Felix Hernandez Music that he loves, you'll love — check it out! Originally published in Current, Dec. 12, 1994 By Stephanie McCrummen Felix Hernandez stands out as an original and prolific radio producer with technical expertise, business sense, passion and poetic sensibilities--and, no one would fail to mention, a great attitude. Hernandez, 34, lifts the spirits of one-third of New York City's Saturday afternoon radio audience--108,000 New Yorkers--with Rhythm Revue, his live, five-hour rhythm-and-blues broadcast from WGBO, Newark. This is no stale oldies show; it's a chance to hear the classic soul music otherwise neglected both by public and commercial radio. It's Edwin Starr, Jackie Wilson, Archie Bell and the Drells, and the Emperors. It's Stevie Wonder's first recording, the original versions of "Satisfaction," and two versions of "Since I Fell for You" by Fontella Bass and Roy Hamilton. The show delivers great music with a hook: an annual tribute to Marvin Gaye or an hour of songs that peaked at No. 2 on the charts. The result? Simply put, it's "damn good radio," says Mikel Ellcessor, program director and deejay at WYEP, Pittsburgh. "It's music that rocks." Rhythm Revue clearly is not typical public radio fare. Neither was BluesStage, the award-winning program conceived and produced by Hernandez for NPR in 1989, that features live blues performances from around the country. Nor was Club del Sol, a Latin music program he co-produced. In fact, while Club del Sol won a CPB Silver Award, it was perhaps too big a stretch for public radio. Too few stations carried the program, and NPR stopped distributing it after two years. BluesStage, however, has become one of NPR's most successful offerings since 1989, with 200 stations carrying the program, and a weekly audience above 200,000. And if Rhythm Review's success in New York is any indication, the show holds the potential to amass unprecedented ratings. Since NPR began distribution in January 1992, 80 stations have picked up Rhythm Revue, and the national audience of 282,000 has surpassed BluesStage, with listeners from Boston's WGBH to Baton Rouge's WBRH. In Haines, Alaska, KHNS broadcasts the program four times a week. The New York version of Rhythm Review, which Hernandez hosts and produces live, holds the record for the highest local ratings of any radio program, commercial or not, and the audience has grown by 10,000 in the past year, says Thurston Briscoe, director of programming at WGBO. Hernandez spins records for monthly Rhythm Revue dances at the Roseland Ballroom--one of the largest dance venues in Manhattan--that regularly sell out at 3,000 tickets. "Fired up out of his skull" "When I played records at home when I was a kid," Hernandez explained, "I played them real loud so the neighbors would hear. That's what I'm doing with the radio--I'm just playing my music loud so everybody can hear it." Growing up in Philadelphia, Hernandez listened to local disc jockeys like Jerry Blavat, and began collecting the records he would later use for Rhythm Revue. Having never "crossed the line to commercial radio," Hernandez began working in public radio as a jazz disc jockey at Temple University, and later moved to jazz stations in Gainesville, Fla., and Chicago. In 1986, he produced Harlem Hit Parade, a 26-week NPR series of blues profiles hosted by blues singer Ruth Brown. In 1989, Hernandez won a CPB grant to fund 94 percent of BluesStage, and formed Ceiba Productions to do the program. ("Ceiba" is the name of a mythical indestructible tree.) Hernandez has stayed inside public radio, he says, because it allows him freedom to produce original work. "There's no job in commercial radio that I would want," he explains. "Opportunities to do exactly what I'm doing are extremely rare in commercial radio." Indeed, he believes his music exactly fits the purpose of public radio: filling a public need. "No one else is playing it," he says matter-of-factly. As host of Rhythm Review, Hernandez says that his approach is "to make connections, to make things interesting, but to do it quickly, and keep the spotlight on the music. . . . My philosophy is, information, yes, but know when to stop. What people really want to hear is the music." Listeners get brief but dense breaks like: "That was Fontella Bass, from the musical family of St. Louis that included Martha Bass, the great gospel singer, the mother of Fontella Bass, who is, incidentally, the sister of David Peaston, a current R&B star." "He knows his material, and he's fired up out of his skull when he gets behind the mike," says Elselser. "His mission is as simple as, 'Hey gang, this is a great side. Check it out.' " "It's a great program to do some work to, and it makes you feel good," says Danny Dean, station manager at WBRH, Baton Rouge, where Rhythm Revue has been "outstanding" as part of a Saturday R&B package. As one listener put it to Dean, "it's the definitive car-washing music." As with Rhythm Revue, the impetus for BluesStage was a tremendous untapped market for the music, Hernandez says, though unlike Rhythm Revue, it was conceived as a national show. Instead of deriving the music for each show from a single blues festival, or simply spinning records, Hernandez imagined bringing together a number of live performances in one show, with a host who would be "perceived as magically transported from one place to another." The concept allows Hernandez to weave music together, capturing the surreal quality of radio that charmed him when he was younger. Scott Williams, program director of KJZZ, Phoenix, recalled one carefully crafted show in which Herndandez juxtaposed a laid-back guitarist, Jimmy Thackery, with a set from Johnny Winter, and "the contrast was amazing . . . he made it fit together." Steve Rathe, producer of NPR's Jazz from Lincoln Center series, says that Hernandez has "broken ground" in public radio, especially by bringing a new level of host talent to the industry, such as Ruth Brown and Melvin Van Peebles, past and present hosts of BluesStage, and jazz musician Dave Valentin, who hosted Club del Sol. "He knows what to include" in a show, Rathe says, referring not only to Hernandez's thorough knowledge of the music he plays, but also his artistic instincts in composing programs. And, Rathe adds, "he is a gracious and generous person." Blues fit the market Hernandez pays close attention to the needs of the audience, and by all accounts, lacks the ego that often prevents producers from renovating their shows. "He understands that business is business," explains Leslie Peters, director of cultural program marketing at NPR, and "he's always moving on to the next thing." While some producers will cling to their original ideas, Hernandez is always coming up with new ones, says Peters. Though some program directors find political dimensions in Hernandez's work, he doesn't perceive himself as a cultural crusader. Rick Madden, director of the CPB Radio Program Fund, says CPB initially funded BluesStage because it presents music that "would bring new audiences to public radio," and because, "at the time, it was public radio's only national blues series." For NPR, BluesStage "seemed like a natural to be successful," says Peters. Hernandez did research with blues labels, she recalls, and found that a great number of people who bought those records also fit the profile of public radio listeners. "It was a matter of creating a program that was targeted to the right market," Peters explains, "and Felix did that." Yet even as Hernandez was enjoying a steadily increasing audience, a CPB Gold Award and Blues Foundation award for BluesStage, he decided this year to switch hosts from Ruth Brown to Melvin Van Peebles. "Everything was going fine with the host we had," Hernandez explains with a touch of excitement in his voice, "but we thought it was starting to sound the same . . . so we changed, and we went with a guy who doesn't have a pretty voice," and who isn't' a "big powerhouse-FM-type announcer.'' ''We went with someone [Melvin Van Peebles] who has a very, very animated personality [and] can weave stories out of his head like magic. It's a tremendous challenge for us. And a lot of fun." Hernandez's desire to take risks and make changes enables him to produce prolifically and successfully. "We seem to survive on risk around here," he says, referring to the staff at Ceiba Productions. "It's comfortable in a shaky kind of way. We're always changing to accommodate the changing tastes of the public," he says, adding that nothing annoys him more than program directors who ignore listeners' comments. Hernandez himself receives hundreds of letters a month and claims to answer each one personally. Despite his own willingness to take a chance, Hernandez finds such courage lacking within the industry as a whole. Program directors have been relatively reluctant to pick up Rhythm Revue, for example, though the program has drawn not only significant audiences but pledges as well in cities where the stations schedule it in respectable time slots (Hernandez thinks the show works best as a weekend/afternoon specialty show). One broadcast of Rhythm Review in New York routinely draws $30,000, and fundraising at WYEP in Pittsburgh has "gone through the roof," since Rhythm Revue aired, says Elselser. In three campaigns at Baton Rouge, listeners pledged nearly $10,000 in connection with the show. Those who believe the program targets a narrow audience are "dead wrong," Hernandez says. "At WGBO . . . we found that the people who listen to John Coltrane were also listening to Otis Redding. And I could guarantee that probably most people who listen to "The Four Seasons" by Vivaldi over and over again would also listen to Aretha Franklin, because they are part of the same age group." But some station managers think that a R&B show doesn't square with a jazz format. That hasn't stopped Thurston Briscoe at WBGO. "People who are more dedicated and more pure in their jazz tastes do not believe the program has a place--a local jazz critic believes we are misleading our audience, calling ourselves a jazz station. . . . I think I would be crazy or a fool to take this program off the air." Hernandez says that the key to programming changes, and increasing public radio audiences is taking risks. Managers maintain the status quo of programming because donors appear to support the existing schedule. Program directors, he says, "seem to be afraid of taking risks . . . whenever you try to change anything, it's all risk." Hernandez suggests that alternative funding could be a catalyst, but that program directors also have to be willing to take a chance. Even with his success, Hernandez is by no means settling down. He has three projects in the works, two of which will be distributed by NPR. He will be producing an 80th birthday tribute to guitar innovator Les Paul, and a Latin American music special featuring music from New York, Miami, San Antonio and Los Angeles. Hernandez is also seeking distribution for a revised Harlem Hit Parade that will document R&B from the artists' perspective. (He hopes to sign Ruth Brown as host.) When asked about a dream project that he might have, Hernandez replied, a bit shyly, "I'm doing it--I don't know what's left." Stephanie McCrummen, author of this profile, is a former Washington freelancer who now writes for Newsday.

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