A Sunday Classic: Thanking Hal Jackson

A Sunday Classic: Thanking Hal Jackson

by Mark Anthony Neal

By the time I first encountered Hal Jacksonin the mid-1980s—regularly tuning into his Sunday Classics broadcast on New York’s 107.5 WBLS-FM—he had long been established as the cultural pioneer that we celebratetoday. As a kid growing up in the Bronx, literally in the shadow of Hip-hop, my own musical taste were drawn to the burgeoning mix of urban and street music that the now defunct 98.7 Kiss-FM (WRKS) was cultivating; Hal Jackson and WBLS were my parents’ music—so I thought. 

And it was perhaps, out of respect for my parents, particularly my dad, for whom Sunday mornings were as precious as any time of the week (though ne never set foot in a church), that I began to listen to Jackson’s program. I very much remember hearing Jackson spin Brook Benton’s “Rainy Night in Georgia” (1970)—a record my father, a Georgia native, wore out during my childhood—and watching the visible reaction on my dad’s face.  Music was the bond that my father and I shared, and as I grew older and my dad and I had less contact with each other, Hal Jackson’s Sunday Classics(and New York Met games) became the space where we connected.

When I first started listening to Hal Jackson, I had already begun to show scholarly interests in the study of Black music.  There were few classes that I could take in college at that time—Nelson George had yet to publish Where Did I Love Go? (1985) or The Death of Rhythm and Blues (1988)—so WBLS, specifically Vaughn Harper’s Quiet Storm and Jackson’s Sunday program, became my learning lab. 

I recall one Sunday morning in particular, when Jackson played a track from Jimmy Scott’s version of “Unchained Melody” (The Source,1969).  At the time I was unfamiliar with Scott, a singer most well known for his ability to naturally sing in registers we typically assign to women; I actually thought it was Nancy Wilson that I was hearing, and was shocked to find out that it was a man.  When Jackson later played Dinah Washington, an artist who inspired and was inspired by Scott, and who was a particular influence on Wilson and a young Aretha Franklin (during her early years on the Columbia label), I realized that he was simply having school; I never failed to miss class if I was anywhere in the vicinity of WBLS’s signal.  I am sure there are many others who can say the same.

When I starting doing radio in the early 1990s—hosting a show called Soul Expressions on Sunday morning for WCVF-FM in Chautauqua County (New York State), I borrowed from Jackson’s (and Harper’s) playbook, using Miles Davis’s “Someday My Prince Will Come” as the musical bed when I addressed the audience (Harper frequently used Joe Sample and David T. Walker’s “In My Wildest Dreams” later sampled for Tupac Shakur’s “Dear Mama”). 

During those years at WCVF, I liberated quite a few recordings—long  forgotten—as those records became the raw materials for the dissertation that I was writing, later published as my first book What the Music Said: Black Popular Music and Black Public Culture (1998).   Yet as I went through those stacks, trying to piece together a framework for the Black music tradition and popular resistance, it was always with the critical sensibilities that Jackson and SundayClassics equipped with that I did that work.

Years later, whenever I was in New York visiting my parents, it was not unusual for me to seek out Jackson’s Sunday Classics.  The show expanded at various points from those early days, and Jackson often ceded control to Clay Berry & Debi B as he got older—but still, he never failed to teach his listeners something of value about the music and the communities that helped to create and sustain it.

To be sure there were other folk who influenced my work in this regard; the aforementioned Vaughn Harper, the late Gerry Bledsoe, the late Frankie Crocker, Imhotep Gary Byrd, the late Chuck Leonard, Felix Hernandez and his Rhythm Review, and Bev Smith (remembering her BET talk show), who along the late Gil Noble were direct inspirations for the work I do with Left of Black—were  also majors figures for me.  Yet, I always go back to Hal Jackson, who taught me more than anything about the value of passion, professionalism, stamina and longevity; may he rest in peace and his legacy continue to inspire.

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Mark Anthony Neal is the author of five books including the forthcoming Looking For Leroy: (Il)Legible Black Masculinities (New York University Press). He is professor of Black Popular Culture in the Department of African & African-American Studies at Duke University and the host of the Weekly Webcast Left of Black. Follow him on Twitter @NewBlackMan.

