One
• 45:00 Real Rates, Mentors, And Avoiding Pay‑To‑Play
• 49:30 Opry Memories And Industry Threads
• 54:10 Hall Of Fame Induction And Legacy
• 1:00:20 Gratitude, Friendship, And Sign‑Off

Transcript

SPEAKER_02: 0:01

It's funny. You watch a little countdown, then you know you gotta go. All right, here we go. Hi there, everybody. It's good to see you. My name is Skip Clark. As you know, I uh host the Skip Happens podcast. Have you ever wondered? Uh, let's say you're listening to the radio, watching TV, you hear a voice come on, and it's like, wow, I wonder who that is. Yeah, well, uh, TV, radio, award shows, and everywhere in between, you're gonna hear this voice. And uh, on the way, right here in Skip Happens, I'll be joined by the legendary John Williard. John is the country music radio hall of fame, inducted voice over icon. His work has shaped the sound of country music and made your broadcast for decades. He's the man behind countless unforgettable moments and memories, and the voice you know, even if you don't realize it yet. Yeah, it's him. He's represented by Atlas Entertainment, founder of John Williard Productions Incorporated. We will talk legendary gigs. He's had a lot of those to craft a voiceover, how that uh voice was and is built, and the stories behind the mic. It's gonna be good. I promise you, trust me, you don't want to miss this one. Uh, right now I'm in the Wolf Studio. We're gonna switch it over. I'll be in the uh pod zone here. It's coming up momentarily with John Williard. And look at that, here we are. It was that quick. Matter of fact, I'll give a little music. Look at this. Hi, everybody. It's Skip Clark. And uh tonight, of course, uh Miss Ray is here a day earlier uh than usual. And there he is, ladies and gentlemen. As I mentioned in that little pre-roll, yeah, this guy's a legend. And if you know anything about radio, maybe you work in radio and you know he's gonna be on tonight. Uh, you know, it's the voice that we have heard for so many years, as I mentioned, uh the CMA's uh just commercials and television shows and movie trailers and all that. Uh, you know, I want to say it's the voice that everybody knows, maybe. And uh John Williard, there you are, my friend.

SPEAKER_00: 1:58

Thanks. Thank you so much. Thank you. This is so exciting!

SPEAKER_02: 2:04

Thank you, thank you, Miss Ray. Yeah, Miss Ray's joining us. Uh John, um, you know, we're gonna jump right into this, and then we got a lot of stories. Um, you know, we're gonna share. Um, you're one of those voices people instantly recognize but can't always place. Do you remember the first time somebody said, wait, wait, that's you. Do you remember that?

SPEAKER_00: 2:27

Oh, I'll tell you a funny one as I try to remember. Uh uh several months ago, I was at a Starbucks in Atlanta, and one of the baristas, you don't even I still can't believe this. She after she gave me her order, she said, Well, aren't you the voice of WCW? And my mouth dropped open, and I went, How did you know that? We went off the we that was sold, Turner sold that excuse me, in March of 2001. How do you even know this? Well, come to find out, she is a wrestler with a very small wrestling organization, but she's a female wrestler and she just knows all these things. So, but anyway, back to your question. What was the first time somebody said, Well, you know, I and I've been doing it so long, people would ask me, Does it does it freak you out to hear yourself played back? And I said, I just got so used to it when I was in my 20s. You know, I was doing, I was actually doing newscasts in San Francisco at age 18 and 19 and 20. And you know what the stories were? And and you as a college, as a university, you know, your undergraduate work, you would know this. I hope we're still teaching about the Vietnam War and about the Irish Republican Army and about the Paris peace talks. I was doing stories about that. Five-minute newscasts, 10-minute newscasts, and they were live. And the first, you will you'll get a kick out of this skip. The first major technological advance that we had at the station was when the UPI teletype got a damper over. They put a they put a counter over with a with a plexiglass, and it and it had a dampening agent to it inside. So instead of and the the uh secretaries in the front office where it was, they couldn't hear the calls because it was I remember early on, early on. Oh yeah, yeah. Changing the ink with um play text gloves and oh my god, purple ink on your yeah, it was always a mess.

SPEAKER_02: 4:47

Yeah, do you remember, John? Um, do you do you remember when you first realized that your voice could be more than just a voice? What made you? I mean, you you were doing the radio, you're doing the news, but when did you say, you know what, my voice is more than just a voice? When did that all like happen for you?

SPEAKER_00: 5:04

Well, that's interesting. Um, I would have to say that a guy, a guy in San Francisco who came over from a major station over to Stockton, where I was kind of a fledgling over there after having kind of spun my wheels, and then I I wanted to get into commercial radio. And and so I was doing some imaging work and playing it for him, and he went, Wow, you just imitated Roscoe. I don't know if you remember that voice from maybe the 70s. He did a lot of trailers and things like that. But I said, Yeah, that's who I was going for. So we he became my second broadcast mentor. Now, this is a guy that unbeknownst to me, we put the story together after the fact. I had when I was about 10 or 11, 12 years old, growing up in the Los Angeles County, uh, Los Angeles area, we were under the the radio waves of all the great LA radio stations. And I had a little transistor radio that had a headphone, and I was listening, I was listening to it every night, and I'd have to put new batteries in the next day because I'd fall asleep with it, not turning it off. And we we figured out that I was listening to him when he was on the air on K KRLA, I think, okay, which was a top 40 station in Los Angeles, and we would work together about 16 years later, after me here hearing him on the air, not really putting it together until much, much later. But yeah, he was probably the first guy. That's a long, long-winded uh explanation to your question. But then uh then I did start doing um before we even knew, before I knew what to call that we were calling ourselves imaging voices. Uh, that's just what I was doing from the late 70s through the 80s, and even when I was program director and on the air, I would always um, I would always just well, it was kind of like Scott Shannon when he went to a station that that I would eventually go to in Atlanta, WQXI, they said he was so involved in the station that he peed in every corner. But I that must have been that must have been my map mantra too, because I was so involved uh on the on the air uh on that station. And we consequently took it to the top. And guess who was the the the um the well at the time I I would have to say the know-it-all teenage son that because his dad had run a station in Washington State and came down to to become our general manager, that young man is now you know him as David Jojo Turnbow.

SPEAKER_02: 7:54

No way, yeah. He was on the Joe.

SPEAKER_00: 7:59

Yeah, dude, that's so cool. That's so cool. There's a lot of things you're gonna find out.

SPEAKER_02: 8:05

I know, and uh we're already on the headed in that direction. Uh, you know, John, you voiced some of the biggest moments in country music and broadcast history. Is there one gig that still gives you chills?

SPEAKER_00: 8:19

I think maybe uh of the 20 CMA awards that I did work on, perhaps going to Madison Square Garden in 2005. I was there, but you yes, you were talking about that. And uh wow, that was uh that was something else, and that was um that was a pivotal, pivotal moment. That was a transition in the CMA wars because I'll never forget telling one of the associate producers, I said, you know, I just can't wait till we get back to the intimacy of the grand old opery. And she looked at me and said, We're never going back. I said, Why? We're gonna go do arena shows, it's gonna be at the Somme Center, which is now the Bridgestone Arena in Nashville where the predators play. Why are we gonna do that? Because they want to sell tickets. I didn't know. So, you know, we would now about that. Do you know you know the comedy of uh Nate Bargetsey? Yeah, oh yeah, oh yeah, unbelievable. So you know the story about him? So he's he did the biggest show that the most seats ever sold at Bridgetown Arena, bigger than any event they've ever had, bigger than any concert. He sold, he sold out more seats than anybody in history at Bridgetown Arena. So did you hear what he what he said he did? So when he left, he took one chair.

SPEAKER_02: 9:44

He took one chair.

SPEAKER_00: 9:49

Are you serious?

SPEAKER_02: 9:51

Yeah, yeah, you know, I know who he is very well. I had no idea that he had the biggest show at the Bird Stone, but um wow, that's amazing.

SPEAKER_00: 10:00

That's now while we were talking about country music and the CMA awards, I don't know why I brought him up, except that he might have been a presenter, you never know, because they've had all kinds of yeah, they've had all kinds of presenters, they've had people from you know the the old Nashville show that was on cable and oh yeah, oh yeah, you know, everybody from Hayden what paneteer and all those people, but we have had non-country acts who did have a little foot in country but really weren't known for country, and I'm thinking of the doobie brothers, and they were on the last year that I do you like Reagan? Do you like the Doobie Brothers?

SPEAKER_02: 10:42

Um probably doesn't know who they are. Do you know do you know who the doobies are?

SPEAKER_03: 10:48

I've heard of them. I don't I couldn't tell you a song, but I I will tell you I've heard it, I have heard that name.

SPEAKER_02: 10:56

You know, I will tell you for her. Yeah, I wish it was that easy. Um, I have a poster. I'll make it out and play it after. I I have a poster on my wall here of the doobies, and it's signed by the doobie brothers from the CRS. And I think it was about the same week they were also playing uh the um either the CMA. No, it wasn't the award show, but they were on the boat, they were on the Sony boat that night.

SPEAKER_01: 11:21

Oh, right, that's right.

SPEAKER_02: 11:23

And then um, I'm trying they had a show in town, I think, but they were also at the country radio seminar. Yeah, they were at CR CRS, and there was something else going on that week. I don't remember exactly what it was, but uh they had their sweet and they had uh their wine, they were into winemaking, or they had their own wine, and uh it it was all coming together, it was all for that. So it was it was interesting. Good stuff.

SPEAKER_00: 11:50

Well, I didn't know they fermented, but I I knew that they that they rolled, you know what I'm saying?

SPEAKER_02: 11:56

Yeah, no, they rolled already.

SPEAKER_00: 11:58

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_02: 11:59

They are the doobies.

