Unique partnership with Music City Roots launches
"WMOT-FM/Roots Radio 89.5" on Sept. 2
With the format change on
Sept. 2, the 100,000-watt station, known going forward as WMOT-FM/Roots Radio
89.5, will become the region’s only channel devoted to the unique amalgam of
bluegrass, folk, gospel, soul, country and blues music defined in the music
industry as Americana. The station boasts the clearest and strongest radio
signal in greater Nashville.
This innovative
partnership combines the reach and scholarship of a major university with the expertise
and experience of radio and music industry professionals. A special public
kickoff celebration will be held at 11 a.m. Friday, Sept. 2, at the Country
Music Hall of Fame and Museum in Nashville, featuring live music and the
beginning of DJ programming. Video of the event will be streamed through
musiccityroots.com.
“Imagine, in our neck of
the woods, a radio station with real people playing music they actually care
about, even love,” said revered artist Rodney Crowell, recipient of the
Americana Music Association Lifetime Achievement Award for Songwriting. “WMOT
is bringing Middle Tennessee real music when we need it most. Miracles happen.”
WMOT-FM will continue to
serve as a training ground for MTSU students who are integrating audio editing
and narration skills into their multimedia portfolios, which include
television, social media, print and website management.
“This will give our
students the opportunity to work and learn in a vibrant professional
environment and provide greater interaction with the music industry,” said Ken
Paulson, dean of the College of Media and Entertainment, which operates the
station.
The station has partnered
with the creative team behind Music City Roots — including its executive
producers Todd Mayo and John Walker — to develop a unique, Nashville-centric
take on the Americana musical genre. WMOT will also become the flagship station
for Music City Roots, a weekly variety show that airs nationally on American
Public Television, with its fourth season premiering Oct. 28.
Bluegrass Underground, an
Emmy-award winning PBS program and radio show recorded live 333 feet below
ground in Cumberland Caverns in McMinnville, Tennessee, also will find a home
on WMOT.
“Among Nashville artists
charting with Americana albums in recent months have been Sturgill Simpson, the
Mavericks, Elizabeth Cook, Darrell Scott, Emmylou Harris and Rodney Crowell and
many more,” Paulson noted. “Nashville is Americana's hometown."
The station will remain
the flagship for Blue Raider Athletics and will continue to air “MTSU On the
Record,” a 30-minute public affairs interview program highlighting the
university community, as well as regular area news updates.
WMOT, which first went on
the air in April 1969, reaches as far north as Bowling Green, Kentucky, to as
far south as the Alabama border.
It has aired mostly
classical music, with jazz on the weekends and evenings, since 2009, when it
moved from its all-jazz format.
In a nod to its tradition
of jazz programming, the university will also launch on Sept. 2 the MTSU Jazz
Network on WMOT’s HD channel as well as its FM signals 104.9 in Brentwood and
92.3 in Murfreesboro.
“As much as Nashville has
cried out for a true Americana station that represents the roots revolution
taking place here, we also see jazz as a pure American art form that deserves
its own focus,” said Walker, who will oversee the development of new programs
for WMOT.
“We couldn’t imagine a
Music City radio landscape without it.”
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New programming to showcase ‘roots music’
The new WMOT will
showcase and celebrate the past, present and future of American roots music
with a focus on Nashville’s unparalleled track record of artistry and
songwriting, while also highlighting regional and stylistic “roots and
branches” from around the country and across the world.
Curated by the
programming team of Music City Roots, the Roots Radio playlist will be deep and
wide, covering styles associated with Nashville, such as classic country and
bluegrass, plus genres that have made up the fabric of Americana and roots
music broadly speaking, including gospel, soul, R&B and blues.
The station’s playlist
will include thousands of songs from the past, plus a strong rotation of
current, vital Americana music. The station will seek to span genres and
generations, in defiance of standard radio industry demographic
micro-targeting.
Listeners can expect live
radio hosts from 6 a.m. to 7 p.m. on weekdays, including veterans of roots
music broadcasting. Anchoring the team and directing musical programming will
be industry icon Jessie Scott, the first roots music director on satellite
radio and a founding board member of the Americana Music Association.
