The Sound

What is The Sound? Our ten-words-or-less description is "Five hours of Americana, roots rock and contemporary folk," but it's more than that... a host of styles, from acoustic blues to rockabilly to bluegrass to, well, whatever catches our fancy that day. It's artists you've known for decades like Bruce Cochburn, Shawn Colvin, Marshall Crenshaw and the Bodeans plus artists you'll hear for the first time who you'll listen to for decades to come, including the Greencards, Arlington Priest and Crooked Still.  AND its musicians homegrown here in North Carolina whose work stands up to all the performers just mentioned...  bluegrass from Clayton's the Wells Family, singer/songwriters from an area thick with them ... Asheville, including Christine Kane, Chris Rosser and David Lamotte, and blues from Chatham County's Dmitri Resnick ... just to name a few. So, again, what is The Sound? Here's another ten-words-or-less description - great music that needs a place to be heard.  Hear it Monday thru Friday from 7-12 midnight on the Public Radio East News & Ideas Network.

The Best of The Sound 2008 (so far...)

The Top 40 CDs heard on The Sound (thru May 9, 2008) CD Name – Artist (Label)    1)Bucket – Mando Saenz (Carnival) 2)Miss Understood – Carolyn Wonderland (Bismeaux) 3)The Reckoning – Kasey Anderson (TerraSoul) 4)Honeydew – Shawn Mullins (Vanguard) 5)Another Country – Tift Merritt (Fantasy) 6)Vagabonds – Gary Louris (Ryko) 7)Good Summer Rain – Erica Wheeler (Signature) 8)Jomo Swamp Root Boogie – WSNB 9)Watch the Sky – Patty Larkin (Vanguard) 10)Sleep through the Static -- Jack Johnson (Brushfire) 11)Come Up Full -- Meg Hutchinson (Red House) 12)Truth – Robben Ford (Concord) 13)Born to be Wilder – Webb Wilder & the Beatnecks (Blind Pig) 14)Live Cactus – Joe Ely (Rack ‘Em) 15)Mockingbird – Allison Moorer (New Line) 16)The Heavy Circles (Dynamite Child) 17)Join the Parade – Marc Cohn (Decca) 18)Still -- The Bodeans 19)Low on Cash, Rich in Love – Eric Lindell (Alligator) 20)Switchblade Waterpistol – Lifters (Pawn Shop) 21)Get on Board – Eric Bibb (Telarc) 22)I’m Not There – OST (Columbia) 23)Let the Woman – Andy Davis (Big Helium) 24)Son of Skip James – Dion (Verve Forecast) 25)Raisin’ a Ruckus – Roomful of Blues (Alligator) 26)Working Man's Café -- Ray Davies (New West) 27)78 -- China Forbes (Heinz) 28)The Orchard -- Lizz Wright (Verve Forecast) 29)Sunday Morning in Saturday’s Shoes – Richard Julian (EMI) 30)Just Us Kids – James McMurtry (Lightning Rod) 31)A Long Way from Tupelo – Paul Thorn (Perpetual Obscurity) 32)Just a Little Lovin’ – Shelby Lynne (Lost Highway) 33)Raising Sand – Robert Plant & Alison Krauss (Rounder) 34)Asking for Flowers – Kathleen Edwards (Zoe) 35)Beautiful Graffiti – Brandy Robinson 36)Lost Boy – Bleu Edmondson (Smith Entertainment) 37)Nevermind My Blues – Ben Arnold (Ropeadope) 38)Break the Spell – Ellis (Rubberneck) 39)Atlas – Susan Levine (Riverwide) 40)Goin’ By Feel – Ray Bonneville (Red House)

What keeps The Sound on the air?

