WWOZ
Encyclopedia
WWOZ is a non-profit community-supported radio station
in New Orleans, Louisiana
broadcasting at 90.7 FM
. The station specializes in music from or relating to the cultural heritage of New Orleans and the surrounding region of Louisiana
.
and rhythm & blues, with other programming including traditional jazz
, blues
, Cajun music
, zydeco
, old time and country music
, bluegrass
, Gospel
, Celtic music
and World music
.
As the station is known for its support of local music, local musicians are often guests on programs, and sometimes perform live over the air, especially for the station's twice-yearly membership drives. Musicians and singers such as Rob Cambre, Samirah Evans, Alan Fontenot, Bob French
, Hazel the Delta Rambler, Ernie K-Doe
, Bobby Mitchell
, Davis Rogan, Tom Saunders
, John Sinclair
, Don Vappie, and Dr. Michael White and others have had their own shows on the station.
WWOZ is also known for its location broadcasts of live music events, including the annual New Orleans Jazz & Heritage Festival
.
, who thought New Orleans needed a community radio
station and began organizing it in the mid- 1970s. Jerry is also the co-founder of the Louisiana Music Factory
, and a record producer engaged in the works of various local artists. The Nora Blatch Educational Foundation (named after radio pioneer Nora Blatch, wife of Lee De Forest
) was established as a non-profit organization
to hold the station license. The call letters
WWOZ were chosen as a reference to The Wonderful Wizard of Oz
, specifically the line, "Pay no attention to the man behind the curtain," meaning that attention should be given to the program content rather than the personalities of the disc jockey
s.
The station began broadcasting 4 December 1980 from the tiny transmitter building in Bridge City, Louisiana
beneath their shared rented broadcast tower. A few months later the broadcasts moved to the space the station had been using in a dilapidated two-room apartment upstairs from the music club Tipitina's
at Napoleon Avenue and Tchoupitoulas Street
in Uptown New Orleans
.
Conditions at WWOZ in the early 1980s were spartan. The studio/office had no air-conditioning, and for a time just before moving out of the Tipitina's site the only running water to the tiny bathroom was from a neighbor's garden hose run in through a window. Everyone who did a show volunteered hours of time on other tasks to keep the station going, from addressing envelopes to sweeping the floor. When artists performing live downstairs at Tipitina's gave their permission, their performances were broadcast via a microphone lowered through a hole in the floor. When permission to broadcast live performances downstairs could not be obtained, programming went to pre-recorded reel-to-reel tapes, as the music downstairs made it too loud in the studio to talk over the microphones and the vibrations made it impossible to use the station's turntable
s.
In 1985 WWOZ moved the studio to a building in Louis Armstrong Park
in the Tremé
neighborhood. With the station facing financial difficulties, the license was transferred to the New Orleans Jazz & Heritage Foundation (parent organization of the New Orleans Jazz and Heritage Festival) which helped subsidize the operation. The station later added an office in a small house across the St. Philip Street from the studio.
In 1996, Better Than Ezra
, an Alternative rock
band from New Orleans, wrote a song titled "WWOZ", where they mention this radio station.
WWOZ made the decision to go off the air at midnight on 27 August 2005 in anticipation of Hurricane Katrina
to allow its programmers and staff to evacuate the city. It actually went off the air slightly earlier, just after 10pm. In the storm the WWOZ studio suffered minor damage but the Park's power system was wiped out and not a repair priority in the big picture, while the WWOZ staff, like the rest of the New Orleans population, was scattered to shelter in several states. But the station's transmitter
atop the Tidewater Building
on Canal Street
in downtown New Orleans was found to be intact and serviceable, given a studio source. Within a week WWOZ initiated a webcast
as "WWOZ in Exile" via Internet servers at WFMU
in New Jersey
. Many long term listeners from around the country donated tapes of WWOZ broadcasts from years gone by, some of which were rebroadcast in part or whole. On 18 October 2005 WWOZ resumed limited hours of broadcasting over the air in New Orleans, via studio space provided by Louisiana Public Broadcasting
in Baton Rouge, Louisiana
. The station returned a physical studio to New Orleans in December 2005, using temporary office and studio space at the French Market
office building, returning to its airwaves on 15 December.
