I still enjoy listening to radio. Terrestrial, local, regionally-defined radio of the kind you almost can't find anymore, and when you do it's like a drink of cool, clear water. I wonder if, in this post-digital, corporate-conglomerate age, we're starting to forget just how powerful radio can be. Hearing an unexpected song on the dial at just the right moment can change your life, as I can testify to. If I hadn't heard Bob Dylan's magnificent "finger pointer"
"Positively 4th Street" on Mobile, Alabama's
WZEW that fine, bright afternoon in 2004, I might never have started listening to him more closely, and I certainly wouldn't be where I am today - writing about the music that I love.
My other all-time favorite radio stations are New Orleans'
WWOZ and Clarksdale, Mississippi's
WROX. I discovered WROX while I was living in Oxford, Mississippi, which is about an hour east of Clarksdale. Being an
Ole Miss Southern studies master's student who is passionate about music, I naturally gravitated towards this storied blues town, and one of the first historical locales I became acquainted with was the local radio station.
WROX was founded in 1944, and is the oldest station in northwest Mississippi. It's had several homes around town, but its most noteworthy location was at 257 Delta Avenue. From 1945 to 1955, the station was housed here, and it was here in 1945 that Early Wright joined the station's staff.
Early Wright was Mississippi's first African American DJ, and his six-nights-a-week program was one of the longest-running in American broadcast history. For three hours, the "Soul Man" spun R&B records; afterwards, as "Brother Early," he played two hours of gospel music. Often he wouldn't identify the artists whose records he was playing - he believed that his audience would already know them. He was beloved by the Clarksdale community; his unique, folksy way with language - including his delightfully idiosyncratic advertisements for local businesses - made "everybody in Clarksdale feel as if he were talking directly to them,"
Living Blues founder Jim O'Neal told the
New York Times in 1999.
Many seminal blues artists appeared live on WROX. The list includes Clarksdale natives Ike Turner - who also hosted his own program for a time - and Sam Cooke; Sonny Boy Williamson II, whose
"King Biscuit Time" program was shared with WROX by Helena, Arkansas'
KFFA; Jackie Brenston, of "Rocket 88" fame; B. B. King; Robert Nighthawk; Rufus Thomas; and Pinetop Perkins. Even Elvis Presley showed up one night and performed live on Wright's show.
Wright retired from broadcasting in 1997, after having been on the air for fifty years; that same year, the station was sold. He passed away in 1999 at the age of 84. The 257 Delta Avenue building, now on the National Register of Historic Places, hosts Kinchen "Bubba" O'Keefe's WROX Museum; it's open on festival weekends and by appointment. The current location for the WROX office is at 628 Desoto Avenue, near the famous "Crossroads" of Highways 49 and 61. The station is now owned and operated by
Delta Radio LLC, based in Las Vegas, Nevada.
The front entrance of 257 Delta Avenue, the former home of WROX and
currently the location of Bubba O'Keefe's WROX Museum.
The view inside the museum; it was closed the day I first visited Clarksdale.
Note the old Coca-Cola signboard on the far right.
WROX's format has changed a few times over the years, but when I began listening in 2008 it was an oldies station, broadcasting hits from the '60s through the '80s. As the signal doesn't quite reach all the way to Oxford, I would listen to the station at home through my iTunes. It was here that I fell in love with the warm, monaural sound of AM radio. That, combined with a playlist of music beloved from childhood, was very comforting to me while I was living alone in an unfamiliar town half a day from home. I'd often leave my computer on at night and let the softly-playing station drift me away to sleep.
On Saturday evenings the station would revert back to its blues and R&B roots, hosting shows such as
Cathead Delta Blues & Folk Art proprietor Roger Stolle's "Cat Head Delta Blues Show." It was while listening to the Saturday night blues programming that I had another of those epiphanic moments. Driving across a bright, storm-cleansed Delta on my way to see the Levon Helm Band in Robinsonville, I heard
Blind Willie Johnson's 1930 recording of "Soul of a Man." It may have been brand-new to me that afternoon, but I was singing along by the time it was over. It had the same effect on me that the previous night's storms had had on the area I was traveling through; it washed away the dust and brought everything into sharp, almost painfully clear focus. When was the last time a song did that for you?
Another thing I credit WROX with during this time is raising my awareness of the Beatles' American R&B roots. In the mornings around 10:30 they would play two Beatles tracks back-to-back, and usually the offerings were their covers of '50s rock songs. Though I've heard the Beatles all my life and certainly understood the importance of their musical legacy, I had yet to begin to really dig into and absorb their catalogue. Listening to them in this context opened my eyes and gave me a new appreciation for the four gentlemen from Liverpool - and how, in a way, they helped "give" our music back to us in the '60s, spawning another musical revolution.
The Beatles' 1964 cover of Larry William's "Slow Down" . . .
. . . and the 1958 original.
Since I've moved back to south Mississippi I've not listened to WROX much, but the other day I was feeling under the weather and decided to check in with the station via the internet. Imagine my surprise when I discovered it was broadcasting modern country in FM format. I checked the website and learned that effective December 31 it was simulcasting Cleveland, Mississippi's WKXY. Confused and a little upset, I sent an email to the station's address and quickly received a reply from Larry Fuss. He assured me that he would have loved to have continued WROX's former format, but that the majority of Clarksdale's businesses would not advertise with him for whatever reason, and that it was not fiscally viable for him to keep things as they were. The station is currently for sale, and if anyone is interested in purchasing it, they can contact him
here.
Let me state that I'm not taking any political sides in this matter; again, I'm simply a music-loving college student who doesn't want to see this historic station die, and I present this story in that spirit. Hell, if I could afford to buy it, I would - I dream of working at a station like the WROX of yore. I can't imagine why the Clarksdale community wouldn't support it, as Larry says; there's obviously a story there, but I've no idea what it is. Maybe it's simply that WROX has outlived its usefulness, but I don't really want to believe that's true.
Can WROX be saved? Personally, I'd love to see it go the way of WWOZ - listener-supported, with volunteer DJs. At the very least, I'd rather it be returned to its former format than to keep the one it has now, which is completely bereft of any reference to its historical and cultural importance. I have no idea how to go about it, but I would think that with the many blues fans from around the world who come to Mississippi every year to see "where the blues began," that somehow it just might be possible. What say you?
"technology to wipe out truth is now available. not everybody can afford it but it's available. when the cost comes down look out! there wont be songs like these anymore. factually there arent any now." - Bob Dylan, from the liner notes to
World Gone Wrong, his 1993 album of blues and folk covers
The flyer announcing the installment of WROX's Mississippi Blues Trail marker at 257 Delta Avenue.
To view images of the marker and read the accompanying text, click here.