SPEAKER_00: 12:00

So the doobie brothers were there the last year, they did two songs in the last maybe two acts, and they played it out and Hotter Hayes, umbert, I think uh Carrie, and they all kind of joined in on the song, listen to the music. But they played uh no, taking it to the street was uh they took that out at the end, and my Michael McDonald was part of that. So uh they were on the CMA awards uh two years before that. But I'm gonna take you back to one night, uh Country Radio Hall of Fame evening at the Renaissance when they used to do this the night before CRS would officially kick off. I liked it that it was linked to CRS week because you know you didn't have to wait until later. Like they now they do it in July, which is great. Right, it's it's set apart, it's kind of sanctified, it's you know, it's it's its own thing. But this particular night, I think it was the night that Rusty Walker was was inducted, and so it was all over, all the speeches had been done, the lights came up. I stood up to put on my coat. I looked two tables over, and I went, What? It was Patrick Simmons, John McPhee, and Tom Johnston, the Dookie brother, the the heart, the the core of the doobie.

SPEAKER_02: 13:29

The heart and the core of the group, yeah, exactly.

SPEAKER_00: 13:31

So I walked over, and as I'm walking over, I'm starting to kind of to chuckle. And I looked at Patrick and I said, You and I, Patrick, have history. I said, Do you remember a 100% pure boar bristle rosewood handle lifetime guarantee hairbrush that I sold you door to door when I was a Fuller brush guy in Los Gatos in 1972? And he went and he laughed and he said, I still have that hairbrush. Decades great. See, Reagan, I can throw decades around. You can't.

SPEAKER_02: 14:11

That was one of those jobs way back in the day. Isn't that crazy? It is crazy. It is crazy. So, um, what's a job you almost didn't take that turned into something really massive for you? It's a crazy question.

SPEAKER_00: 14:24

Wow, that's a good question. Uh wow. That is really you've stumped me with that one. Uh I'll tell you, I'll tell you, uh, I'll explain, maybe answer it this way. That one that I almost talked myself out of doing, but I did it, was that I had to fly. And you know, I really haven't had to commute for 25 years. I guess I've just my commute is 14 steps down to my studio. I shouldn't call my studio 14 steps down, that would have been a good name. That would have been cool. Yeah, that'd be kind of fun. Uh, you know, I like to explain things a little bit, and um and it was a call from a former head stage manager of the CMA Awards, and you would see his name on the credits on Grammys, Billboard Music Awards, um, all the big shows, because he was known as a stage manager, one of the top people. And he called me one day and he said, I'm producing and directing a live inaugural event in Florida. And he said, We'd like to fly you down. You'll be paid by the Republican Party. They have because they have to pay you on the spot by law. That's something that you know that that's that's part of that that's uh part of following the the law, the political laws of the state. I guess they have their own, every state has their own. But I mean, um, so I went, yeah, that's not so I did, and I got to introduce three different uh I was the voice of three different events, two were concerts, one was a a um country concert in which Aaron Tippen uh appeared, John Michael Montgomery. Um, there was a youth concert, and then there was the actual inaugural event when it was Governor Rick Scott at the time. So I got to introduce all the Supreme Court justices of the state of Florida, all the past governors, uh Ronan Tynan, the Irish tenor, and my favorite Lee Greenwood. Lee Greenwood. Yeah, that was sweet. So that was a very unusual gig, and uh, I could have charged them anything I wanted. It was it was open-ended. I didn't take advantage of it, but that that was a crazy one. Another crazy gig, I would have to say, that was out of my wheelhouse. Um this was based on a relationship with the executive producer of the CMA Awards, who is still executive producing, that's Robert Deaton. And he invited me to be the voice of I don't know if you ever saw it, it was a CBS TV special called, no, it was on Fox. And it was um Sports Illustrated 50 Years of Beautiful, the swimsuit years. Really? Yeah, it was a special, and uh Tim McGraw was a guest uh musical artist, uh Julio Iglesias, not uh who's the son of Julio? Um Iglesias. Thank you. You're good. That's it, yeah. So that was on that was an unusual one. Um, another strange one was that was unusual at one time only was the 50th anniversary of the Carol Burnett, um of Carol Burnett.

SPEAKER_02: 17:52

I saw that, I saw that, and I remember that, and I remember saying, Oh my god, John's got the voice. John's doing the voice on that. Isn't that crazy?

SPEAKER_00: 18:00

And that was based on the relationship of of the uh former CMA awards director, Paul Miller, whose dad was the executive producer and and direct and um and director of not only the Grammys for about 25 years, but the CMA awards for many, many years. As a matter of fact, I have to say this about Walter C. Miller. He's probably the one, in fact, I know he is, singularly the one who in the 80s put country on a national platform by booking country acts on the Grammys. That was Walter.

SPEAKER_02: 18:41

Really?

SPEAKER_00: 18:42

Now one of his favorites was KT Oslin. Remember KT? KT, yes, and he'd have her on the Grammys. She was on uh one of the first or two shows that I of the CMA Awards, which I started doing in 1996. Uh, another one of his favorites, of course, who just turned 80, what yesterday was Dolly. And Dolly would always have she would always have a gospel-tinged performance. And one night I was talking with the past CMA CEO, Tammy Genovese, and it was actually a night that they were honoring Walter C. Miller with the Irving Waugh Lifetime Achievement Award. It was a small gathering. Vince Gill was there to uh present it to him. Uh man, there was probably only about the fewer than 100 people there. It was a small room. And um, and I happened to ask her, what are your top three favorite moments of the CMA Awards? Because I know you watched them, Tammy, for many, many years. And without hesitating, and you'll know this performance as soon as I tell you, she said, He's alive, Dolly Parton, 1991. Remember that one?

SPEAKER_02: 19:55

Yeah, I do. Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah, I do. Very well, very well. Well, and uh John Williard is who uh I'm chatting with tonight, and um you more than likely recognize that voice, Reagan just didn't know, and Reagan's up there. Well, Reagan's over there, and I'm right here, but uh you know what a voice, what a voice.

SPEAKER_03: 20:15

Um, I oops sorry. Go ahead. Nope, go ahead. Um, I just wanted to ask a quick question. So, have you ever like experimented with different styles or accents or played a different character, or do you present most of the time as yourself, like as John?

SPEAKER_00: 20:34

That's a great, great question. Uh, there are some stations that want me to do that, and regardless of whether they ask me to or write it in, I will do it generally. Um, just because that's who I am, I I have fun doing it. One of them is is singing in the early 90s. I would actually sing jingle outros to promos that I would produce. I mean, I did everything hands-on back in the 90s.

SPEAKER_03: 20:59

I didn't go to school for this.

SPEAKER_00: 21:01

Oh, yeah, yeah. My singing. I did, in fact, I did um, I I thought at the time when I was in Atlanta, when we went to uh 94q, and and I don't know if you know the story, I'll tell you that in a in a second about the linkage between 94 Q and WKRP in Cincinnati, but there's a very real linkage there, and I'll tell you about that in a second. But I thought at the time that that radio that singing parodies and bits like that were the highest form of radio comedy. I don't know how it how it is viewed now, but at the time it was so funny. Did I send you the one that we did about Roseanne where I covered, I sounded like Sting, you know, from the police singing instead of Roxanne, I sang Roseanne. When she was really when she had her, when she was at the height of her uh popularity with that ABC show. Anyway, WKRP. So when we so we we came here in '87, and um, and I'd already been hired by Don Benson. You probably know that name. Very instrumental. He hired Rick D's at one market. Yeah. Um he's he's been around for for years. The the the boyishly young looking Don Benson. And I know he's not uh I know he's not as young as he looks, but he's he's what a great guy. And so he said, You're okay, you're already on the books, you're already hired. Why don't you go down and say hi to the general manager? So he told me where to go. This was a tower place in in Buckhead in Atlanta. And I walked down, walked down the maze of hallway, and uh and I saw this all-glass office with an all-glass desk. And he saw me, and he had these big, fancy, not horn-rim glasses, but they were kind of big like that, kind of looking like uh Swifty Lozar or Lamar, one of those producer, Hollywood producers. And so he saw me and he said, Hold on just a sec. So I stood there and I see these little framed objects on either side of the door. They were just mounted there because they couldn't nail them because it was glass. And one of them said, one of them was a caricature of him in a hospital, and the nurses were fluffing up his pillow, and the captions said, Is that okay, big guy? And then I looked at the other one, and it was a telegram back when now, Regan, you don't know about telegrams, but it was a telegram from somebody who said, Dear Jerry, this is Jerry Blum, general manager. Yeah, dear Jerry, congratulations on your 25th anniversary. Uh, I wouldn't have a career if it wasn't for you. Congratulations, and most sincerely, Gordon Jump. Wow, you know that name. That was Mr. Carlson, that was big guy from the UK RC. Well, he looked, they they were they could have been, they could have been, uh, they could have been identical twins.

SPEAKER_02: 24:20

That's freaking awesome.

SPEAKER_00: 24:21

But then everybody who preceded me there at WQXI, the FM was 94Q, everybody was a an actual inspiration to every character that you saw on that show, because the creator, Hugh Wilson, would hang out there in the lobby waiting for somebody to come to go to lunch. He was a copywriter at a big ad agency in in Atlanta. So yeah, those were real people. As a matter of fact, Herb Tarlick, that character or the the sales manager came from, yeah. Yeah, I worked with him much, much later because I didn't know any of those people except for him. But that was Herb Tarlick. And his real name is Clark Brown. We go to church together in Atlanta, as a matter of fact.

SPEAKER_02: 25:09

Oh, I love that. Love that. Um, how many John? How many stations do you voice? Too many.

SPEAKER_00: 25:17

But you do it, you go all day. No, it's about no, no, no. It's actually I I can't be flippant about it because there have been some changes uh in the last year and not not so not such healthy changes either. One was uh a group, uh small group that decided to AI their imaging voices, and it sounds horrible. The producers would secretly call me and play and say, listen to this. I said, What? What what is they said that's AI. So anyway, but I don't want to linger on that. I will say this. Well, so to answer your question, between about 80 and and 90, primarily country, but some classic countries, some classic hits, classic rock, some some news talk. But like I said, thanks to Rusty Walker, put me on back in the night, early 90s, you know. Man, yeah, you know, you know, you know, when I really started adding the stations was when I was working in Bill Young Productions in the Houston area, and uh the receptionist would she would hit my intercom and say, Hey, there's a call, uh, and I I didn't know who it was, and I'd I'd pick it up, and they'd they were asking for a demo, but demos on not MP3, not WAVE, that this is before the internet on a cassette, overnight, FedEx. But I would always ask them, so who told you to call? I mean, who may I say recommended me? And they say always they'd say Rusty Walker.

