Re: Gary Jeff Walker on WGN in for Nick

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: Here is an article from 2001 about Gary Jeff Walker. : ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ : ON THE AIR : Gary Jeff Walker rides the airwaves on: : • WOFX-FM (92.5), Cincinnati classic rock: 3-7 p.m. Monday-Saturday; Breakfast with Beatles 9-11 a.m. Sunday; classic rock 11 a.m.-2 p.m. Sunday. : • WLW-AM (700), Cincinnati news talk: 5:30-10 a.m. Saturday. : • KJQY-FM (94.1), San Diego oldies station: 10 a.m.-3 p.m. : • WMXV-FM (105.7), Atlanta classic hits station: 10 a.m.-2 p.m., plus weekends. : • WQMF-FM (95.7), Louisville classic rock station: 7 p.m.-midnight. : • WVOX-FM (100.5), Rochester adult contemporary “Mix”: weekends, vacation fill-in and promotional voice of station. : Hardest-working man in Tristate radio : Gary Jeff Walker seems to work eight days a week : By John Kiesewetter : The Cincinnati Enquirer : Gary Jeff Walker isn't on every radio station in town. It just sounds that way. Being a seven-days-a-week classic rock jock on WOFX-FM (92.5) isn't enough for him. On Saturday morning, he's in Jim Scott's slot on WLW-AM (700), doing the news-talk show on a sister Clear Channel station before the afternoon show on FOX92.5. : Between innings on every Reds game on WLW-AM, he can be the commercial voice for everything from the new Great American Ballpark to McDonald's, Andersen Windows, insurance companies and Shelton's Fireworks. (“The home of the big ones!”) : On WCKY-AM (1360), Clear Channel's “Homer” sports talk station, he's the voice for Deja Vu Showgirls strip club, Gold Star Chili, Shelton's and other spots. : That's just part of a day's work for Mr. Walker, the hardest-working man in Tristate radio. : “I'm sure there are some people in town who might not agree,” Mr. Walker says modestly. : Before he hits the WOFX-FM airwaves at 3 p.m., he's already recorded radio shows for Clear Channel stations in San Diego, Calif.; Atlanta, Louisville and Rochester, N.Y. : “I'm having more fun right now in my career than I've ever had,” says Mr. Walker, 40, who came to WOFX-FM in 1994 from Dayton's WAZU-FM. : A full day's work : All he ever wanted to do was talk on the radio. Today's consolidation of radio ownership, and computer technology linking Clear Channel stations coast to coast, allows him to do that all day. : In the old days, an afternoon DJ would come in “about 10 or 11, do a couple hours of work, go to lunch for a couple of hours, do the show and go home,” says Mr. Walker, who started in 1980 at a station in Gallatin, Tenn.. : “If I had that kind of life now, I'd be so bored,” he says. : Now he records a five-hour show in less than an hour — and does another one. And another. And another. : “The great thing about working in this building, for this company, is that I'm not pigeonholed,” says the 21-year radio veteran. (“My radio career just turned drinking age!” he jokes.) : Throwing his voice : Mr. Walker arrives at Clear Channel's Mount Adams studios around 7:30 a.m. from his Newport home. He checks e-mails from Atlanta's WMXV-FM classic hits station, and San Diego's KJQY-FM oldies station, then reads the San Diego and Atlanta newspapers on the Web. : Next he looks at the stations' rundown on his computer and records, or “voice tracks,” his comments between songs and ships the shows with a click to San Diego and Atlanta. : About 11 a.m., he drops by the WLW-AM production studio to record commercials that will play on Clear Channel's eight stations here. After lunch, he records his five-hour classic rock evening show for Louisville's WQMF-FM and does voice work or a weekend shift for Rochester's WVOR-FM adult contemporary “MIX” format. At the end of the week, he records his WOFX-FM weekend shows. : Call-in craziness : At 3 p.m., he's finally live on the air, like the good ol' days. Or as he puts it: “Jockeying the traffic and phone calls and the music.” : Between the Rolling Stones and Beatles tunes, he opens the phone lines for a “Car Phone Karaoke” sing-along or goofy contests like “Tell Me About Your Scar.” : “I love messing with people on the phone — not maliciously, but in-the-hallway-at-school kind of tomfoolery.” : On Saturdays, he messes with more people on the phone, hosting WLW-AM's morning show. : “I'm a current-events junkie, and I have some opinions,” he says. “But if I did a morning talk show more than once a week, it would be too much.” : Working the night shift : A couple of times a month, he's in the Mount Adams studio seven days a week. About half of his Breakfast with the Beatles shows 9-11 a.m. Sundays are live. : “He's here all the time. The guy lives here,” says Chuck Fredrick, vice president and general manager of Clear Channel's four FM stations here: WEBN, WOFX, WVMX and WKFS. : Although “morning drive” is radio's prime time, Mr. Walker says he has no desire to crawl out of bed at 4:30 a.m. every day. : “There have been plenty of times I've stayed up all night, and gone on the air without any sleep. And I think some of them were my better shows,” he says with a laugh. : His cocaine habit in the early '90s was no joke. He was in bad shape working in Nashville for Cincinnati-based Jacor Communications. His co-workers included Marc Chase, later WEBN-FM program director, and Mike Kenney, now Clear Channel's Cincinnati market manager. Mr. Walker left Nashville, where he grew up, in 1992 for Dayton. : “I had to get out of Nashville. I was going to kill myself,” Mr. Walker says. After two years in Dayton, he was hired by Mr. Chase to launch Jacor's classic rock format here. : Soon after, Mr. Walker began double duty, hosting nights for WQMF-FM Louisville. In less than a year, the station's night ratings quadrupled. Then he added virtual shows in San Diego, Rochester and Atlanta. : Now that he's got the hang of it, “I could probably do two more stations right now,” he says. : The future of radio : Mr. Walker admits that doing the job of five DJs, in as many towns, helps stations cut costs. : “For the amount of time I put in, I think the remuneration is very fair, on a per-hour basis,” he says. “I have thought about how much money I'm saving them. But I'd rather be a hero than a whiner. : “I have a good relationship with these people. Thirteen of my 21 years have been at Jacor (or Clear Channel). I'll show them as much loyalty as they show me, and they've shown me a lot of loyalty.” : Although modern technology has been marvelous to him, he worries about the next generation of DJs. Radio consolidation and voice-tracking have eliminated weekend and small-town air shifts where radio rookies once started. : “Clear Channel needs to find a better way to develop a farm system,” he says. “Even though there will be fewer jobs in the future, they have to be filled by people who had a chance to develop their talents. : “When people like me are gone, I see a big dearth in talent.” : Off-air talent : Where would he go? Maybe he'll retire from radio to be a professional singer. : Mr. Walker gets his kicks singing with Jenni Huss and pianist Craig Wilson 6-9 p.m. Wednesday at Longworth's Restaurant, across the street from WOXF-FM. They saw the DJ mouthing the words to their songs and invited him on stage two years ago. He hasn't left. : They call their gig the Jenny Craig Show. “Listen to two sets, and lose 10 pounds,” he jokes. : Mr. Walker provides the comic relief, and that's not a commentary on his vocal skill on “Little Pink Houses” or “Mustang Sally.” One of his favorite club bits is “Blues Line Is It Anyway?” when the audience contributes nouns and verbs for the lyrics of an improvised blues song. : “I don't think it's a big secret that most people in radio are frustrated musicians. For me, it's just fun,” he says. : “It's the one thing off the air that I look forward to every week,” he says. : As if he had nothing else to do.

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