Returning to broadcasting

UPDATE 14-October-2012
On-air sessions: Mondays 0900 - 1200 and Fridays 1400 - 1700

Back between December 2002 and January 2006 I had a two-hour radio show with local Community Radio station Valley FM 89.5.
The show centred on music from the 1960s, although the edges were fuzzy and included stuff from the 1940s, 1950s and 1970s. "Easy Listening" music also formed a part, as did old BBC radio shows such as "Hancock's Half-hour", "Round The Horne", "Take It From Here" and "The Goon Show".

I received a lot of enjoyment from doing my thing and I know, from what feedback I had, that others also enjoyed hearing the type of music that we listened to every day as teenagers and young adults back in the 1960s.

In 2006 I re-entered the conventional "nine-to-five" workforce and dropped the show which at that time was being aired between 3:00 and 5:00 PM.

Just recently I retired after 48 years as a full-time employee and had the opportunity and desire to return to Valley FM and resurrect what I was presenting six years ago.
With over 200 LPs and a similar number of CDs, the contents of many of which I have converted to MP3s, the resources are capable of providing "Baby Boomer" material for some time to come, and that is the name I've chosen for this current foray into community radio.

We were very fortunate to have been born in what became known as the "Baby-Boom" period, the era usually considered to be between 1943 and 1960, coined by author Landon Jones in his book Great Expectations: America and the Baby Boom Generation.
This is an era in which music (amongst other things like fashions and social mores) changed dramatically, in both who was creating it and who was listening to it.
And it was sparked by the invention and mass production of a tiny electronic device - the transistor.

Until radios became portable - and that was only possible with the introduction of transistors, printed circuit boards and small batteries - music was heard on large mantle or console radios or played on gramophones/radiograms - furniture pieces - utilising large 78 rpm bakelite records.
So it was the adults who were not only the producers of popular music (large bands and orchestras with vocalists) but also the buyers of the records and the devices on which they were played.

The transistor changed all that because music became portable (and cheaper) at the same time as younger performers started doing their thing. They go hand-in-hand.
With music now being targeted at the younger generation, who could now listen to it on their transistor radios and play the new smaller and lighter 45rpm records on their portable record players, the Baby-Boomers determined the future of the music industry.
Once a young man by the name of Bill Haley came up with "Shake, Rattle & Roll" (1954) and then "Rock Around The Clock" (1955), popular music and radio became a whole new ball game and our parents coined the term "generation gap"!

We Baby-Boomers can feel very proud of our status.
We have had a profound effect on music and what started over 50 years ago is the basis for popular music today. Wonderful songs and arrangements were composed and written back in those fabulous 1960s and they continue to provide pleasure to our generation.
I like to think that when I am in a nursing home, instead of singing "Row, Row, Row Your Boat", we will be having sing-songs which include "It's Been A Hard Day's Night"!

My new show - now dubbed "The Baby-Boomer Show" - commenced yesterday, going to air between 9:00 and 12:00 midday, which will be the timeslot until the end of the month, when it will probably start an hour or so later.
I will update this information when that occurs.

Internet streaming is currently being tested by the station management.
Once it becomes established then no matter where you are located, if interested you will be able to listen to the programmes on your home or laptop computer via the internet - both of which, incidentally, were invented by baby-boomers.