SPEAKER_02: 26:53

Exactly. A lot of consultants did though. I mean, you were like you were the man, you were the the person they said if we need an imaging guy, we gotta get or a voice, we need to get a hold of John William. I mean, when I was at BBS, it was that way.

SPEAKER_00: 27:07

And thank you for telling me that. Thank you for reminding me of that because I'm very cognizant of that fact that it was it was Rusty in the beginning, his whole team, you know, JJ Job, Phil Hunt, um, Scott Husky, and the and the whole bunch. And um uh who am I leaving out? Rick. Um, do you remember Rick? He passed away um several years ago.

SPEAKER_02: 27:29

I can't.

SPEAKER_00: 27:30

I'm sorry, I didn't mean to put you on the spot, but yeah, that but that whole and then there were others, um other very important and to this day friends, consultants.

SPEAKER_02: 27:40

Um, but it's when you um it's been so when you when you step into the booth and you go to do a read, give me that uh give me that rundown. How does that work for you? I mean, because I have heard your outtakes, I have heard all that, and like you say, you sometimes just kind of do your own thing, and there are times that even though it wasn't in the script, it ends up being on the sweeper or whatever whatever imaging piece you're voicing, and it they they are so awesome. And I used to laugh when I was at BBS and we used to get stuff back, and it's like there's no way that was on the script, but that's great, just what you do.

SPEAKER_00: 28:19

Oh, I appreciate that. Um you know what's funny is there are certain stations that evoke a feeling. Um and I will be truthful and say some of them it's like just get it done. Uh others, it's like, ooh, I get to play. This is gonna be fun. And um, and those are the stations that I will share seasonal. I mean, I I've saved in in the gray matter, but also on hard copy for years, stuff that maybe it would be dated if you read it verbatim, but you can change it up a little bit. Some things and and I and I'm happy to do that, and uh, and that's but and I routinely do that, but probably what you're talking about on the on the issue or the matter of of uh of just hearing outtakes is now I just tighten it all up in Pro Tools. I even take out mouth noise, I'll take out space, you know, because I'm thinking about the producer, you know, that I want to him or her to get to. There are a lot of female producers, there are some really good ones now, both sexes.

SPEAKER_02: 29:29

Absolutely. And I like that too. I like that. We, you know, that's pretty awesome.

SPEAKER_00: 29:35

Oh, we're mixing it up. We really are. There's it's it's uh, and I'm and I'm glad that that Miss Ray, Reagan, I'm so glad that you're passionate about this and that you want to not say no to any opportunity. I mean, you have to dig in. Hey, but don't do this, uh, like I did. I was I was single, footloose, and fancy-free. And what did I do when I was 21 years old? I I said yes to the chief engineer. Well, Skip, you know what I did? I had to go to the transmitter, which was Wolf Mountain north of the Golden Gate Bridge. The fog is rolling in constantly, it's chilly, you can't hardly grip onto the tower. They wanted me to go up with a block and tackle and take down one of the elements.

SPEAKER_01: 30:22

It was an oh no, no, no, no, no, no. No, no, you know about that.

SPEAKER_03: 30:27

I thought maybe he was setting the scene for my feet for a second there, and then I was like, Oh, never mind, never mind, not going up there.

SPEAKER_02: 30:38

It's funny because he talks about those days early on in radio when we would go and do crazy things like that. I mean, when I first started, I can tell you this. I used to have to go and feed the owner's horses. That was one of my duties. I got off the air, I had to go to the barn and and make sure they had, you know, whatever feed they were feeding them. And uh Milt Hibden was the guy's name. I mean, it's just it's crazy stuff, but you know what? It's because I wanted to work radio. This is what I wanted to do. I had the passion, I would do whatever it took. You know, I mean, if it meant that I, you know, worked overnights and vacuumed a rug and emptied the trash and did all that, you know what? I did it.

SPEAKER_00: 31:20

So I did you know overnights? I I I laugh because I gotta I have to tell you this one, but yeah, you're right about about you you just do, uh, because you don't get a rep you get a reputation real fast. Um it's a small organization. Oh, this is somebody who doesn't want to cooperate. They know they're not a team player, but yeah, do do do. Um, so overnights. Um, here again, I was 20, maybe 21. So I did have an overnight in San Francisco. Nice size market. Hey, yeah, you know, uh, so why not do uh overnights? So one of the functions was after the network programming, there was a cue that I would hit. Now, after my after Friday, when I'd get off the air at 8 a.m., I would go and live like everybody else and and go play, you know, go whatever, do business, and then go to dinner with friends, and then I'd sleep Friday night and get up Saturday. Well, but when I got up Sunday morning, you know, I would do things, go to church and then go and go to lunch, and then all of a sudden, about maybe 7:30 or 8 on a Sunday evening, I'd go, wait a minute, I haven't I haven't slept. What am I gonna do? I did that for a couple of weeks in a in a boo, and so I had to go on the air at midnight, Sunday night, you know, until Monday morning. And this is when a lot of stations would would go dark, they would just turn the transmitters off and they would do maintenance, weekly maintenance. They would do that, yep, yep. Usually that was the night, but we stayed on the air. Uh, but back in the day it was called Connel Rad. So we had a you know, that was the EANS emergency action notification system was called Connel Rad. Do you remember the little do you remember the cartridges uh that were taped up there in a in an envelope and uh a big poster, and it had you then it had it had uh authenticated words in an envelope, and you wouldn't open that up until there was a a trigger word or something that your monitoring station would trigger.

SPEAKER_02: 33:28

Right, right, right. You couldn't open it, yeah. It could be secret, yeah.

SPEAKER_00: 33:32

It could mean civil defense that we're under attack or something like that, and you never wanted to open it.

SPEAKER_02: 33:37

I never got don't touch that envelope.

SPEAKER_00: 33:40

So this particular night was a Monday morning, so uh to hit the network queue at 2 55 a.m. Now, Reagan, imagine that five minutes to 3 a.m. Had really slept, you know. And and I and I had I had prepared everything, UPI teletype. I kind of rehearsed it, kind of I kind of uh timed it out. Okay, I'm ready to go. So I look up, I put it down and on the can at the control board because I'm running my own own board. Matter of fact, I had an RCA DX77 ribbon mic in the control room. You know those mics. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_02: 34:18

The iconic.

SPEAKER_00: 34:18

Oh, what a warm-sounding mic.

SPEAKER_02: 34:20

Iconic. Yeah, I know exactly. They were the best.

SPEAKER_00: 34:23

And then I had a friend who had the 44, you know, the big one that you see in the all the uh classic the vintage pictures, war of the worlds, you know. Horston Wells used to use one of those. So anyway, I look up and it's 20 minutes to three, which is 15 minutes before I have to hit the mic and go live. And I and I thought, I'll just put my head down on the counter here for a second. I woke up at four minutes after three to dead air. But you know what? John, nobody ever called.

SPEAKER_02: 34:58

I am uh everything that you're saying, I think I lived that life. I was working out, and god honest truth. I mean, and I know we got some radio people watching this too. And you know, if you did it back in the day like I did, and of course, John, uh, that overnight shift was where they put the new guy, a little bit of training. You get used to being on the air and all that good stuff. Well, one night I was on the air, and um I I've I put this, I don't know, it was one either get ready or in a gata divita, or one of those songs that went for like 24 minutes, and uh, you know, you get to use the bathroom. No, I'm not kidding, Reagan. You get to use the bathroom, and then the station I was at had this big oil heater in the in the lobby, and they had this thick shag rug. So I grabbed back then it was Radio and Records, I grabbed one of those and I lay down on the floor looking through it. Next thing I know, it's 5 a.m. But you know, I'm gonna I'm gonna say nobody called. Oh my god, nobody know, nobody ever knew until well after the fact.

SPEAKER_00: 36:05

So did you ever hear Larry King when he was in his early years, he was working in Miami, a big station in Miami. Have you ever heard the story about him running down? Anyway, that it's for another time. I'll have to tell you that one privately. But there was there was uh this is a famous story that I I know is true, but I wish I remembered the call it's uh and the market. But somebody had put on one of those um the Christian programs that would run that they came. I think it was the old-fashioned revival hour. Remember that one? Okay, yeah, that's one in the many hours and the old fashioned revival hour. And it came on disc. Yep. It was a transcription, they used to call those transcription, and so it was going to be a 30-minute program. So as soon as he hits it, now it's on the air, he checks the levels, everything's okay. So he goes across the street to a little diner to get a cup of coffee and a pastry or don't something, and he comes back in plenty of time. You know, he comes back even early in the middle of the program, and he can't get back in the door for some reason it's locked on him, but he can hear through the window that it's stuck on a particular that it stuck on this word go to hell, go to hell, go to hell. No, he's taken out of context, probably saying if you don't believe you're gonna go to hell, go to that crazy.

SPEAKER_02: 37:35

Oh my god, I love it. It is crazy, and then there's another story that I know happened here locally where the overnight guy left, it wasn't me this time, but he left the station and uh forgot his keys. He went to go back in and he couldn't get back in. So it's kind of crazy. It's the things that happen, yeah. I think we've all done those things, and the things that uh you and I you and I have just been chatting about, and Reagan now finding out that was a little crazy back in the day. Um, but John, when you work the uh let's say the CMAs, and all the years that you did that, you are side stage and all that is live, correct? Or was live, correct?

SPEAKER_00: 38:13

Well, the show is, yes, but uh I'll tell you the parts that were pre-produced would be the coming up, who will win entertainer of the year? Will it be Garth Brooks, you know, Tim McGraw? And the reason that we didn't do that part live over the video role was because if you slip out a second and a half is known as 45 frames, and you would be out by 15 frames if you're out 15 frames, it's not gonna sync up anywhere. So those we would we would pre-produce those, but then the walk-ups, some of the intros to some of the artists coming out of a commercial break, those would be live.

