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photo by: Bremen Keasey\/Journal-World<\/p>\n
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Darrell Brogdon has been a mainstay on Lawrence airwaves by working at Kansas Public Radio for over 40 years. He is retiring as the Program Director at the station in March, and Brogdon reflected on his career and creation of the Retro Cocktail Hour.<\/p>\n
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If it wasn\u2019t for his new neighbors back when he was a kid, Darrell Brogdon might have never graced the airwaves across Kansas.<\/p>\n
While growing up in Kerrville, Texas, \u2014 a small town northwest of San Antonio \u2014 the general manager of the local radio station KERV-AM moved next door. One of his buddies got a job at the station, and Brogdon felt he could also get one. When he was 17, he snagged a gig as a weekend DJ from 6 p.m. to 12 a.m. on Saturdays.<\/p>\n
At first, Brogdon thought he would be a graphic designer, but he became transfixed by his work at the station.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe more I worked in radio, the more I was seduced by the siren song,\u201d Brogdon said. <\/p>\n
Thankfully for many Lawrencians, Kansans and worldwide audiences, Brogdon, the program director at Kansas Public Radio, found his calling and crafted a legacy of great radio \u2014 like the Retro Cocktail Hour \u2014 that has lasted over 40 years. <\/p>\n
KPR announced earlier this month that Brogdon will be retiring as the station\u2019s program director, with his final day coming on March 6. <\/p>\n
Although he won\u2019t be leaving the station entirely \u2014 he\u2019ll still produce the Retro Cocktail Hour \u2014 Brogdon is stepping away at a time when public radio is facing significant challenges and changes. Brogdon spoke with the Journal-World to reflect on his long and storied career in radio, what inspired the Retro Cocktail Hour and some of the challenges ahead for the team.<\/p>\n
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Before he moved to work in Lawrence, Brogdon did a little bit of everything in Texas as he was trying to learn more about broadcasting.<\/p>\n
In his first job in Kerrville, his responsibilities included having to take readings off the radio transmitter and even turn it off once he signed off the air at night. Brogdon said the station played a little bit of everything across genres, from jazz, to big band music, to country \u2014 one sponsor even played a polka selection once an hour. Once it got later at night, Brogdon said he would decide to play what he wanted to play since he figured \u201cthe boss is asleep.\u201d <\/p>\n
Brogdon said he was like a \u201csponge\u201d in that first job, trying to learn everything he could and trying different things \u2014 including \u201cstupid stuff\u201d with his friends \u2014 to figure out what works. <\/p>\n
When he headed to college at the University of North Texas in Denton, Brogdon decided to study broadcasting and wound up \u201cworking at three radio stations simultaneously\u201d \u2014 two in Denton and one in Dallas. Even with that kind of experience in radio, Brogdon said he was convinced he was going to work in TV, and he got a job in Houston after graduating. <\/p>\n
Through his experience in public television, Brogdon said he learned quickly that there is a lot more that can go wrong. In television, you need 10 people to make a show get off the ground and he said \u201cif not everybody is up to the task, the whole thing could fall apart.\u201d After two years working in television, he learned he didn\u2019t like it that much, and soon took a job back in radio in Beaumont, Texas, where he was the program director for the public radio station. <\/p>\n
Brogdon said in that job, you kind of serve as the \u201caudience\u2019s representative,\u201d making decisions on what the station is \u201cgoing to be\u201d like and what \u201cit is going to do,\u201d and those choices have to be made with the audience in mind. One of the decisions he made in Beaumont was to bring in more jazz to the station, which became a popular choice for listeners.<\/p>\n
\u201cYou learn what people are going to like to listen to on the radio,\u201d Brogdon said.<\/p>\n
Brogdon learned the most common mistake people make with radio is only playing music they like instead of \u201cplaying for an audience.\u201d After jumping back into the radio world, he said working in this role helped change his mindset.<\/p>\n
\u201cI had a lot of preconceived ideas,\u201d Brogdon said. \u201cThey all were shattered by being in that position.\u201d<\/p>\n
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Although he was happy back in the radio world, Brogdon was looking for something else \u2014 including different weather.<\/p>\n
Not only did Beaumont have lots of oil and chemical refineries that gave the air an acrid smell, Beaumont\u2019s heat and humidity seemed to last all year, with the winter lasting \u201ca couple of days\u201d before jumping back to weather so humid that \u201cyour teeth sweat,\u201d Brogdon said. <\/p>\n
When Brogdon visited Lawrence, he was immediately struck by the change \u2014 and the fact it had four seasons.<\/p>\n
\u201cI really wanted to be here,\u201d Brogdon said. \u201cI thought the town was incredible.\u201d<\/p>\n
Brogdon joined KPR in 1982 as the program director and produced all sorts of shows during that time. That included the live, radio sketch comedy show \u201cRight Between the Ears,\u201d which started in 1985 and ran until 2017 after he decided to \u201cclose it up.\u201d Brogdon said that show was distributed nationally, and it recorded at venues across the Midwest, most frequently at Liberty Hall. <\/p>\n
Although he enjoyed working on the show with the cast and writers, Brogdon said that working on it \u2014 along with his other workload \u2014 was a \u201cbear,\u201d and he became exhausted, but it is a key part of his legacy at the station.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe\u2019d really been fortunate and gotten to do a lot of fun things,\u201d Brogdon said. <\/p>\n
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photo by: Bremen Keasey\/Journal-World<\/p>\n
Darrell Brogdon has been a fixture at the KPR studios at 1120 W. 11th St. for over 40 years. As he steps back from his role as Program Director, he believes the station is in a good position to face the difficult challenges ahead.<\/p>\n
