After living in Boston, Massachusetts for five years listening to Album Oriented Rock radio station WBCN I got hired at a country music radio station in the Midwest, doing the Morning Show.
WBCN played rock-and-roll - the Rolling Stones, Bob Dylan, the Beatles, Fleetwood Mac, the Supremes, Aretha Franklin....
At the country station where I worked, it was Willie Nelson, Waylon Jennings, the Oak Ridge Boys, the Statler Brothers, Janie Fricke, Reba McEntire, Dolly Parton, Kenny Rogers... I didn't know a lot of that music, but I did know some.
Before I left to go to college in Boston, in the small town where I went to high school I heard country songs such as "Luckenbach, Texas" by Waylon Jennings; "Good Hearted Woman" by Waylon Jennings (and, I think), Willie Nelson; "Lucille" by Kenny Rogers (she picked a fine time to leave him...); and "Are You Ready for the Country" by Waylon.
And there was a country song I already knew when I started working at the country station - and I knew it from WBCN in Boston! - believe it or not. It was "I'm Gonna Hire A Wino to Decorate Our Home" by David Frizzell.
The Boston morning disc jockey Charles Laquidara thought it was an hilarious, genius song and for about two weeks he played it every day around the same time, when I was getting ready to go to work. Even though it didn't fit WBCN's rock music format, he showcased the song because it was good.
I loved it, too, and I was glad to find it in the "oldies" record collection at the station where I was working.
Like Charles Laquidara, I got to play that song for the people.
...We'll take out the dinin' room table,
Put a bar along that wall,
And a neon sign will point the way
To our bathroom down the hall...
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