SPEAKER_02: 38:54

Um we would how nervous were you doing that? Were you nervous at all? Were your nerves like, okay, I know I gotta get this just right? Uh, if I if I mess up by just even a little bit, it's gonna throw the timing off for the those segments that weren't pre-produced.

SPEAKER_03: 39:09

That's a fabulous question. So do you have to get nervous?

SPEAKER_00: 39:13

And I'll have to I'll have to answer it this way there was a big red button on this little control box that was in the vocal, the voice booth, which is down, and they would vary. They would they did it in a portable, uh smaller trailer next to the Denali production studio. You've seen those when the CPS sports will be they'll pull up and they'll have this huge makeshift uh, but I was right next door to that. So it's it's in another part of the arena, but a close, you can just take a little pathway and take a jog to the right, and then you then you'll hit the stage, the the uh entrance. And and I'll tell you a story about about what happened one time when I marked my script book to See what was the longest commercial break. I'll tell you that in a second. But on this little panel was a big red button that said live, you know, and that was my job to hit hit that when I did have those cues. So I would hear the program on one channel. But that's the only time I I don't wear earphones now. I just don't do that when I want because it I don't I'm not listening to music generally, unless I have a commercial uh read where I'm having to sync up something with uh on Source Connect, you know, which which is the new uh Zephyr. Yeah, the new I know, yep, yep. You know it well, and um and so uh yeah, that was the only that was the only uh time that where was I going with that story?

SPEAKER_02: 40:46

Um what you're talking about the impacts stage and the red button, and then you heard the show in one.

SPEAKER_00: 40:55

One channel was programmed, and one was the uh was the booth, was the control, and they would give you the cues. You would all hear all the chatter. I'll have to send you uh recording I made off of my headset one time when the show is starting. You won't believe all of the cam, all of the cues and what's going on. You'll hear two voices, the director and the associate director, and she's counting, she's counting it out sometimes in the rhythm. Two, three, four, two, two, three. Okay, we're gonna go, and then he'll go two, take two, and then four, and four, take four. You're hearing all these camera, and they're camera shots. He's calling the shots, but these it's this is their language, and they do this for a living. Yeah, and they don't live, they don't live very long. No, I'm just kidding.

SPEAKER_02: 41:41

No, no, no, they do, and that you know, I'm gonna what you're saying, because I work for the Mets as well here in you know, at this level in Syracuse, that the TV side of what I do is uh take two, two, go to four, go to four, go to you know, there it's all the camera. I hear all that when I do the PA, I can hear all that.

SPEAKER_00: 42:01

So yeah, it could be it can be distracting, but it's fun that that that was one one time a year, but I always felt to answer your question, Miss Ray, I always felt very comfortable, um, in charge. And the reason I did feel that way is because, hey, I've got this, I know what I'm doing. Um, I'm having a blast. Uh, I know what's expected, and I know what I want to bring. And um, you know, that's that was just the feeling that I that I had. And I I would have to say that I don't hear I don't hear that excitement uh the and the passion in the delivery now on the CMA awards, or really many of the shows. And I don't know why that is. I don't know why they've almost gotten too cool. Like this is we're we're Hollywood now.

SPEAKER_02: 42:54

Who was the um who was the voice recently? Do you recall who's who was um the voice of the CMAs now? Oh no, they didn't they didn't have anybody, did they?

SPEAKER_00: 43:05

Melissa Disney has done it ever since I left. Unfortunately, she posted something, and I don't want to I don't want to say anything untoward or unkind, but she posted something uh on social media the first year she said, I know nothing about country, but I love all these people and how they've accepted me. I thought that was a little quirky because, and and the reason I say that is because this is what I brought to Walter C. Miller, and and when I was when he hired me, he heard something that was different than what they had done in the past. Um, but I also brought I also brought an enthusiasm where I would go and visit the remote broadcasts and I would walk up and do live live intros to people. You know, if if it was um if there were two competing stations in a market like let's say Atlanta, I wouldn't do the bull because uh you know I was the voice of kicks in Atlanta, I would do stuff for them. But if I didn't have the client and I was clear in a particular market, you know, like Topeka or something like that, I I would certainly uh sit down, do an interview, or do a live uh intro. And that was just that was at the time, and we talked about this skip earlier, that there was such such a buzz, and that's what I was trying to create and carry over from even the the old MJI syndicated shows that we would do that that became premiere shows. There were shows like CMA Moments, um, that were you know, all of these there were five or six of these shows, and they don't do any now at all.

SPEAKER_02: 44:49

No, and everything was John Williams, which was great. You were the voice. I mean, if it was country, you were that voice, you were the guy doing it all. And um, you know, now I mean times have changed a little bit, things have moved on, and we're not exactly happy with what's going on, but I maybe we gotta accept some of it. But it's also fun when I hear your voice on a commercial, or um, I don't know, I'm I'm trying to think. I think it's been a little bit since I've heard you do a spot, but I know I've heard you, and I'll go, oh, John's on that spot. That's cool. So is that's another avenue you can take if somebody doing what you do as a VOR voiceover artist, that you can also get involved with you know the ad agencies and all that to get your voice on their spots, correct?

SPEAKER_00: 45:40

Oh, absolutely. I don't like to, I've never been a one-trick pony, and I think uh this goes to maybe answering your question, Miss Ray, is um I don't want to ever be pigeonholed. Uh when I said uh singing, and and I have been a singer since I was four years old. I remember first, and I have no excuse for for musical ability because my parents were both classically trained singers, and um I certainly would, I guess if they were alive, they'd realize I let them down because I do you know these rock uh uh covers. I would do parodies. Uh, I had a whole series, and you'll love this. Remember the K Tel Records spots? K Tell Records. Yes, that kind of thing. Well, mine my little bit was can't tell records. Can't tell records. One time at the end of it, I said, Can't tell records because we don't know what's good and what's not, you know, that kind of thing. Uh can't tell records. So I did a Johnny Mathis Sings Beautiful Metal Collection. Did you ever hear that?

SPEAKER_02: 46:45

Uh I can't say I have, but I know that artists like uh Johnny Mathis has done something like that.

SPEAKER_00: 46:53

I'll send it to you. Well, it was him singing singing rock songs, you know, like some of the it's like Pat Boone, same idea. Yeah, yeah. Except you never heard Johnny Mathis actually sing like that. That's his metal phase. Uh yeah. But I sold one of those bits to American Comedy Network, Radio American Radio Comedy Network.

SPEAKER_02: 47:17

Uh no, it was it was uh American Comedy Network, it was ACN. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And we used to get those. We used to years ago, and we we would get the CDs in the uh in the mail. I don't know if it was once a month or once a week, something like that.

SPEAKER_00: 47:29

But speaking of commercials, I I just remembered this. I never I've never been able to actually do the authorized by the agency by McDonald's agency of record, which is Davis Allen out of uh LA. But I did a I did so I did an audition, and by the way, that's a function of of being signed with any talent agency. In my case, the wonderful folks at Atlas Talent, which I've been over 20, well over 20 years with them. And so that's a part, that's that's a fixture of of daily life with being with an ad agency, being a client as I am, is getting handed a myriad auditions. It could be Discovery Channel, it could be Geico, it could be, you name it. It there's there's really it, it really gets uh very, very uh um well, it gets varied and there and there's a lot there. And sometimes you go, oh, I know exactly what they want. Well, in the case of well, I'll I'll do this before I go to the to the in the case of uh doing a Johnny uh Johnny Olson voice. I'll tell you that in a second. But this one I got to do the the famous bata bata, you know, that that thing at the end of McDonald's. But we did it in a very clipped sports type way because it was a sports spot that ran on the West Coast and it was pushing these specials, and so I got to do I'll have to send you a copy of that because it it was so different that the producer and the engineer and somebody else they started laughing in the background. They said, That's that's it, we've never had that before. And I and I was laughing and I was so happy that I got to do that, but by the an authorized jingle by the McDonald's agency. But the other one that I was going to mention, where sometimes in an audition, you will know a instant, you'll just know um you'll just know in your in your gut what they're what they're going for. And in this case, when I read it, I went, oh, they want to sound like the the Johnny Olson on the Price is Right, you know, the original, not the guy, not Ron Roddy, not the current guy, but the the guy who really's going way back.

SPEAKER_02: 49:52

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00: 49:53

So I did that, and little did I know, I get a call from the Jimmy Kimmel producers, and they said, This is going to be for the Academy Awards. So the bit was, what did I just do? Did I touch? I touched.

SPEAKER_02: 50:06

No, you're still there.

SPEAKER_00: 50:07

You're still there. Because this oh, that's weird. Oh, it's a by the way, I'm on my wife's uh and so sweet to do this. We couldn't, I wanted to do it in my this is a sterile room, you know, as as far as it's not got the uh the flavor that I would have in my studio, which is two floors below down in the in the terrace level basement. I say terrace level because you can walk out the back. There's there's oh I like that on the back floor, but on on the other side, it's all underground. So it's very it's quiet too. It's uh it's kind of well.

SPEAKER_02: 50:44

I'm in the basement, so beautiful.

SPEAKER_00: 50:45

Oh yeah, it's got a lot of beautiful acoustic properties to it. But yeah, this was a bit, so this was a bit you can actually find that anybody who's listening, watching right now, if you just put it put in uh Oscar's um jet ski, Oscar's Jet ski. I haven't seen it for a long time. Oscar's jet ski, you'll see the two bits. So it what it was was that they gave away, they actually gave away a jet ski to whoever would give the shortest acceptance speech, and they gave it away at the end of the show, and Dame Helen Mirren came out on you know, like showing it like Carol Merrill, this kind of thing, right?

SPEAKER_01: 51:27

Right, they gave it away.

SPEAKER_00: 51:28

So there were two bits where I would describe it and give the prize, or give the prize, it's a lot of fun, excuse me.

SPEAKER_02: 51:40

Wow, you know, I want to talk to um a little bit about uh AI and how it's you know, we you touched on it a little bit ago, but uh I really um I know Reagan may have uh Mr. A may have some questions about this as well. But uh AI, the future of voiceover, um, when AI generated voices for the first time, when they first hit the mainstream, what was your initial reaction? Curiosity, concern, or confidence? What was it?

