ANOTHER TRIP BACK IN TIME

By Dan Miller 

May 30, 2008 

After so much response to my link to a retrospective on Channel 4 in the 1970s, I have another one for you. 

Today, I'll take you back to the early 1980s. 

Over the years, Channel 4 has done many promotional image campaigns, but none was more popular than the "Hello Nashville" spots we ran through much of the 80s.

The photo here is of Frank Gari, when he was a much younger man. 

It shows the jacket to one of his hit records that was released around 1961. 

After a measure of success as a pop singer, he took his career in a whole new direction, writing and composing TV jingles and theme songs. 

Frank is the one who gave the world the "I'm A Pepper" campaign for Dr. Pepper, as well as the "Be All You Can Be" campaign for the U.S. Army. 

But most of his success has come from jingles and music for television news operations. 

Sometime around 1980, he introduced the "Hello News" campaigns to TV stations in dozens of cities all over the U.S...even in Australia. 

Here at WSMV-TV in Nashville, we were one of the many stations that used the highly effective campaign. If you were living in Middle Tennessee in the 1980s, you will probably remember it well. "Hello Nashville" became so popular that we even staged a concert with the Nashville Symphony Orchestra at T-PAC in the mid 80's, in which vocalist Florence Warner joined with the symphony for a stunning performance of "Hello Nashville." 

Here's one of the jingles which I've posted on YouTube. In it, you'll see Lonnie Lardner, Charlie Mac, Bill Hall, a skinny me, and a lot of other Nashvillians from 1983.  

And then, if you care to, you can watch the Nashville Symphony performance with Florence Warner singing the jingle. 

The video quality is rather poor, but you'll see a short snippet of a promotional spot shot during rehearsal…followed by the full performance, which I introduce on stage.