{"id":661559,"date":"2026-05-24T02:49:08","date_gmt":"2026-05-24T02:49:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/661559\/"},"modified":"2026-05-24T02:49:08","modified_gmt":"2026-05-24T02:49:08","slug":"radio-veteran-turns-classic-rock-into-a-cultural-classroom-inforum","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/661559\/","title":{"rendered":"Radio veteran turns classic rock into a cultural classroom – InForum"},"content":{"rendered":"

SAUK RAPIDS, Minn. \u2014 On a recent warm afternoon, Al Neff stood in the parking lot of Tri-County Broadcasting\u2019s radio headquarters, affectionately known as \u201cThe Red House.\u201d<\/p>\n

With towers in the distance, he described how the swampy conditions of the area help the building\u2019s six radio stations propagate their signal across all of Central Minnesota, and how the founders of the station purchased the land from local farmers who saw it as useless.<\/p>\n

\u201cYou can\u2019t grow corn on a swamp,\u201d he said. \u201cBut you can grow radio.\u201d<\/p>\n

Neff, 64, has worked in broadcasting for 45 years and has become a favorite to listeners who know him or discovered him as they wandered the dial. <\/p>\n

For the past 10 years, they’ve found him on WXYG “The Goat,” a station he founded in 2016 playing music from the 1960s to the 1980s.<\/p>\n

He began his career in 1981 at St. Cloud State\u2019s student-led KVSC-FM, but his interest in the medium began much earlier.<\/p>\n

\u201cI was raised in Wyoming and Montana,” Neff said. “My dad was in the oil fields. We moved every year. By the time I left home when I was 18, we’d moved 17 times, so I was always displaced.\u201d<\/p>\n

He said that despite the constant change the cultural touchstones helped him stay grounded \u2014 many of those constantly broadcast throughout the country.<\/p>\n

\u201cRadio was always wherever we went \u2014 you know \u2014 the local radio station,” Neff said. “But even more exciting to me was the late-night reception that you could get on AM clear-channel stations.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"Al<\/p>\n

Al Neff reads information as is typical for his “Into the Music” program on WXYG. The album rock station is called “The Goat,” and is broadcast on AM-540 and FM-107.3 and 94.3.<\/p>\n

Jayda Saatzer \/ For St. Cloud LIVE<\/p>\n

Clear-channel stations are AM radio stations that enjoy extra protection from radio wave interference so they can be used to broadcast cross-country in case of emergency. In the US, clear-channel stations were standardized in 1941 to facilitate wartime communication. Because they use AM frequencies, clear-channel stations can \u201cskip\u201d their signal off the Earth\u2019s atmosphere, allowing some stations to be heard thousands of miles from their origin.<\/p>\n

\u201cWLS was probably the most important for me \u2014 that’s out of Chicago,” Neff said. “Late at night I could tune in as soon as the sun (went) all the way down \u2014 if the weather was right.\u201d<\/p>\n

As a kid, he would tune in WCCO, Minnesota\u2019s clear-channel station, then switch to WLS later in the night.<\/p>\n

\u201c(WCCO) had a great show \u2014 the CBS Radio Mystery Theater, which was a spooky radio show that I loved to listen to,” Neff said.” After that, I (would) flip over to WLS and listen to the late-night DJ who could kind of play whatever he wanted. It was like a treasure hunt for me late at night. So that’s what gave me the fascination with radio. It was my companion.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"Al<\/p>\n

Autographed photos, including one showing Herb Hoppe and his wife, Val, in front of the building, line the halls of the Sauk Rapids station house.<\/p>\n

Jayda Saatzer \/ For St. Cloud LIVE<\/p>\n

When Neff was just 12 or 13 years old, his middle school English teacher hosted a class activity where students passed around a book and a tape recorder, with each student reading a passage. At the end of the activity, the teacher played back the whole tape. Neff said hearing his voice played back on the tape was the first hint that he could have a career in radio.<\/p>\n

When Neff was 17, his father moved his family to the small northern town of Marble, Minnesota, near Grand Rapids and Hibbing. A senior in high school, Neff decided to follow his passion and got a job at local station KXGR (now KMFY) in Grand Rapids.<\/p>\n

\u201cThey played The Beatles and America and The Eagles and stuff like that,” he said. “I liked what they did. My mom was getting on my nerves, and so (I thought), maybe I’ll just go get a job.\u201d<\/p>\n

He said so jokingly, but Neff quickly experienced a trial by fire.<\/p>\n

\u201cI walked in there with my bell bottoms in 1979, and they had an announcer whose car had broken down on vacation, so there was an opening (on-air) the day after next. This was on a Thursday, and they wanted me to be on the air Saturday, so I had to adjust my whole mindset, you know, very quickly.\u201d<\/p>\n

You can\u2019t grow corn on a swamp. But you can grow radio.<\/p>\n

Al Neff<\/p>\n

It was at KXGR that Al Neff was born.<\/p>\n

\u201cMy first name is Jeffrey \u2014 Jeffrey Allen; If you do the math on that, you realize that I grew up as Jeff Neff every year,” he said with a chuckle. “So that part wasn’t fun. Some skinny kid and I got a funny name, plus my dad bought me an accordion, skinny kid with an accordion and a funny name, not good.\u201d<\/p>\n

Still, he had a chance to redefine himself.<\/p>\n

“It was crucial in my development as an emerging young adult person; I got to get rid of that baggage,” he said. “But then for a while, it was like I was masquerading as this guy named Al. It took a while to actually become Al.\u201d<\/p>\n

