Turn Off Your Radio

(Related Story: Hot Jazz Saturday Night Cancelled) Most of my life I have been fascinated with radio. My childhood, of course, was dominated by television—because TV is always the loudest and flashiest thing in the house. It commands attention and kills conversation—and precludes the enjoyment of anything that isn’t television. Still, there was always a radio in the house, and certainly one in the car. Our car radio was always tuned to the station that featured a local political phone-in program during the day and signed off at local sunset after a recitation of the entire rosary. The tuner might have been—or might as well have been—broken. Music was never played in our car and rarely in our house. By grade school I already loathed rock music, so that was fine with me. Some Beatles tunes crept in (courtesy the cover album by the Chipmunks) but I favored the usual kiddie records and (especially) a compilation of tunes from Gilbert and Sullivan. My mother listened to Ray Conniff and 101 Strings. Jazz was not heard. When I began to listen to radio on my own, I scoured the dial for broadcasts of music that I found congenial. At night, I heard AM signals from far away that occasionally conveyed selections I liked. When I finally got an FM set, so-called “Beautiful Music” predominated. It was mostly syrupy elevator-grade stuff but there were tunes I liked. The nearest o