Much of WWOZ's programming has long been based on the large personal record collections of the various programers, many of which were lost in the disaster. For some time after the station returned to the air, one programmer did a series of shows entirely from CDs rescued from the debris in post-Katrina muck.
At first the French Quarter studio was expected to be a temporary arrangement for approximately a year. However agreements were made for WWOZ to use more space in the French Market office building for studio and office space, and WWOZ expects to remain at this location for at least a few years.
Radio station
Radio broadcasting is a one-way wireless transmission over radio waves intended to reach a wide audience. Stations can be linked in radio networks to broadcast a common radio format, either in broadcast syndication or simulcast or both...
in New Orleans, Louisiana
New Orleans, Louisiana
New Orleans is a major United States port and the largest city and metropolitan area in the state of Louisiana. The New Orleans metropolitan area has a population of 1,235,650 as of 2009, the 46th largest in the USA. The New Orleans – Metairie – Bogalusa combined statistical area has a population...
broadcasting at 90.7 FM
Frequency modulation
In telecommunications and signal processing, frequency modulation conveys information over a carrier wave by varying its instantaneous frequency. This contrasts with amplitude modulation, in which the amplitude of the carrier is varied while its frequency remains constant...
. The station specializes in music from or relating to the cultural heritage of New Orleans and the surrounding region of Louisiana
Louisiana
Louisiana is a state located in the southern region of the United States of America. Its capital is Baton Rouge and largest city is New Orleans. Louisiana is the only state in the U.S. with political subdivisions termed parishes, which are local governments equivalent to counties...
.
Programming
WWOZ programming is most heavily weighted toward contemporary jazzJazz
Jazz is a musical style that originated at the beginning of the 20th century in African American communities in the Southern United States. It was born out of a mix of African and European music traditions. From its early development until the present, jazz has incorporated music from 19th and 20th...
and rhythm & blues, with other programming including traditional jazz
Dixieland
Dixieland music, sometimes referred to as Hot jazz, Early Jazz or New Orleans jazz, is a style of jazz music which developed in New Orleans at the start of the 20th century, and was spread to Chicago and New York City by New Orleans bands in the 1910s.Well-known jazz standard songs from the...
, blues
Blues
Blues is the name given to both a musical form and a music genre that originated in African-American communities of primarily the "Deep South" of the United States at the end of the 19th century from spirituals, work songs, field hollers, shouts and chants, and rhymed simple narrative ballads...
, Cajun music
Cajun music
Cajun music, an emblematic music of Louisiana, is rooted in the ballads of the French-speaking Acadians of Canada. Cajun music is often mentioned in tandem with the Creole-based, Cajun-influenced zydeco form, both of Acadiana origin...
, zydeco
Zydeco
Zydeco is a form of uniquely American roots or folk music. It evolved in southwest Louisiana in the early 19th century from forms of "la la" Creole music...
, old time and country music
Country music
Country music is a popular American musical style that began in the rural Southern United States in the 1920s. It takes its roots from Western cowboy and folk music...
, bluegrass
Bluegrass music
Bluegrass music is a form of American roots music, and a sub-genre of country music. It has mixed roots in Scottish, English, Welsh and Irish traditional music...
, Gospel
Gospel music
Gospel music is music that is written to express either personal, spiritual or a communal belief regarding Christian life, as well as to give a Christian alternative to mainstream secular music....
, Celtic music
Celtic music
Celtic music is a term utilised by artists, record companies, music stores and music magazines to describe a broad grouping of musical genres that evolved out of the folk musical traditions of the Celtic people of Western Europe...
and World music
World music
World music is a term with widely varying definitions, often encompassing music which is primarily identified as another genre. This is evidenced by world music definitions such as "all of the music in the world" or "somebody else's local music"...
.
As the station is known for its support of local music, local musicians are often guests on programs, and sometimes perform live over the air, especially for the station's twice-yearly membership drives. Musicians and singers such as Rob Cambre, Samirah Evans, Alan Fontenot, Bob French
Bob French
Robert "Bob" French is a United States jazz drummer and a former radio show host at WWOZ, from New Orleans, Louisiana.French has led The Tuxedo Jazz Band since 1977. -Career:As a child French took drumming lessons from Louis Barbarin...
