A peek behind the curtain… Meet Randy Fox, WXNA Programming Director and host of Randy’s Record Shop, airing Mondays from 7-9 a.m. and Hipbilly Jamboree, airing Sundays from 1-3 p.m.
Born: Gary, Indiana but grew up in Muhlenberg County, Kentucky (Yes, just like the John Prine song)
Home: Nashville since 1986, am I considered a Nashvillian yet?
Drafted into WXNA: March 20, 2012, the first meeting of former WRVU DJs that would lead to WXNA going on the air more than four years later!
Spins:
- Randy’s: Rock’n’roll from its birthin’ to now with whatever else strikes my fancy!
- Hipbilly: Honky Tonk, Western Swing, Rockabilly, Bluegrass – Hipbilly Music!
How did you discover independent radio? Three-part answer: In high school I fell in love with midnight broadcasts of The Dr. Demento Show which was a syndicated show on commercial stations, but its origin was in the freeform underground radio days of Los Angeles’ KPPC-FM. The mix of genres and both new and ancient music, as long as it was weird, charged me up in a way no commercial radio had ever done.
When I started college at Western Kentucky University in 1981, Bowling Green was sadly lacking in any independent radio stations, but I was soon making frequent trips to Nashville, and I would lock my radio dial on WRVU 91 Rock as soon as I got in range of its signal. I continued listening when I moved to Nashville in 1986, eventually worming my way on the air in 1998 as a “community volunteer DJ.”
A year or so later, with the arrival of Internet access, I discovered WFMU-FM online and the idea of independent, freeform radio that was separate from a university came into full focus for me. So when WRVU died as a broadcast station in 2011, the path ahead was obvious!
Most played song:
- Randy’s: Mekons – “Memphis, Egypt”
- Hipbilly: Janis Martin – “Bang Bang”
Vinyl, CD or mp3? Vinyl with the occasional CD
Fave WXNA shows: As Programming Director I can’t choose just one — I love all the children in the family!
Pinch-me moment: Any time someone tells me about a song they heard on WXNA that blew their mind and led them to discovering music that they now love!
When I die:
Bury me deep
With a rock’n’roll record at my feet
Phonograph needle in my hand
Gonna rock my way
Right outta this land!(Thank you, Ronnie Dawson & Lux Interior!)
About Me: One of my core beliefs is that our ability to dream big and hopeful dreams that fly in the face of all logic and reason, is the essence of humanity. When it comes to radio, I can’t say it any better than this quote from community radio pioneer Lorenzo Milam, “A radio station should not just be a hole in the universe for making money, or feeding an ego, or running the world; A radio station should be a live place for live people to sing and dance and talk: talk their talk and walk their walk and know that they (and the rest of us) are not finally and irrevocably dead.”
