My Very First Time I Talked On The Radio-Don Rivers

For most people the first time they open a microphone is a scary experience. It was the same for me. It got worse when the chorus of the song started playing and I feared I would get fired in my first five minutes of my career.

It was way back in 1978. The station was a AM Top 40 station in a Albany, Georgia. My first shift was 6 P.M. to Midnight on Sunday night. The first hour of the show consisted of me running the control board for a local church service. I would actually start my first record at seven. Yes I did say record. We played 45 rpm singles and cuts from albums.[/caption]

Every weekend was a "Golden Weekend" where every other song you played was an oldie. You actually got to choose these oldies from a huge library. I had an hour to find the perfect song for my first song ever on the radio. Back then you really ramped it up over the song intros. I had written what I was gonna say. It way rhyming and slamming. I was ready to deliver it at warp speed. I just needed a song with a really up tempo intro to do it over.

The object was to talk over the music at the first part of the song and end your introduction at the exact second the vocals started. I auditioned songs for just about the whole hour the church service was on the air. I found the perfect song! It was up tempo and rockin'. I cued up the album and was ready.

It was seven, the church service ended and I fired off the song. I delivered my intro with gusto and nailed it. I was thinking "I am gonna be great at this!" Then I heard the chorus.

The chorus was "now you're messin' with a son of a bi&%$" and it repeated over and over through out the song. I started sweating bullets. The church service had just ended and here I was playing a song that was cussing up a storm. I knew the hotline was going to ring at anytime and I would meet my demise as a disc jockey.

The phone never rang. I made it through my first night; but the fear probably took a few years off of my life. It did start me off with a theme though. The song is below and parental guidance is suggested to this day.