SPEAKER_00: 52:11

Wow, or none of the above.

SPEAKER_02: 52:15

Could be could be, but you as a voiceover artist, and this is your livelihood, and now things are kind of you know, and I'm right there with you. Um, we're starting to move on to different technology and all this stuff that's going on, whether it's voiceover, whether it's music. I mean, when that first came out, what was going through your mind as somebody that does this for a living?

SPEAKER_00: 52:39

Let me answer it this way, and and so I had confidence when I heard this initially. I uh Pat Fraley, based in Hollywood, is a very famous um animation character voiceover artist. He's probably in his early early 70s now, but he was interviewed by a friend of mine on one of her shows that she had on. Uh he was on via Zoom. This is and but this is this is before the traction, before it really, really took off. And he said, and he answered it this way AI can't do what we do because it can't do exaggeration. And he said, That's that's a function of of voice acting is exaggeration, it can't do the genuine exaggeration. Well, I don't know. Maybe since then they've been able to synthesize or you know be more sophisticated with with it, uh, but I but I hope not. I think it's very limited. I think that people are gonna be are gonna get sick of it to an extent, I hope, where we just go, oh no, no, like such as if you go on on Instagram even or see reels on YouTube and you go, oh no, another AI. You know what? I hate that. Some of it's clever, but I hate it because they're shoving it down our throats. I think we're gonna go so far that we're gonna hit a brick wall, come back to our senses, bounce off that, and then sort it out. I really hope we do, and I hope the I hope the companies, the smart companies, will realize that that their viewers, their listeners, their consumers can see through it. And they want, I think they want real people. I pray that they that they that they do, that they see it, and that they'll be able to do that.

SPEAKER_03: 54:28

Have you seen um perhaps have you seen any like particular projects or clients that are using AI more? You mentioned um like radio kind of switching to AI. Do you see that more apparent in radio versus television or um where do you see your job possibly being more at risk? Well, I or have seen it at risk before.

SPEAKER_00: 54:55

I did have uh I did have a handful of television uh stations, affiliates that I that were uh regular clients, but I I for whatever reason I don't have them now, but I did lose, and I hate to say this, I hate to share anything about about losing, but there was one small company that decided to go all AI. So I lost those stations. I don't know how many others across the country have had to endure these losses, but I know that this has been a real period of flex of transition. I don't know how it's gonna pan out. I'll tell you, I'm looking forward to discussions and as well as uh seminars and sessions that they do at CRS, the country radio seminar coming up in a couple of months in Nashville, because I know that for the past few years there have been people, and it was, you know, there was just a it was um a little bit of a buzz maybe three years ago, and then the next year there was more, and last year it was just it permeated everything. Now I will say this that last year, cowboy Kyle, great producer. Do you know who I'm talking about? Yes, yes, crop I do Croft, I believe is his last name. He did a session where I don't know the name of the software that he used, but in real time he played any song that you might be might put on the air right now. Any any singer, male, female, and he tweaked something, and all of a sudden the voice came completely out. Now we used to do that with a thing where you would reverse the uh polarity, you know.

SPEAKER_02: 56:45

But then you'd be able to drop it out, right?

SPEAKER_00: 56:48

But you were, but it rendered it mono. That was that was the best you could do.

SPEAKER_02: 56:52

Yeah, that's it.

SPEAKER_00: 56:53

But this one it stays exactly everything stays, it's stereo, and it just takes the voice completely out. I have no idea. Man, they're getting sophisticated. But that was that was a cool thing.

SPEAKER_02: 57:06

Yeah, I think you know, a lot of these companies, everybody's looking at saving money, everybody's cutting back. We're down to skeleton staffs. We're you know, I mean, we if we want the best, you got to pay for it. It it's the way it is, and a lot of these companies, and I think a lot of the uh the listeners right now really don't know the difference. And I people like you and I and Reagan through our conversations at work, um, we do know the difference, and we do hear it, and just I think listeners take a lot for granted, and uh, or maybe they just hey, I hear the music, I'm happy, I'm fine with that. But little, I mean, people like you, having somebody like you on the air, having somebody like you in between our songs, you or some of the other voiceover artists that are talented so good. I mean, I know a few of them, and they're all great, but that's what makes the station. I think when you can add that, for example, you add that personality and into what you do, as I mentioned earlier. You you hear it in your voice and you have fun with it, you make it happen. I I work with AI a little bit when it comes to producing some radio commercials, but you cannot get the full sound, as you mentioned, that feeling, that personality, the inflection that you're looking for. You can try, but you're never yeah, yeah, there's some good voices, but you're not gonna get to what where we need to be, what I want.

SPEAKER_00: 58:31

I can't yes, well, I'm glad you said that. And in real time, you can do all that at the drop of a hat. You can pivot and go, Oh, let me try something else. Let me try something so you don't have to sit there and write it or you know, and feed it into the your computer. Well, what do you think, Miss Ray? Do you hear um I mean what does it do to you?

SPEAKER_03: 58:51

Do you can you recognize the I um I know with my work like promotions? I mean, my job's definitely at risk. Um and to want to be a personality on top of that, you know, it it makes me nervous because um creative careers are at risk right now. So the future of my career makes definitely makes me nervous. I hope what you said earlier about all of us kind of gaining our wits and coming back and realizing, you know, we need that that human factor, we need that original content. Um, I hope that happens because I I just don't want to accept that AI is gonna take over everything. It's a hard line. I look at it as like AI is is sometimes really amazing to use for collaboration, but it's extremely competitive to us. You know, it it could eliminate us. And as much as I I'm like skip, you know, I I do sometimes fall on AI and it's I feel very guilty doing it, but I I do. I I I fall back on it and I just want to know that there is going to be a human factor in the future.

SPEAKER_00: 1:00:03

Yeah. I like that. Human factor. We need more of that. We need that.

SPEAKER_02: 1:00:08

Just two words right there.

SPEAKER_00: 1:00:09

You're right. Human factor. You know what's funny? You were talking about the uniqueness of what we do, um, and and really being able to do things that that tickle me, that make me laugh. Well, here's a reaction. This is crazy. You won't even I couldn't believe this when it happened. About three or four months ago, there was a listener in Greensboro, North Carolina, to a station that I've been voicing there for about 15 years. Actually, the original program director there, when he first, they made it, they said, We're gonna make a change, and then they did, and then they came back about a week and a half or two later, and they said, they actually said this, we made a mistake, and they rehired me, and I've been back longer. Now I've had several stations where I've been back longer than when they, for whatever reason, didn't retain me, didn't renew the contract. And um my one station I've been with for 33 years, that's my original Scott Mahalik signed me on that station.

SPEAKER_02: 1:01:11

Oh, yes, Scott.

SPEAKER_00: 1:01:12

I know Scott, yeah. Uh, but anyway, this guy in Greensboro, he couldn't get anybody now. I'll tell you, the the staff has only two live people on the air, and that whole, I think in the whole building among maybe just it's not uncommon now, it's not uncommon, yeah. But he couldn't get a hold of it, he couldn't get a hold of the live person, so he kept calling all the wolf format stations. So he ends up calling the wolf in Seattle, which I used to be the voice of the wolf in Seattle and San Francisco. That's another story, San Francisco. It they they flipped the format because it was expensive uh to pay for live programming, and and so they so uh somebody was nice enough to say, Oh, yeah, I I know who that is. And so he wrote me privately, uh sent me an email, and said, uh, there's this guy trying to get a what is it okay to give, yeah, please give my email. So here's what he said. He he said, I I don't, I'm not really a country fan, but I listened to The Wolf in Greensboro, 93.1 the wolf, just to hear the the funny things that make me laugh that John Williard, the imaging boy, says. Now, how did he know all that? But he's I mean, that's a real specific fan.

SPEAKER_04: 1:02:36

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00: 1:02:37

Yeah, we do a lot of we do a lot of crazy fun stuff, and it just was making his him and his dad laugh, even though they're not country fans. He listens for the imaging. Now that's a wacky, that's a wacky out there listener. That's a that's a uh that's a fraction of one listening kind of person.

SPEAKER_02: 1:02:57

I know, but he's listening. I get it. Is there uh John? Is there you do all these stations, 90% of them being country? Is there any particular read that sticks out in your mind that you said, you know, this is great, this is fun. I really, you know, something crazy. Anything like that? You don't have to tell me what station, but uh, is there something that sticks out in your mind saying, you know, this is great?

SPEAKER_00: 1:03:22

There's there's one that wanted me to sing a to a Doray Me, but I did it as a drunk because drunk sounding because it was uh I'll find it and send it to you. You you'll get a kick out of it. Because it was uh it was a benchmark pro part of programming in the afternoon called Beer 30. Oh so I just totally played uh a drunk, you know, singing this song. Um boy, I wish I had a copy of it to send to play it right now. I didn't think about that, but stuff like but really what's I think what my favorite in my wheelhouse is when there's really clever um copy, and there are a few stations that really write well and it's done, so you don't so you just you just play it almost under underplay it, and you just let the the words land, and yeah, it's just all attitude, you know, and they can hear a smile and your voice, and they can hear and with the pauses and everything, and and and I think that's part of the acting that appeals to me there because there's a lot of acting before I forget. That's what it is. Yeah, I gotta go back to this and say there are a lot of acting parts that I have been hired, uh, either uh SAG AFTRA jobs, union jobs, and I am a card carrying, I gotta um, and there are advantages to that, advantages, and then there's a lot of non-union as well. But according to Screen Actors Guild, SAG AFTRA data, their data says, No, you this will blow you, this blows my mind too, and it and it kind of makes me cringe when I think about the reality of this. They say on average, it takes 200 auditions to book one job. Seriously, I've seen it. Wow, yeah, we've all seen it. Yeah, what do you um but you you know you keep plugging along, and and when you hit a big one, you hit a big one, but they're few and far between because it's very competitive. Why do I say that? I'm competing against all the other voice actors, people on the roster, right?

SPEAKER_02: 1:05:36

Right, and there's a lot of them now.

