BY DAN MILLER
(originally posted October 6, 2005)
What fun.... being invited to be a part of the 80th birthday celebration for WSM-AM.
During all the years I've been connected to Nashville and WSM, I had never set foot on the property of that iconic AM radio tower in Brentwood..... until Wednesday.
There's an official historical marker at the site on Concord Road, and for good reason.
The radio signals from that giant tower deserve much of the credit for the evolution and growth of Nashville.
And it's no stretch to say country music probably owes its very existence to WSM-AM.
The transmitter building is a virtual museum of broadcasting.
Just one flight down a spiral staircase takes you directly into the past.
The top photo next to this essay shows a phone still hanging on the wall, where it was used by WSM radio technicians before World War II.
_________________________The next photo shows an old boiler still in place, though no longer used. I seriously doubt they could move it even if they wanted to.
The third photo is a sign hanging on the wall of the old engineers' workshop, giving advice to the long-ago technicians that's still sound advice today.
The workshop is filled with ancient radio parts, and tools, and equipment so old that -- whatever it was used to fix -- no longer even exists.
There are wonderful historic photos stacked and stashed in the basement.....
And there are boxes of old 45 rpm records and vinyl albums that Eddie Stubbs obviously hasn't discovered yet.
The fourth photo shows Eddy Arnold and me talking out front. (One of us is older than WSM-AM.... though the other is closing in.)
I talked with Eddy (again) about the time -- in the 1950s -- when a kid named Danny Miller saved up his money, and lined up in front of the Imperial Theatre in Augusta -- hours before the show -- in order to get a front row seat for Eddy's performance.
Eddy likes to say he remembers me. "Weren't you the skinny kid in short pants?"
Of course I was..... but that was just a lucky guess on his part.
The bottom photo shows George "Goober" Lindsay resting his head on my shoulder (as he often does!)
We were standing near huge tents, filled with tables of barbecue, beans, slaw, desserts, drinks and lots of other goodies.
I asked George if he'd like to go to the tent and get something to eat.
"No", he replied, "I brought my own lunch."
It was a fun day.
___________________________________________
Comments