, Hazel the Delta Rambler, Ernie K-Doe
Ernie K-Doe
Ernie K-Doe , born Ernest Kador, Jr., was an African American rhythm and blues singer best known for his 1961 hit single "Mother-in-Law" which went to #1 on the Billboard pop chart in the U.S.-Early career:...
, Bobby Mitchell
Bobby Mitchell (singer)
Bobby Mitchell was a New Orleans Rhythm & Blues singer and songwriter.Mitchell was born in the Algiers section of New Orleans. He was a popular recording artist in the 1950s and early 1960s, making records for Imperial Records, Show Biz Records and Rip Records...
, Davis Rogan, Tom Saunders
Tom Saunders
Tom Saunders was a famed figure in Bill Shankly’s Boot Room organisation at Liverpool FC, and served 30 years with the club.-Biography:Tom Saunders was born in Liverpool in 1921. He joined the Territorial Army as a 16 year old four years in North Africa. He played amateur football for New...
, John Sinclair
John Sinclair (poet)
John Sinclair is a Detroit poet, one-time manager of the band MC5, and leader of the White Panther Party — a militantly anti-racist countercultural group of white socialists seeking to assist the Black Panthers in the Civil Rights movement — from November 1968 to July 1969...
, Don Vappie, and Dr. Michael White and others have had their own shows on the station.
WWOZ is also known for its location broadcasts of live music events, including the annual New Orleans Jazz & Heritage Festival
New Orleans Jazz & Heritage Festival
The New Orleans Jazz & Heritage Festival, often known as Jazz Fest, is an annual celebration of the music and culture of New Orleans and Louisiana...
.
History
The founders of WWOZ were brothers Walter and Jerry Brock, from TexasTexas
Texas is the second largest U.S. state by both area and population, and the largest state by area in the contiguous United States.The name, based on the Caddo word "Tejas" meaning "friends" or "allies", was applied by the Spanish to the Caddo themselves and to the region of their settlement in...
, who thought New Orleans needed a community radio
Community radio
Community radio is a type of radio service, that offers a third model of radio broadcasting beyond commercial broadcasting and public broadcasting. Community stations can serve geographic communities and communities of interest...
station and began organizing it in the mid- 1970s. Jerry is also the co-founder of the Louisiana Music Factory
Louisiana Music Factory
Louisiana Music Factory is an independent record and cd store located in the French Quarter of New Orleans, Louisiana. Its specialty is in the local music, and has been known to the fans of the genre around the world...
, and a record producer engaged in the works of various local artists. The Nora Blatch Educational Foundation (named after radio pioneer Nora Blatch, wife of Lee De Forest
Lee De Forest
Lee De Forest was an American inventor with over 180 patents to his credit. De Forest invented the Audion, a vacuum tube that takes relatively weak electrical signals and amplifies them. De Forest is one of the fathers of the "electronic age", as the Audion helped to usher in the widespread use...
) was established as a non-profit organization
Non-profit organization
Nonprofit organization is neither a legal nor technical definition but generally refers to an organization that uses surplus revenues to achieve its goals, rather than distributing them as profit or dividends...
to hold the station license. The call letters
Call sign
In broadcasting and radio communications, a call sign is a unique designation for a transmitting station. In North America they are used as names for broadcasting stations...
WWOZ were chosen as a reference to The Wonderful Wizard of Oz
The Wonderful Wizard of Oz
The Wonderful Wizard of Oz is a children's novel written by L. Frank Baum and illustrated by W. W. Denslow. Originally published by the George M. Hill Company in Chicago on May 17, 1900, it has since been reprinted numerous times, most often under the name The Wizard of Oz, which is the name of...
, specifically the line, "Pay no attention to the man behind the curtain," meaning that attention should be given to the program content rather than the personalities of the disc jockey
Disc jockey
A disc jockey, also known as DJ, is a person who selects and plays recorded music for an audience. Originally, "disc" referred to phonograph records, not the later Compact Discs. Today, the term includes all forms of music playback, no matter the medium.There are several types of disc jockeys...
s.