SPEAKER_00: 1:05:37

There's a lot of guys that you start with, and all the other things, yeah, and all the other agencies that are competing, that are submitting the same audition on the same day.

SPEAKER_02: 1:05:46

What would you um somebody wants to do what you're doing? What advice would you give them? Get out somebody wants to be a gentleman.

SPEAKER_03: 1:05:58

What are you doing? That's reassuring. That's reassuring, John. Thanks.

SPEAKER_00: 1:06:01

No, I will tell you, I will tell you this that true passion and talent rises, it's like the cream, it rises, but yeah, it's not as it's and you gotta be persistent. I think there's more perseverance in it now, nowadays, and it's because it was like all come, you know, in the seven sixties, seventies, eighties, all come, come on, you know, it was like there was plenty of room. We had a big it was a big we had a big party, it was a big family. Now you even look at the at real numbers and you say, I'll give you, for instance, the station in the 80s. The that was a top 40 station I worked at in Northern California. I shared once uh Christmas um card, and and the the comments were that's what that's for one station? Yeah, we had what 16 people or whatever it was. That's one station? You didn't have more stuff? No, it was for just one station. So it's the real true the the the ones that really shine, the ones who who get it, the ones who want to learn, the one who the ones who want to want to keep on keeping on and never give up. They're the ones who are gonna do the lion's share of the work.

SPEAKER_02: 1:07:25

So, what would you say would be the first thing that somebody should do? I know that we have these, you know, voice one, two, three, you got voice, uh, voiceover planet, I think, veo planet. Um, you've got all these different sites that you know they're out there saying, Hey, you want to be uh, you know, a voiceover artist, you want to be a VO, you want to be an actor, voice actor? You know, sign up, let's do it. What do you think about all those?

SPEAKER_00: 1:07:50

Well, the agencies that right off the top say, give us$500 and we'll, you know, we'll help you out, we'll produce, we'll help produce, and then we'll market you. I say stay away from those, the pay-to-play. And and I, and when you said voices one, two, three, they really undercut, they they will undersell uh the legitimate. I don't want to say that there's illegitimacy there, but that but there are there are two different um schools of thought or two different camps there because they're they're paying such pittance compared to what should be the rate. We need to keep we need to keep the rates real and keep them up. It needs to be equitable, but it needs to be we we're not giving this away. This is our profession, you know. Our profession is important, what we do is important, and and we need uh financial recognition for that. I'm not saying rip rip them off, but not uh what what have I what have you seen sometimes$15 for 30 second spot on Voices One? Yeah, that's crazy.

SPEAKER_02: 1:09:01

No, yeah, no, it's crazy, yeah.

SPEAKER_00: 1:09:04

Yeah, but I'd say, but you know, gone are the days of the Connecticut School of Broadcasting and Columbia School of Broadcasting, and I think I haven't heard of anybody going through those, but um, I would say reach out to somebody you uh a mentor, somebody who could become a mentor, somebody you consider a hero. Uh you may not get a yes from the first, you know, the first person you contact. All right. But uh you'll find somebody who can who can guide you and maybe help even critique your work, your your demo, but you've got to and and now everybody's got their own studio setups, and it's so easy, and you can produce you can you can produce something that sounds like it was on the air but wasn't, you know, that's your calling card, is that demo. And then and then do the work, do the uh find the agencies, um, find the people who can represent you.

SPEAKER_02: 1:10:12

I think just about everybody I've talked to, I mean you plus uh you know the few others that I know, and they're all great people and they do a great job. I think the majority of them go through Atlas, and um they seem to be the you know the leader when it comes to doing doing this type of work.

SPEAKER_00: 1:10:27

So they have the reputation, they have the the power, they really do, yeah. And and they have the um the respect. I was looking for the there's many words I could use, but yeah, they are uh I think they're they have the best.

SPEAKER_02: 1:10:42

Cool. You know, we've been um John, wow, I can't believe this has been one of the best hours that I've ever had. I mean, this is uh I don't have my glasses on because I can't see uh I cannot see the I think like an hour 10, but that's okay.

SPEAKER_00: 1:10:58

Oh, I didn't realize we're going over.

SPEAKER_02: 1:11:00

I didn't even get to the to the no, that's okay. We can we can keep going. We can keep going, but uh I'm just worried about your wife in the tub if she's waiting to come back to that room. Okay, all right, all right, all right, no, just kidding. But uh no, I think you've got that.

SPEAKER_00: 1:11:17

I didn't even realize how that boy, that door is just such a boring looking. I'll have to tell her, hey, I love your boring office, honey, but you didn't get to see you didn't get to see my my mics and my, you know, it's it's got some nice lighting.

SPEAKER_02: 1:11:33

Can I ask? Can I ask, what does your wife do?

SPEAKER_00: 1:11:37

She was she trained through Le Cordon Bleu, you know, the the cooking, the high-end cooking school.

SPEAKER_02: 1:11:44

She's a classically trained oh so that's what that text was about that you sent me earlier about having that dinner. You were doing the dishes, yeah.

SPEAKER_00: 1:11:54

The risotto and and mahi. Oh, and the sauce. So so it when when it's a French um emphasis on on uh French cooking, they're they're known for the sauces. And wow, she she is so great with sauces. That's her that's her wheelhouse. Uh man, everything she does. And she might say something that's is simple and she'll say, Oh, sorry, it was boring. Are you kidding? Don't pop don't apologize. This is greater than anything in the county. Yeah, John.

SPEAKER_02: 1:12:28

Let me tell you about the skip clark household.

SPEAKER_00: 1:12:32

I want to hear about this.

SPEAKER_02: 1:12:33

Okay, so Monday is shake and bake chicken. Every Monday. Tuesday. I'll be right over tonight. It's yeah, okay. After the first couple of weeks, you get tired of it. Tuesday is Taco Tuesday, Wednesday is pasta, Thursday is Chinese, Friday is eat out, then the weekend is pizza and wings. Um, and this is Zach's menu. My son Zach, who you saw before we went on live, but uh Zach, he's so stuck to this schedule. That's that's what we go through every week. It's the same.

SPEAKER_00: 1:13:05

I love it.

SPEAKER_02: 1:13:06

Shake the bag, I love pasta, Chinese, eat out.

SPEAKER_00: 1:13:10

I not only love his taste, but I love his heart. I have seen the shows. What a guy!

SPEAKER_02: 1:13:17

What a well, you you voiced a lot of that those intros, too. So oh man, he's 25. He's 25, 25.

SPEAKER_00: 1:13:27

And he loves he loves his dad.

SPEAKER_02: 1:13:30

Well, I see his dad loves him, he's changed our lives. So my wife and I, we you know, it's when he came into this world, it was a whole new beginning for us. Yeah, so well, so cool, and uh, but I want to hear these stories about I mean, you were talking about you just being who you are and the shows you've been involved in, the stars you have met, the people you have hung out with. I want to hear some of these good stories. I mean, you just I'm all ears, brother. I'm all ears. Well, thank you.

SPEAKER_00: 1:13:59

And you know where it mostly happened was in the intimacy of the grand old Opry. It's easier to get around. Miss Ray, have you been to the Grand Old Opry?

SPEAKER_03: 1:14:09

I have not been there yet.

SPEAKER_00: 1:14:11

So it seems about it seems about 35 years. Right, right, right. Oh, I think the Opry is bigger than ever. I think there was a period maybe in the 2000s where it started to dip a little bit, languishing a little bit. I don't want to use that word, but man, it's I got to do a guest announce there. We talked about this earlier, and it was sold out that night because there was a group called Shine Down that happened to be on the bill. Yeah, but I got to introduce one of the Opry uh members, of which there are fewer than 80 active living, you know, and we just lost Jeannie Seely. Um, so I got to introduce John Conley, who had been a uh since 83 or 84, he's been. Now, you don't know this, Skip, but when the opportunity came up, we'd like you to be a guest announcer. I immediately wrote to Mark Wills. Now we have some history, Mark and I. Yeah, no, Mark. We met at CMA Awards in 80 and in uh 98 or 99, and he was a huge, as he called it, wrestling, wrestling fan. And he he had discovered that I was the promo and commercial voice for WCW World Championship Wrestling. And I was until they sold it in uh March of 2001. We actually met it at a uh, and I never had to go to the events, I would just send my recording, you know, my stuff, and they would produce it. Uh matter of fact, when they went under or when they sold sold it to Titan Sports, which is Vince McMahon, as you know, and put out about a half a dozen video post houses in Atlanta went out of business because they were doing all WCW work. There was there was that much. At one time, there were five weekly shows with WCW. There was one worldwide, then of course this on cable live shows. There were there was WCW Thunder on TBS, and then there was um Monday Nitro on TNT, which at one time beat Monday Night Football on ABC in the ratings. Isn't that crazy? It is so uh yeah. So I wrote to Mark because he's a he's a member of the Opry, he's in the family, and I wanted to see which nights he was uh gonna be booked and all the dates they didn't work out. We just couldn't coincide. So I did October the 10th. So it was a great uh that was a birthday weekend, and nice a lot of fun.

SPEAKER_02: 1:16:58

It's how was that? How was that? Um you know, I did apply for that as well. Um, I'm sure so many of us did, but I'm not at the level that you're at. You're John Williams. Oh no, and I didn't, you know, it's just you know, I never heard back from them, but uh, I not only you, but I know many others that I consider friends that were actually guest announcers, which was pretty cool. I know uh my friend Hannah Lane, she got you know, you know Hannah, she was on the podcast, she was just watching tonight, right? Yeah, yeah, exactly.

SPEAKER_00: 1:17:30

She's a rising star, she's one to watch. I met her uh at CRS, she came to her first one uh last year.

SPEAKER_01: 1:17:37

Last year, and she was all about it. Great.

SPEAKER_00: 1:17:40

I think Hannah Lane was the latest one. Uh to one of the last ones uh from Pensacola does morning. Yes, and yeah, they're a great station. Man, they're multi, multi-winners.

SPEAKER_02: 1:17:53

Oh just so you know, today I had cat country up on the studio in the studio on the studio computer. Just uh I said, You want to hear what John sounds like? Listen to this. Did I or did I not, Reagan?

