Voices from the past

I ran across a college classmate on Facebook and reminded him (it was long ago) that he did an interview with music artist Billy Crockett in 1986 for the radio show I produced at the time on WUTK-FM. This mostly-student-operated station blasted music across campus and beyond (but not far beyond) at a blistering 128 watts. Our show, which I had inherited from previous hosts Lonnie Raper (manager of the local Logos Bookstore) and John Travis (then a student, now a math professor), was called "Music from the Heart." It featured, not romance music as the title (also inherited) may have implied, but rather progressive Christian rock (and some not so progressive, but still good).

Billy Crockett had recently released the album Surprises In Disguises, and I was captivated by the John Mellencamp-ish track "41 Lawnmowers." The other songs were good, too.

We arranged for Russ to interview him before a concert in the area, and I used portions of his comments to intro the songs during a show featuring the new album. It turned out really cool. I don't think I have a tape of the final show, but here's the raw 7-minute interview taken from the original cassette:


Billy Crockett interview by Russ Hollingsworth (mp3 6MB)


NOTE: This is not the same Russ Hollingsworth who had a career as a singer, in case you were a) fairly knowledgeable of 1980's CCM artists and b) curious.