The one word answer is “you.” If you’ve been listening to The Sound for any length of time, you may have noticed the lack of commercials. That’s what keeps the typical radio station running… they sell advertisers air time, then you pay for your usage of that station by, in essence, donating your time to listen to those commercials. We don’t have that option. We’re licensed as a non-commercial station, meaning if we air commercials, we’re in violation of our FCC license, which isn’t a good thing. So how do we pay for the 1001 incidentals that are involved in getting The Sound into your home, office or car? We’re back to the one word answer… “you.” The Federal Communications Commission won’t let us sell commercial time BUT they will allow us to ask for donations from those folks with the good taste to listen to this station. The majority of the funds we use to present The Sound are listener dollars. Without those listener dollars, no Sound… literally. We believe what you hear on Public Radio East on its own is enough to pledge your financial support… but a little incentive never hurt, so make a $40-or-more pledge and we'll send you your choice of CDs... Tift Merritt's Another Country, Vagabonds by Gary Louris or Bucket by Mando Saenz... all currently featured on The Sound. When you go to our pledge form by clicking here, just type in the comments box the name of the CD or DVD you’d like and we’ll get it out to you as soon as possible. Thank you for your pledge. You’re making The Sound possible. George Olsen Host/producer "The Sound"

Because Great Music Needs a Place to Be Heard
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George Olsen

First day on the job as a professional broadcaster? It's the early 80's, and I open the door one Sunday morning before 0600 at the Greenville AM station that was desperate enough for bodies to hire me. First thing I notice is our program director, asleep on the floor, because the job paid so poorly he couldn't afford to heat his apartment. I left that evening at 2030, a 14 hour air-shift. What did I learn that first day? Broadcasting has weird hours and little money. I stuck with it anyway. It seems my North Carolina public school education could have taught me better (Havelock High School graduate 1977). After dropping out at East Carolina University, I went on to the University of South Carolina and got a B.A. in Broadcast Journalism. It was there I got my first taste of non-commercial radio, working for the student-run station WUSC, where we featured then unknown bands like REM, the Police, and the Go-Go's. I loved every minute of it, and if they'd have paid me minimum wage, I'd still be there. Sadly, they didn't pay me anything, so after I graduated it was on to the world of commercial radio. Some of the stops including a stint for a small Garner station whose general manager would wander back into the control room on occasion and wonder out loud if anyone was actually listening, about five months at WGBR in Goldsboro (Carl Kassell worked there as well, though not at the same time), and morning drive with WAZZ in New Bern, which was at one time THE country music station in eastern North Carolina (there was a time before WRNS). All of those stations are now under new ownership (several times over in some cases) and some just aren't  there anymore. That is the world of commercial radio. Anyway, after WAZZ, I got my first PAID non-commercial gig with WTEB, where, working 41 hours on-air each week, I was part-time. A few years of that, then I went on to WUAL in Tuscaloosa, Alabama, to work as their jazz coordinator. That was a great place. The station was in a (barely) refurbished old house on the edge of campus, so we were the only radio station I've worked at which had a full kitchen (every so often Miss Cookie would make meatloaf), cats, a cellar, a bath-tub, and a ghost. I came back here in the early 90's. Working as a producer doing features and interviews for Morning Edition, I've had the chance to meet some fascinating individuals and hear some great stories. The best story was Jane Gillman and Darcy Deaville's tale of pulling off on the side of a road out west trying to figure out where they were on the map when they were suddenly engulfed by an honest-to-God cattle drive. Any story that ends with "...and the car was covered in cattle spit" has to rank as a classic, no matter what circle you run in. I'm also now hosting and producing The Sound on weekday evenings on the Public Radio East News & Ideas Network. I grew up listening to great singer/songwriters like Jim Croce, James Taylor and Harry Chapin, so to play the music of some of their contemporaries and heirs has been fun, to say the least. I've also had the chance to work with some good people past and present. I've inhaled bits of old Sonex into my lungs working with Charles Wethington as we made studio renovations. I've played electrician in the middle of hurricanes trying to get the station back on the air with Brad Bailey, who holding the flashlight from a distance, informed me that the human body is an excellent conductor of electricity. In group photos I always got to stand in the back with Jeanne Kennedy as we looked down on our vertically-challenged cohorts. And every time Finley Woolston tells people I taught him everything he knows about broadcasting, I refuse to take responsibility, and will continue to do so in the future. It's been an interesting ride, and I thank everybody on both ends of the radio for letting me do this thing I do.