SPEAKER_03: 1:18:06

He did. You did.

SPEAKER_02: 1:18:07

I said, All right, so that you know, the I don't know, whatever John Party he was playing, then there was a sweeper. I go, that's John. She goes, Wow, that is cool.

SPEAKER_00: 1:18:17

I said, Yeah, this is uh Pensacola, yes, yes, cat country.

SPEAKER_02: 1:18:21

Wow, I said cat country 98.7, 98.7, yeah, 98.7.

SPEAKER_00: 1:18:27

Which is funny, I gotta tell you this when you said point. Sometimes I'll look at the copy and I'll go, Well, wait a minute, I'll write the back. Do you want to put a point in here? Because I've never done that before. And they'll say, Oh, good catch, you know, like so. I I'm so used to I know, I know. I um I think they're wearing it so many hats because they're a lot of them are in charge of multiple stations, and this station may be a point, and this, you know, and the one uh so anyway, I keep I keep it, I keep it.

SPEAKER_02: 1:18:55

Uh yeah, I'd like you know we I'd like it 98.7, but um it's streamlined, yeah. We're 92.1 and we're 92.1. They wanted to put the point in with ours. And and you know, if we were just 92.1 the wolf, I mean, where I am they say, yeah, and they say it's a digital thing, they gotta remember to put the point.

SPEAKER_00: 1:19:15

No, they'll figure it out. It's between you and I.

SPEAKER_02: 1:19:21

So no, I get it, totally get it.

SPEAKER_00: 1:19:23

But instead of 3,500 seats in the Grand Ole Opera when there's not a big show like the CMA Awards, because they'll have to take some out to put to oh, we lost Miss Ray.

SPEAKER_02: 1:19:35

Oh, she's oh, I don't know. Oh, Miss Ray's gone. Yes, yes, she'll be gone. Oh, please come back. She is she'll come back. It was it was so balanced with her. Wait a minute, I think she's back. Hang on.

SPEAKER_00: 1:19:49

But they wouldn't go back to that. Now she she's there, she's underneath, she's gonna bounce around.

SPEAKER_03: 1:19:56

Oh my gosh, I don't know what just happened.

SPEAKER_02: 1:19:58

Verizon, right. Ah yeah, there you go. Well, don't you laugh about that, but yeah, we uh I have Verizon. And that was the worst day of my life, John.

SPEAKER_03: 1:20:09

Oh, you know, we so every it was the worst day for everybody.

SPEAKER_02: 1:20:13

Oh, oh yeah.

SPEAKER_03: 1:20:14

I heard about that.

SPEAKER_02: 1:20:17

And I don't think we ever got an answer what happened. Uh somebody said it was a satellite, somebody said it was the server in New Jersey, somebody uh, you know, you don't know. They've never really said. I know that uh that day was for anybody that does what we do, and we have to, you know, I'm on the phone all day with Nashville, so to speak, and when we do this type of thing, and uh, you know, it's just the phone service just it went, it was the worst day of my life, and Miss Reagan could tell Miss Rig could tell you that. But they the I was in the studio and up front, her and uh Miss Becky, who works at the front desk, was like, Skip's not having a good day. The phones are down, this is not gonna be pretty, and it wasn't so, but anyways, a whole different story.

SPEAKER_00: 1:21:00

Isn't that something that messes with your psyche because it's something that's just always there, you never question it.

SPEAKER_02: 1:21:07

And it's and I talked about that. Yes, I talked about that on air. It's like this is something you know, we we it's always in our hand, it's something we always have. I don't know whether you do what you do, whether uh it's what I do or what Miss Ray does. Then when it goes away, it's like crap, what am I gonna do? Holy crap, this messes with your mind.

SPEAKER_00: 1:21:25

So, anyways, anyways, yeah, we finally got uh how many years ago have we had it? Oh, I bet it, I bet more than I want to admit. Fiber when they finally brought fiber in. Yeah, we have fiber eight years ago or so, eight, ten years ago. Man, that made a world of difference. Yeah, so it does. But anytime there's a problem, and you know, you you know what can happen is is there could be a uh traffic accident where somebody runs off the road and hits hits one of those junction boxes boxes, it'll take out a whole uh whole area until they get it back up. There's a lot of rewiring that has to happen.

SPEAKER_02: 1:22:05

Now, the fiber is uh it's pretty remarkable when it works and back to so so great great memories.

SPEAKER_00: 1:22:11

Um, it seemed like there were more of them at the Grand Old Opry. So one year, '99 or two thousand, I wish I'd written it down, but I would always mark my script book, which was a huge three-ring binder, and I'd find the longest commercial break, and then I'd go, okay, I'm gonna, and I put a little tab there, and I'd say, I'm gonna go out and mingle with the audience. Well, I would even go out before the before the program started, and kind of unofficially I'd wear not a tux, but a you know, suit. In the early years, I would actually wear a uh I had a gold lame vest and a bolo tie, a gold and silver bolo. You know, people were dressing like that. I remember Heath, the lead singer from um not Lone Star, from Ricochet. You know, they drink they dressed like that. There was a there was a little thing going on there that's not now quite like that. But anyway, I would go out and and um and greet people. Well, in the middle of the show, I went out and went up the main uh center aisle, and there was a gentleman about a left back third probably of the of the crowd, and he stepped out of his aisle. And as I approached him, I had no idea who that he was there, but somehow intuitively I knew who it was. I said, Mr. Steiger, may I show you to the men's room? And he said, Yes, yes, so he just had that look in his eyes. So I took him out the the to the lobby, to the men's room, and I waited for him, and I and I brought him back. And when I and he's thanked me, and and he uh at the end of the row, as he went to find his seat again, he said, This is more fun than the Academy Awards, and it was Oscar-winning actor Rod Steiger. Wow, who had worked with Marlon Brando, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Sydney Poitiers and all the and to this day, I still don't know whose guest he was. The production staff, they didn't know who invited him, but he was there and he was having a great time. Another one, yeah.

SPEAKER_02: 1:24:25

Oh, go ahead. No, I was just gonna ask you really quick. Do you keep those binders? Do you have those put away somewhere? The years that you did the CMAs?

SPEAKER_00: 1:24:35

You know, I had more than 20 because I went, well, why do I have more than 20? Then I realized, oh, I did the 75th anniversary of the Grand O'Opry. That was a special that was CMA produced. It was not a live show, but that's the one where I there was a lot of stop down time because they would, you know, I didn't put it together, it was videotape. Yeah, yeah. And I and I brought my little book of the craziest but real lyrics to songs that were mostly written in the 60s and 70s. And the guy that I handed it to to have him sign it was Mel Tillis. The Coca-Cola Cowboy Mel Tillas. And this was a real title to a song that was copyrighted and recorded in 1967, and it was called How Come Your Dog Don't Bite Nobody But Me. Real song. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Okay. Okay. Some of them were I don't know whether to go bowling or kill myself. That was a real song. It's the reason our kids are ugly. That was that was a real, those are real country songs. Yeah. I love that. I have that little booklet, and he oh my god, he signed it. He signed it.

SPEAKER_02: 1:25:53

That is very cool. Those are yeah, you must have like so many of those things put away. I mean, it's such a big part of your life, and everything you've done for, you know, the country music fans and the listeners, and and you yourself being in this position where you get to, you know, hang with the stars and get to know them a little bit. I mean, you're the backbone. You're the backbone of these shows. You're the backbone of all this. And that's got to be. I know if it was me, I'd have like a whole shelf full of all those.

SPEAKER_00: 1:26:24

Well, I still do, but you know, I gave away two or three uh binders that that covered some years. I think the the year that we did the show, six weeks after the attack of 9-11. I think that one I I did contribute to the Country Music Hall of Fame, the and museum, you know, that the museum.

SPEAKER_02: 1:26:46

Yep, yep, yep, yep.

SPEAKER_00: 1:26:47

They have hundreds of thousands of now digitized uh artifacts, pieces in there, but they did take me in kind of to the bowels of the place, and I saw this stuff that's still being cataloged. I mean, they had things that were, they had, they had nudie suits, they had uh, you know, from great artists who are uh in their senior years now who are contributing not only their their costuming, their stage clothes, but their instruments and even uh amplifiers and all kinds of things. So I did contribute uh three different binders because I think it I think there's some relevance to it. By the way, I don't know if you know this, but I didn't know until I took a tour of a relatively new country music hall of fame and museum. This was in the early 2000s when I visited them because I'd seen the other one. You probably went to the old one.

SPEAKER_02: 1:27:44

I've been to uh I don't know if I went to the old one. Oh, on Music Row, yes. Okay, that one.

SPEAKER_00: 1:27:49

All right, yeah, that I think a lot of people have been there, but this this one is huge, and they take you first from that lobby, they take you on an elevator to the third floor, and then you drop down, you do all the floors, and you just go down one. Well, I'm looking at the early years, there's all these displays and music and things to read and audio to hear, and as I get closer to this one sit-down area that's kind of a little theater in the middle of all of this, and I and I'm hearing a voice, and I go, No, that can't be. And the closer I got, I went in the loop, it came around again because it was on repeat, and it was sure enough, it was my voice was I I had no idea, but it was just part of a display that was called um country music on television through the years, so they had things like Hee-Haw, Stantler Brothers, yeah, yeah, even Ariba, Doritos commercials, stuff like that, just everything that's been on TV, and all of a sudden, here it comes. I because I went and sat down and watched the it came up again. It was about a 12-minute piece, and it was an introduction that I got to do for Vince Gill. So, yeah, so that was wow, dude. I don't know.

SPEAKER_02: 1:29:04

And I what were you thinking when you heard that and you sat down? What went through your mind? I mean, that was your voice, and now it's in the country music hall of fame.

SPEAKER_00: 1:29:17

Well, yeah, I don't think I've ever excuse me. What's going through my mind right now is where's my what's going on with my voice? I think it's the weather, too, right now, because we've we've been we actually were around 70 last week.

SPEAKER_02: 1:29:34

Okay, that's enough about this conversation zero here.