The station began broadcasting 4 December 1980 from the tiny transmitter building in Bridge City, Louisiana
Bridge City, Louisiana
Bridge City is an unincorporated community in Jefferson Parish, Louisiana, United States. It was established in the 1930s during the construction of the Huey P. Long Bridge over the Mississippi River. The town is located on the West Bank of the river. It is part of the New...
beneath their shared rented broadcast tower. A few months later the broadcasts moved to the space the station had been using in a dilapidated two-room apartment upstairs from the music club Tipitina's
Tipitina's
Tipitina's is a music venue located at the corner of Napoleon Avenue and Tchoupitoulas Street in Uptown New Orleans, Louisiana, USA.Local music enthusiasts opened the venue on January 14, 1977. The name was inspired by a well-known song by Professor Longhair who also performed there until his death...
at Napoleon Avenue and Tchoupitoulas Street
Tchoupitoulas Street
Tchoupitoulas Street is a street in New Orleans, Louisiana, United States. It is the through street closest to the Mississippi River running through Uptown New Orleans...
in Uptown New Orleans
Uptown New Orleans
Uptown is a section of New Orleans, Louisiana on the East Bank of the Mississippi River encompassing a number of neighborhoods between the French Quarter and the Jefferson Parish line. It remains an area of mixed residential and small commercial properties, with a wealth of 19th century architecture...
.
Conditions at WWOZ in the early 1980s were spartan. The studio/office had no air-conditioning, and for a time just before moving out of the Tipitina's site the only running water to the tiny bathroom was from a neighbor's garden hose run in through a window. Everyone who did a show volunteered hours of time on other tasks to keep the station going, from addressing envelopes to sweeping the floor. When artists performing live downstairs at Tipitina's gave their permission, their performances were broadcast via a microphone lowered through a hole in the floor. When permission to broadcast live performances downstairs could not be obtained, programming went to pre-recorded reel-to-reel tapes, as the music downstairs made it too loud in the studio to talk over the microphones and the vibrations made it impossible to use the station's turntable
Phonograph
The phonograph record player, or gramophone is a device introduced in 1877 that has had continued common use for reproducing sound recordings, although when first developed, the phonograph was used to both record and reproduce sounds...
s.
In 1985 WWOZ moved the studio to a building in Louis Armstrong Park
Louis Armstrong Park
Louis Armstrong Park is a park located in the Treme neighborhood of New Orleans, Louisiana, just across Rampart Street from the French Quarter. It was designed by New Orleans architect Robin Riley. The park contains the New Orleans Municipal Auditorium, the Mahalia Jackson Theater of the...
in the Tremé
Treme
Tremé is a neighborhood of the city of New Orleans. A subdistrict of the Mid-City District Area, its boundaries as defined by the City Planning Commission are Esplanade Avenue to the north, North Rampart Street to the east, St. Louis Street to the south and North Broad Street to the west...
neighborhood. With the station facing financial difficulties, the license was transferred to the New Orleans Jazz & Heritage Foundation (parent organization of the New Orleans Jazz and Heritage Festival) which helped subsidize the operation. The station later added an office in a small house across the St. Philip Street from the studio.
In 1996, Better Than Ezra
Better Than Ezra
Better Than Ezra is an American alternative rock trio based in New Orleans, Louisiana.-Formation and early success:Better Than Ezra was formed in 1988 by its four original members - vocalist and guitarist Kevin Griffin; Joel Rundell, the lead guitarist; bassist Tom Drummond; and drummer, Cary...
, an Alternative rock
Alternative rock
Alternative rock is a genre of rock music and a term used to describe a diverse musical movement that emerged from the independent music underground of the 1980s and became widely popular by the 1990s...
band from New Orleans, wrote a song titled "WWOZ", where they mention this radio station.