Home in Central Minnesota<\/p>\n

Neff built a sizable following at KXGR, but eventually his father moved the family out of Marble and back to Wyoming. Al bounced around a few stations in there and Montana until he came to St. Cloud to attend St. Cloud State University in 1981. He joined up with SCSU\u2019s student-led radio station right away.<\/p>\n

\u201cAl worked in just about every leadership role KVSC had to offer during his time as a student, so his influence is undeniable,\u201d said Dan Seeger, the current station manager. \u201cAl was definitely one of the people who regularly stood up for the integrity of KVSC, both as an outlet for experimentation and as a place where people could share their pure love of music with the listener.”<\/p>\n

Neff worked at KVSC throughout his time at SCSU, and it was there he first developed his “Into the Music” radio program \u2014 a show designed to both entertain the listener and teach about the artists, events and eras behind the music.<\/p>\n

\u201cHis ‘Into the Music’ program and his general approach to using the airwaves to educate stand as aspirational examples for a lot of our DJs,\u201d Seeger said.<\/p>\n

Neff also worked at the country-focused WWJO while an undergraduate. After his parents experienced health issues, he became the legal guardian of his sister, Tracy, and stayed in St. Cloud, where he earned his master’s degree.<\/p>\n

In 1994, he left WWJO to move the active rock station, WHMH, which allowed him to play heavier, more intense rock than he could at KVSC.<\/p>\n

\"Al<\/p>\n

Decals of the various stations that operate out of the “red house” are shown on a table in the entryway.<\/p>\n

Jayda Saatzer \/ For St. Cloud LIVE<\/p>\n

\u201cI took a cut in pay,” Neff said. “You know, now I have a master’s degree, and I’m working for minimum wage overnights at a radio station that doesn’t even have hot water. Like, I went to the bathroom, and I realized that there’s no water heater. And I lived in a camping trailer \u2014 that was a colorful chapter \u2014 because there’s no money in radio. So, I lived in the camping trailer for seven years in the woods. It’s very rock and roll. I look back on it fondly.\u201d<\/p>\n

Neff left WHMH in 1997, jumping to WVAL classic country station and staying there until 2002.<\/p>\n

Neff began teaching in SCSU’s mass communications department, with a focus on radio and broadcasting. In 2002, he moved to Colorado to teach, but returned to Central Minnesota years later to found WXYG “The Goat” in 2016.<\/p>\n

The Goat focuses on music released during the 1960s, ’70s and early ’80s. The station features a vast catalog of more than 4,000 songs from the era, a point of pride for its DJ.<\/p>\n

Tune in<\/p>\n

Fans in Central Minnesota can listen to the Goat by tuning to AM 540 or FM 94.3. Anyone can listen to the online stream at www.540wxyg.com\/wxyg-streaming.<\/a><\/p>\n

\u201cWXYG the Goat is very different than other stations,” Neff said. “As far as I know, we are the only station in the country that goes as deeply into that era of music, which I think is the most dynamic era of music in the history of popular culture. Why do we do it? Because we’re a funky, little, family-owned operation next to a swamp, right?\u201d<\/p>\n

Neff co-founded The Goat with another broadcasting great, Lee Arnold, who is credited with pioneering the progressive, album rock radio format.<\/p>\n

\u201cI programmed the first progressive rock radio station in the south \u2014 WTAI \u2014 and that was in \u201868. In 1972, I programmed WORJ in Orlando, that was the highest-rated progressive rock station in America,\u201d Arnold said.<\/p>\n

\u201cThere\u2019s an entire audience out there who are just so tired of this thing called \u2018classic rock\u2019 with their repetitive nature of playing the same 200\u2013300 songs over and over and over again. There\u2019s a giant audience for people who really love music.\u201d<\/p>\n

The Goat went on the air and featured Neff as its main DJ and Arnold working behind the scenes.<\/p>\n

\"Al<\/p>\n

With a voice and personality as timeless as the carpet-walled studio in which he works, Al Neff has set a standard and carved a path for other broadcasters to follow.<\/p>\n

Jayda Saatzer \/ For St. Cloud LIVE<\/p>\n

\u201cHe\u2019s absolutely brilliant!” Arnold said of Neff. “Al is the secret sauce. We have listeners all over the world through our (Internet) stream \u2014 a lot of them are people in radio and a lot of them I\u2019ve known for years \u2014 and every one of them comes back to me and says, \u2018Al is the best disc jockey I\u2019ve ever heard.’\u201d<\/p>\n

Today, WXYG continues to broadcast from that little red house on the edge of the swamp. Its regular programming includes not only a massive rotation but also Neff\u2019s iconic “Into the Music” program and a special guest DJ feature that allows listeners to come on the air with him and share their favorite tracks.<\/p>\n

Neff believes the most important impact he\u2019s made on broadcasting in Minnesota is through his combining his two passions \u2014 radio and education. Specifically, he views his “Into the Music” program as among his most important work.<\/p>\n

\u201cI think that, If I\u2019ve made an impact, it would be my focused intention of making an impact with ‘Into the Music,'” he said. “Because it\u2019s such a valuable educational tool the way that I do it. I really think that there should be more education on cultural literacy. It can emerge into a much larger dialogue about this music. A lot of generations just don\u2019t have the connection points. Music is one of the great unifiers if people are willing to look across the boundaries.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"SAUK RAPIDS, Minn. \u2014 On a recent warm afternoon, Al Neff stood in the parking lot of Tri-County…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":661560,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[53],"tags":[88,216,3813,289506,289505],"class_list":["post-661559","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-music","tag-entertainment","tag-music","tag-radio","tag-sauk-rapids","tag-st-cloud"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/661559","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=661559"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/661559\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/661560"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=661559"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=661559"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=661559"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}