SPEAKER_00: 1:29:37

Oh, it's terrible. Yeah, no, we haven't been that cold, but we've been uh we've had hard freezes this morning. I went for a hike, and the ground was it was we had a hard freeze, about 24 was the low. But uh, I think it's just pop popping around so much. So, what it said to me was, and I've never been really asked that to that extent. Um what it said was you're an old timer, you've been putting in a lot of years here, and you've been doing a you've done a lot, but it just kind of made me realize, yeah, you're a thread in the tapestry of country music, country radio.

SPEAKER_02: 1:30:15

100, 100, John.

SPEAKER_00: 1:30:19

And Rusty Rusty Walker said something so sweet, he said this in front of several people at CRS about 15 years ago. He said, Um he said, John is the most heard voice in country music. I was I would say, wow, you're saying, well, anyway, I just yeah, no, no, dude, dude. He blew me away.

SPEAKER_02: 1:30:43

Yeah, God rest his soul, man. What a good guy, too.

SPEAKER_00: 1:30:45

But I'm staying with it. I'm staying with it. I don't want people to think I'm going anywhere because I'll tell you, my hero for longevity, and I've said this before publicly, my my longevity hero is you won't even believe how old he is now, is the guy you hear who says, This is Jeopardy every night on on the show since Alex Trebek, since he was with him in '83, '84. Sounds the same, I think. Johnny Gilbert is.

SPEAKER_01: 1:31:16

Yeah, he does sound the same.

SPEAKER_00: 1:31:18

97. 97. Wow. And those are first run shows.

SPEAKER_02: 1:31:25

Wow. He's still that's amazing, and that's what keeps him going, by the way. That's why you don't stop doing what you're doing. That's right. If you love it, yeah, you love it, you love it. Yeah, that's what we do. We love it. You love it, absolutely. Tell me a little bit about um the country radio hall of fame. You being inducted, you're an icon with that. Uh, tell us about that a little bit.

SPEAKER_00: 1:31:48

I'm glad you asked that because, excuse me, this is really crazy. What happened on the at CRS on the reveal when they played the reaction, our reactions, that would have been recorded kind of like this on Zoom when RJ Curtis called us. And so we would actually, uh I'll tell you what we were recording was my idea, my reason for being there with RJ on Zoom that particular day in June of 2023 was to tell my impressions of CRS through the years. So I yeah, I did, I filled up a whole page of things like my favorite keynote address, you know, keynote speakers, my favorite session, people I've met, stuff, stuff like that.

SPEAKER_04: 1:32:39

Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_00: 1:32:39

So I'm all ready to go. So he's talking a little, a little chit-chat. It was really sweet. And all of a sudden, Beverly Branagan, no, not Beverly Brannigan, Shelly Easton.

SPEAKER_02: 1:32:50

Oh, yeah, okay.

SPEAKER_00: 1:32:51

Comes in and she has this big smile. I said, What are you doing? She said, and without missing a beat, she just went right into it. I'm so happy to tell you, John, that you're the latest inductee into the, you know. So they record that, and of the class of which was a great class of 2023, Trish Beyondo, Dollar Bill, they're a couple of the people who went in that class, and I got to know them really well that that year. So we had to we had to keep it secret for about four weeks, and then the big reveal would be on the first day of CRS and that what do they call that honors hour or something? Uh the yeah, it was the honors, it's kind of the kickoff, and I think they also do the in memorium that day, and they have some you know, some announcements, and they we have the national anthem sung by a guest, uh, which is always fantastic. And so when they played, they played little excerpts from our reactions, and my honest reaction that they captured and then edited into the piece that they played for everybody on the big screens was I said, Charlie Monk. I'm so sad that Charlie Monk is is gone that he that he won't see this. I mean, as the first name for whatever reason came to my mind. Yeah, well, I get it. So at the yeah, I mean, important, he was Miss Ray, he was uh co-founder of CRS. He had gone to every one of them from day from year one, 1967, 68, somewhere in there.

SPEAKER_02: 1:34:29

It's going back there somewhere, I'm not really sure, but yeah.

SPEAKER_00: 1:34:32

So at the end of that hour, when everybody stood up and they were getting ready to leave, a McKenna monk, about 20 years old, comes up to me, and she's still got some tears in her eyes, and she said, My girlfriends and I were in the back here, and as soon as you said that, that Charlie Monk, that that that line about missing Charlie Monk, and he wasn't alive to see this. She said, We just burst into tears. That was my grandfather. Oh my god, that was my grandfather. Wow, wow, that that made it all worth well.

SPEAKER_02: 1:35:07

Yeah, absolutely, absolutely, very cool. And there you are, you're now on that wall, which is pretty cool.

SPEAKER_00: 1:35:14

Yeah, so well, thank you. Thank you very much. I appreciate that. Yeah, there's some I've been to a lot. Oh, I tell you, this is this is sad when and we were talking about when you when you age, you know, we were talking before we started live, that you look at life when you the the longer you live, it's like uh the role of of bathroom tissue that when closer you get to the core, it goes faster and faster when it I'm gonna have to remember that. I I would that's just that's so crude. I hate that crude analogy, but it's kind of true because now because what I'm what I'm gonna share with you here is so real, is so true that there are so many of those people who have who were my friends who who have passed, who I saw, I went to their induction, I knew them, but two of them in particular I can name right, and you know who they are. Uh I went to their funerals as well. The latest one was was um well they were they were having a hard time.

SPEAKER_02: 1:36:28

Uh I know I'm trying I'm trying to think who would. Okay.

SPEAKER_00: 1:36:34

Yeah, and and uh not Catal, not Cadillac Jack. That was a that's another one, but I don't think he went in. Was um this is crazy that it was it was uh it was Dallas McCade's uh partner for a long time, not not rhubarb. Why can't I say his name? Huge talent, Moby, Moby, oh okay. I can remember his real name, James Carney, but his his his name was Moby.

SPEAKER_02: 1:37:04

His radio name was it Moby?

SPEAKER_00: 1:37:06

Moby. Yeah, he was so when I and I went to visit him in his hotel, uh his hotel, in his hospital about four weeks before he passed, and he was he had uh some kind of cancer that eventually did take him. And I said, You know what? I know you from back in in nightline days when Ted Koppel was doing this show on on shock jocks, and you were one, you were on the air in Houston. Oh, be that you were known as a shock jock before you got in the country. He goes, Really? I said, Yeah, that's where I knew you from.

unknown: 1:37:43

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00: 1:37:46

We lost a lot of good ones. Do you know the story? Dandelion dandelion, yes. Yes, yeah so. I went, I actually flew to her 20th 20th anniversary in radio, which doesn't sound like a lot until you consider that she got in radio at age 40 from the post office. She was a post office person, and she just she chucked that and she said, No, no, this is my so she became uh she's the reason she's the one who introduced me privately to Garth Brooks at a CRS one time when he was there doing, I think he was talking about um retiring temporarily, you know, to raise his daughters in high school, yeah, which he did, and then he came back. But yeah, that goes way back. But Dandelion, she went in in 2000, and and this is there was an era when they would have uh the person to induct you come out live. Now it's pretty much streamlined, they want to they want to move it along, and I understand that. So they want the um the person inducting you to be on video, and it just moves it along because you know it can get long-winded when you have live people. You you you can't give them a cutoff sign, but what you can edit the video that you know that works. But it was but the one who inducted her was Garth Brooks. Wow, yeah, he came out of the curtain live and surprised everybody.

SPEAKER_02: 1:39:15

Yeah, so cool. So a lot of memories, John. I'm sure you could go on and on and on. You've lived uh quite the life and you still have a lot to go. So, I mean, just everything you've done.

SPEAKER_00: 1:39:27

Thank you for your friendship.

SPEAKER_02: 1:39:28

Thank you. Thank you right back. And now you met Miss Ray.

SPEAKER_00: 1:39:32

Now I've met new friend. Thank you, Miss Ray.

SPEAKER_03: 1:39:34

Well, uh, thank you.

SPEAKER_00: 1:39:36

Stay in touch.

SPEAKER_03: 1:39:38

Yes, definitely.

SPEAKER_02: 1:39:39

Oh, believe me, she will. She will. She is so good at doing this. I've introduced her to a lot of people in the biz, and she's now got relationships with them in a good way about work and how to do things, and just she's taking it all in, John. I'm so proud of her being on her staff.

SPEAKER_03: 1:39:57

I mean, just well, thank you guys. Thank you guys for letting me join tonight. Normally I get to just hang with Skip and you know he gets to ask his questions, gets to do his whole thing. But I'm really happy that I got to sit in today. I was super excited to hear that he was interviewing you. The work that you do is inspiring to me. It's you're so talented. So I just I'm really, really grateful that I got to sit in today. So thank you guys.

SPEAKER_00: 1:40:26

It's been my pleasure. It really has been.

unknown: 1:40:28

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00: 1:40:28

I gotta thank my wife too for her office.

SPEAKER_03: 1:40:31

Yes, thank you, Charles Life. Yes, pretty sterile though.

SPEAKER_02: 1:40:35

It doesn't look like there's much going on there. Yeah, no, books in the bookcase. That's all.

SPEAKER_00: 1:40:41

My digs are not tidy like this.

SPEAKER_02: 1:40:44

Dude, yeah, well, we'll do it next time. Take a look around here. Yeah, we'll do it next. Thank you. We'll do this again. Yeah, you just don't hear a voice like this. Um, you grow up with it. You just don't hear it, you grow up with it. And uh John Williard didn't just announce moments, he became a part of them. Oh, he is a part of all that. Thank you. And long after the lights fade and the music stops, that voice will still be telling the story. It's that guy right there. That guy right there. I'm Skip Clark. Uh, thank you for watching Skip Happens Tonight, everybody. Make sure you subscribe, tell your friends about it, make sure you you keep an eye on John. Listen for that voice because you're gonna hear it. He's a legend, he's an icon. We're so proud to know him, our friendship, and also being a part of Skip Happens tonight. Thank you for watching, everybody. Have a good night.

SPEAKER_00: 1:41:31

Thank you. Good night.