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Brogdon said his mom was a member of the Columbia Records Club when he was a kid. Every month, the company would send out records, so she had a lot of them sitting around. But none was more memorable for Brogdon than Martin Denny\u2019s Exotica.<\/p>\n
Whenever Brogdon was watching TV growing up, the album\u2019s cover art of a woman staring out beyond bamboo curtains, seemed to be \u201cstaring at (him) from under the television,\u201d and intrigued him. When he took a listen to the record, \u201cit turned him onto a different kind of music.\u201d One that was a kind of \u201cersatz\u201d music that bundled together all sorts of styles \u2014 jazz, pop, Polynesian influence, Afro-Cuban sound, exotic percussions \u2014 that became a music of escape to a tropical island or a caravan in the Sahara, according to Brogdon.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s like a mid-air collision between four or five different influences,\u201d Brogdon said.<\/p>\n
That type of funky style became a key fixture in the rotation of songs in the Retro Cocktail Hour, which he began producing in 1996, serving up \u201cjust weird stuff you wouldn\u2019t expect,\u201d Brogdon said. The idea was spurred in part by a period in the 90s when record companies began reissuing various albums in their back catalog, like instrumental pop or old Frank Sinatra records. For a moment, there was a \u201cSpace Age, bachelor pad music\u201d fad that hipsters became attracted to, and Brogdon felt that could be a potential bridge to get more young listeners.<\/p>\n
Since the station played a lot of jazz and that overlapped with the minor craze, Brogdon launched the show, playing an eclectic mix of sounds that epitomized the Space Age vibe \u2014 including the aforementioned Exotica \u201cprivate eye\u201d jazz, Bossa Nova, industrial musicals and production library music. <\/p>\n
The production library music was some of the most fun to play, Brogdon said, and truly embodied an era. Popular in the 1950s and 60s, Brogdon called it \u201c\u2018Let\u2019s go shopping\u2019 music,\u201d for its optimistic tone that sounded like \u201cwe\u2019re going to conquer the world\u201d that was befitting of the national mood for that era. Exotica \u2014 which as a genre had its heyday from 1956 to 1963, Brogdon said \u2014 grew a bit because of enlisted men returning from serving in the South Pacific during World War II having a taste for the Polynesian-kind of sound, according to Brogdon. Playing that again in the 1990s helped spark the craze for the Retro Cocktail Hour.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt was so unusual at the time that I think people just got a kick out of hearing it,\u201d Brogdon said. \u201c(People) either never heard before or remembered hearing years ago when it was new.\u201d<\/p>\n
Right away, there was some buzz, Brogdon said. The one-hour show grew to two hours and he started hearing from people about how much they enjoyed listening. The show also was syndicated to air on over 100 stations across the country. <\/p>\n
Some of the growth happened thanks to the internet. By 1996, the show was made available to stream \u201cin a primitive way\u201d on the KPR website, Brogdon said, and he soon was hearing from listeners not just across the U.S., but from all over the world. Brogdon said he heard from listeners in China, the U.K., Europe and South America. Once, he said he got an email from a man on a sailboat who was listening to the show off the coast of Saipan.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt just kind of blew my mind,\u201d Brogdon said. <\/p>\n
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Over the many years of working in public radio, Brogdon said one thing remained constant: change. <\/p>\n
The developments in technology may have helped boost the Retro Cocktail Hour to people across the world, but also changes, like the growth of the internet and the rise in popularity of podcasts, have created a \u201cnew media landscape,\u201d Brogdon said.<\/p>\n
In reading histories about radio as a format, Brogdon said the innovation of television in the 1950s also disrupted the radio industry in a similar way, hitting the \u201cindustry like a rocket.\u201d<\/p>\n
At the time, radio stations struggled on the solution of how to remain relevant, with networks \u201cthrowing money\u201d at the problem in the hopes that would fix it, Brogdon said. Things like long form radio pretty much went away during that period, but it also brought the rise of the DJ in the radio format. With the new technologies and the changes in listening habits, Brogdon said it will be interesting to see how the medium tries to navigate the changing landscape.<\/p>\n
\u201cRadio has got some real exciting challenges ahead,\u201d Brogdon said. <\/p>\n
Public radio in particular has some interesting challenges. While fights and debates over the amount of public funding that stations would get seemed to go on every year, Brogdon said the federal government \u201cripping out\u201d all funding for public media in the last budget is a significant challenge for stations. Along with the COVID-19 pandemic, those changes have \u201cthrown a monkey wrench\u201d into radio.<\/p>\n
In the face of the challenges, Brogdon said it feels \u201cbittersweet\u201d to be stepping back from many of his duties at KPR. Although he will still be doing the \u201creally, really fun parts\u201d of his old job \u2014 namely, producing the Retro Cocktail Hour \u2014 he won\u2019t be doing the same day-to-day as the program director, which will be quite a change after 43 years. <\/p>\n
But while he steps back, Brogdon said he feels the team at KPR is the \u201cbest team (he\u2019s) ever worked with,\u201d and he is confident they will be able to help lead the radio station to serve the community as best as it can \u2014 something he long loved to do.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt was mine to do for 43 years, now it\u2019s going to be someone else\u2019s,\u201d Brogdon said. \u201cI am glad I\u2019m going to be able to contribute in some small way because I love these people, they\u2019re just the best.\u201d<\/p>\n
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photo by: Bremen Keasey\/Journal-World
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