Effects of Hurricane Katrina
Hurricane Katrina
Hurricane Katrina of the 2005 Atlantic hurricane season was a powerful Atlantic hurricane. It is the costliest natural disaster, as well as one of the five deadliest hurricanes, in the history of the United States. Among recorded Atlantic hurricanes, it was the sixth strongest overall...
to allow its programmers and staff to evacuate the city. It actually went off the air slightly earlier, just after 10pm. In the storm the WWOZ studio suffered minor damage but the Park's power system was wiped out and not a repair priority in the big picture, while the WWOZ staff, like the rest of the New Orleans population, was scattered to shelter in several states. But the station's transmitter
Transmitter
In electronics and telecommunications a transmitter or radio transmitter is an electronic device which, with the aid of an antenna, produces radio waves. The transmitter itself generates a radio frequency alternating current, which is applied to the antenna. When excited by this alternating...
atop the Tidewater Building
Tidewater Building
The 1440 Canal, also formerly known as the Tidewater Building and Tidewater Place, located at 1440 Canal Street in the Medical District of the Central Business District of New Orleans, Louisiana, is officially a 24-story, -tall high-rise building designed in the by Kessels-Diboll-Kessels...
on Canal Street
Canal Street
Canal Street may refer to:* Canal Street , England, UK* Canal Street, New Orleans, Louisiana, USA* Canal Street , New York City, New York, USA...
in downtown New Orleans was found to be intact and serviceable, given a studio source. Within a week WWOZ initiated a webcast
Webcast
A webcast is a media presentation distributed over the Internet using streaming media technology to distribute a single content source to many simultaneous listeners/viewers. A webcast may either be distributed live or on demand...
as "WWOZ in Exile" via Internet servers at WFMU
WFMU
WFMU is a listener-supported, independent community radio station headquartered in Jersey City, New Jersey, United States, broadcasting at 91.1 MHz FM, presenting a freeform radio format...
in New Jersey
New Jersey
New Jersey is a state in the Northeastern and Middle Atlantic regions of the United States. , its population was 8,791,894. It is bordered on the north and east by the state of New York, on the southeast and south by the Atlantic Ocean, on the west by Pennsylvania and on the southwest by Delaware...
. Many long term listeners from around the country donated tapes of WWOZ broadcasts from years gone by, some of which were rebroadcast in part or whole. On 18 October 2005 WWOZ resumed limited hours of broadcasting over the air in New Orleans, via studio space provided by Louisiana Public Broadcasting
Louisiana Public Broadcasting
Louisiana Public Broadcasting is a state-run, viewer-supported state network of Public Broadcasting Service non-commercial educational Public television member stations serving the state of Louisiana outside Greater New Orleans. The stations are operated by the Louisiana Educational Television...
in Baton Rouge, Louisiana
Baton Rouge, Louisiana
Baton Rouge is the capital of the U.S. state of Louisiana. It is located in East Baton Rouge Parish and is the second-largest city in the state.Baton Rouge is a major industrial, petrochemical, medical, and research center of the American South...
. The station returned a physical studio to New Orleans in December 2005, using temporary office and studio space at the French Market
French Market
The French Market is a market and series of commercial buildings in the French Quarter of New Orleans, Louisiana, USA.It stretches just inland from the Mississippi River in the section of the French Quarter downriver from Jackson Square, with the famous Café du Monde at the upriver end, down to the...
office building, returning to its airwaves on 15 December.
Much of WWOZ's programming has long been based on the large personal record collections of the various programers, many of which were lost in the disaster. For some time after the station returned to the air, one programmer did a series of shows entirely from CDs rescued from the debris in post-Katrina muck.
At first the French Quarter studio was expected to be a temporary arrangement for approximately a year. However agreements were made for WWOZ to use more space in the French Market office building for studio and office space, and WWOZ expects to remain at this location for at least a few years.
Show Hosts
WWOZ's On Air Showhosts are 100% volunteers. They receive no compensation for the shows that they bring to air primarily from their personal collections of music. Most of them are deeply involved in the New Orleans Music Community and many are musicians as well. The station does a have a small staff of paid personnel who handle the day-to-day operations of the station.External links
- WWOZ.org
- WWOZ MySpaceMySpaceMyspace is a social networking service owned by Specific Media LLC and pop star Justin Timberlake. Myspace launched in August 2003 and is headquartered in Beverly Hills, California. In August 2011, Myspace had 33.1 million unique U.S. visitors....
page - WWOZ Community on Livejournal
- WWOZ Photo Sharing Community on Flickr
- WWOZ Street Talk Multi-media blog on post-Katrina New Orleans subjects