Anatomy of a Black Radio Merger

A Radio Merger in New York Reflects a Shifting Industry

by Ben Sisario | New York Times

On its surface, the merger last week of WRKS and WBLS, longtime rivals in the R&B radio format in New York, was business as usual for the broadcast industry. Two struggling competitors combined operations, and a deep-pocketed third party — Disney — came along to lease the leftover frequency.

But radio executives and analysts said the deal also reflected a broader trend in the business that has taken a toll on black and other minority stations. Since the introduction five years ago of a new technology for tracking audiences, many such broadcasters have experienced shrinking numbers, forcing radio companies to consolidate stations or switch to general-audience formats.

Arbitron, the standard radio ratings service, has long had sample audiences record their listening in a diary. In 2007, it began using the Portable People Meter, or P.P.M., a small electronic device that tracks radio signals, offering broadcasters far more precise listening data.

The technology, now used in 48 markets, has already had significant effects — for instance, increasing ratings for news and oldies stations. But many black stations have suffered under the new scheme, including WRKS, known as Kiss-FM, (98.7 FM) and WBLS (107.5 FM). While both were once ranked near the top of their desired demographic — adults ages 25 to 54 — since P.P.M.’s arrival they have slipped to between sixth and 11th place, said Jeff Smulyan, chief executive of WRKS’s parent, Emmis Communications.

“The recent economic downturn has affected the profitability of everyone in radio,” Mr. Smulyan wrote in an e-mail, “but the decline has been much more pronounced in adult African-American targeted stations, largely because of the impact of P.P.M.”

The deal to merge Kiss-FM and WBLS involves several broadcasters. Emmis sold Kiss’s intellectual property for $10 million to YMF Media, an investment group that is taking over WBLS. Disney, eager to expand its ESPN franchise, will lease Kiss’s old frequency for 12 years, paying a fee that starts at $8.4 million and increases 3.5 percent each year. The changes were scheduled to take effect at midnight on Monday.

Political figures, broadcasters and other industry observers have expressed concern over how the loss of stations will affect minority communities.

“I am saddened that an important black voice is going silent in New York City, especially during this important election year,” Tom Joyner, the syndicated talk-show host, said in a statement on Friday. “Although social media currently gets a lot of credit and rightfully so, nothing can replace the role black radio plays in empowering, informing and entertaining black people.” Mr. Joyner’s show was on Kiss-FM in New York but will not be on WBLS.

Last year, Radio One, which owns 53 stations, mostly in so-called urban formats — hip-hop, R&B, gospel and other genres popular with black audiences — changed stations in Houston, Cincinnati and Columbus, Ohio, from black to more general-interest formats, largely because of P.P.M. results, said Alfred C. Liggins III, the chief executive.

In response to complaints that P.P.M. undercounted minority listeners, Arbitron has settled lawsuits in New York and California, and pledged to improve its methods to find diverse sample audiences. But the company also stood by the accuracy of its ratings.

“Arbitron’s point of view is that P.P.M. is a more reliable and granular look at the marketplace,” Thomas Mocarsky, a spokesman, said on Friday. “Unlike the diary, which depended on recall, P.P.M. records what people are actually exposed to.”

Whether Arbitron’s new system will result in more changes for black stations is unclear. Emmis still owns WQHT-FM, (97.1) known as Hot 97, a top hip-hop station in New York, and Mr. Smulyan, the chief executive, said it had no plans to sell. Paul Heine, a senior editor at the trade publication Inside Radio, noted that some urban stations had been thriving under the system.

“There are a number of cities where we have two well-performing urban stations,” Mr. Heine said. “I don’t know if there’s going to be a domino effect.”

The companies behind WRKS and WBLS have also had troubles beyond simple ratings. Inner City Broadcasting, the previous owner of WBLS, went bankrupt last year. (YMF, the company buying it, is a new investment group including Ron Burkle and Magic Johnson.) WRKS’s revenue fell 32 percent in the last three years, according to a recent regulatory filing by Emmis Communications, and Mr. Smulyan said the station’s profit had fallen 90 percent.

Emmis, which has sold off a number of stations as it struggles with a heavy debt load, said its deal in New York to sell Kiss-FM and lease 98.7 to Disney was worth at least $96 million, and that it would help stabilize its balance sheet.

Some broadcasters rued the loss of black stations and the reduction of services to black communities that would result, but said the change had simply become an inevitable part of business.

“The economics of this business have changed so drastically,” said Mr. Liggins, of Radio One. “It is a shame. But something’s got to give.”