Brian Jay is no stranger to Memphis Radio.
His first time on the air was when he was only 14 years old. He was in one of the first classes at WQOX-FM, an educational station at Craigmont High School operated by the Memphis City Schools.
“For as long as I can remember, I knew that I wanted to work in radio”, Brian says.
While other kids in high school were playing football or trying to figure out who to take to the prom, Brian was busily pestering DJ’s on the request lines…trying to get inside info on what it takes to land a radio job. Eventually, all of that pestering paid off. Brian met Rick Dees during his stay in Memphis, and ended up working as an assistant to him and as a remote sound engineer and mobile DJ during his personal appearances.
Eventually Brian would invest in a mobile DJ system of his own and would rent out the system to well-known DJ’s at a variety of Memphis radio stations. It was right about that time that he discovered a new station on the FM dial…ROCK103.
“ROCK103 was a real game changer. It was unlike anything anyone had ever heard on the radio before”, Brian said. While most radio up to that point had been “Top 40” stations that focused on playing a single “hit” from an artist practically every hour, ROCK103 would dig 2 or 3 tracks deep into a new album when it first came out. There was very little repetition. You could listen for hours without hearing the same song twice. “People loved that station…and would literally listen ALL DAY”, he said. So Brian set out to meet and work with as many of the ROCK103 DJ’s as possible.
It seemed like Brian was on the fast track to breaking into a radio career of his own. But he was still very young at the time. After graduating high school, it was time for Higher Education. “I had an opportunity to go to college, and my parents were willing to help me in any way they could”, Brian says. But there was the problem of deciding on a college major. “I think my parents figured I would eventually decide on a more traditional and lucrative career”, he reasoned. That never happened. The obsession with radio continued. “Indecision MAY or MAY NOT have been my problem”, he notes.
Seven years later, after a change of schools, a change of majors, and a brief time between schools working as a Club DJ, Brian finally graduated from Memphis State University in 1986…with a BFA in Commercial Music with a Concentration in Audio Engineering and a Minor in Psychology. While the thought of seven years in college may bring back memorable lines from the movie “Animal House”, Brian laughs it off: “A lot of people go to college for seven years. Most of them are DOCTORS”, he says.
By the time Brian graduated, ROCK103 was going through a time of indecision of its own. The station had been sold, and it changed to a Contemporary Hits format…the very antithesis of the stuff that everybody loved about the station in the first place. That format only lasted about a year before the decision was made to go back to a Rock format. But to Brian, it seemed like he had missed the boat. He was fresh out of college and looking for a job.
Brian landed a weekend job at a rock station across the dial known as Rock 98. The weekend job morphed into an Afternoon Drive time slot when the Program Director left to take a job with a radio consulting group in Dallas. Before that job ended, Brian survived 3 formats, 2 ownership changes, and 3 different General Managers. He picked up a lot of practical radio experience during that time, and had the opportunity to work with Consultant Randy Lane on a number of projects. “Randy taught me a lot about the Consulting business, as well as music research, programming, and the business side of radio”, Brian notes.
In the mid 90’s, Brian finally landed a weekend morning shift on ROCK103. Within a couple of years, Brian was doing the night shift from 7-Midnight. Soon, he would make the switch to mornings as Producer of the original Wake Up Crew with Tim, Bev, and Bad Dog. Then, after working as a Talk Radio Producer on ROCK103’s sister station, News Radio 600 WREC, Brian returned to ROCK103 as host of the “Shut Up And Rock” Morning Show in 2012. “It was getting almost impossible to find actual MUSIC on the radio during the ride to work”, he observes. “We had to do SOMETHING.”
One of the coolest features on the Shut Up and Rock Morning Show was “Amnesia Theater: Songs You Know by Heart from the Times You Can’t Remember” ™. Each morning, we would fire up the Flashback Machine and dig deep into the music library for lost classics that haven’t been heard on the radio in a long time. If you were around in the early days of ROCK103, a lot of these songs are very familiar to you. If not, it’s just like hearing new music. “If you haven’t heard it, it’s still new”, Brian says. “Either way, you get more variety and less repetition of songs. That’s a plus any way you look at it”, he notes.
Later, Brian would continue to work for the same company in a variety of roles: Weekend and Fill-in Host, Broadcast Engineer, Network Administrator, IT Professional, and Radio Automation Specialist. Then, in early 2019, it finally happened. After 26 years with the company he was “displaced” by “downsizing” as the company sought to restructure and take advantages of major investments made in Artificial Intelligence. But along the way, Brian never lost his sense of humor. “Artificial Intelligence is no match for Natural Stupidity”, Brian says.
…..to be continued