Music City Roots’ Walker
will host morning drive. Grand Ole Opry veteran Keith Bilbrey will handle
midday, tapping his expertise in country music. Long-time radio man Whit
“Witness” Hubner will work early afternoons.
All shows will be able to
accommodate drop-in guests, including Music City artists as well as MTSU’s
extensive roster of expert faculty.
Greg Reish, for example,
is the director of the Center for Popular Music at MTSU, one of the nation’s
deepest archives of recordings, sheet music, books and ephemera. He will host a
weekly “Lost Sounds” show drawing on the archives with historic context. Plus
the archive will inform and inspire other programming and special on-campus
events.
Leveraging university, Music City connection
The format transition
marks only the latest progression in WMOT-FM’s 47-year history of dedicated
service to the university and the community.
From its inception as a
pop and rock music listening resource for students in 1969, through its jazz
and classical incarnations, the station’s professional broadcasters and their
student protégés always have put the listeners’ concerns first, said Val
Hoeppner, executive director of MTSU’s Center for Innovation in Media, which
oversees the station.
WMOT has received more
than 70 awards from the Tennessee Associated Press Broadcasters’ Association
since 1984 with more than half of them being first-place honors. It also is one
of the most honored radio newsrooms in the Tennessee Association of
Broadcasters’ history. This legacy will continue with regular area news updates
and top-of-the-hour national and international news from National Public Radio.
“This change will allow
WMOT to grow audience, relevance and influence in the Music City market – and
beyond,” Hoeppner said. “And we will be able to leverage our ties to the
Nashville recording industry by showcasing artists on a radio stage that will
reach almost all of Middle Tennessee.”
As a public radio
station, WMOT depends on underwriting support from community-minded businesses.
Music City Roots’ Walker and Mayo have drawn on long-standing relationships
with some of Nashville’s biggest music supporters.
Additionally, remote
venue broadcasts will be a big part of WMOT’s community outreach, with shows
originating from the Factory at Franklin, Acme Feed and Seed downtown, and The
Family Wash in East Nashville.
WMOT/Roots Radio will
broadcast and stream the 2016 Americana Awards Show and Red Carpet arrivals
from the Ryman Auditorium on Sept. 21.
About MTSU
Founded
in 1911 as one of three state normal schools for teacher training, Middle
Tennessee State University is the oldest and largest undergraduate university
in the Tennessee Board of Regents System. With a fall enrollment averaging more
than 22,000 students for the past five years, MTSU remains committed to
providing individualized service in an exciting and nurturing atmosphere where
student success is the top priority. MTSU features eight undergraduate colleges
and the College of Graduate Studies, and more than 140 programs and departments
including accounting, aerospace, concrete industry management, music and recording
industry. Offering a wide variety of nationally recognized programs at the
baccalaureate, master's and doctoral levels, MTSU takes pride in educating the
best and the brightest students from Tennessee and around the world. For more
information, call 615-898-2300, visit http://mtsu.edu/ or www.mtsunews.com.
Follow MTSU on Twitter @MTSUNews and like us on Facebook.
About Music City Roots
Music City Roots is a weekly live radio show, HD webcast and annual series
distributed by American Public Television featuring outstanding roots and
Americana music based in or passing through Nashville. Since going on the air
in October 2009, Music City Roots has broadcast the authentic sound of today’s
Music City, embracing the traditional and the progressive in equal measure. The
show reaches around 40 public radio partners on a syndicated basis and most of
the U.S. through an annual 14-week series on American Public Television. Every
Wednesday at 7 p.m. Central, four guest artists perform to an audience of 300
to 800 people in Liberty Hall in the Factory at Franklin, Tennessee. A
professionally directed shoot of the show reaches thousands of viewers
worldwide via Livestream.com, and as of September 2016, the show is broadcast
live to the entire Midstate of Tennessee via 100,000-watt WMOT-FM/Roots Radio
89.5. Veteran Grand Ole Opry announcer Keith Bilbrey emcees with help from
musical host, Grammy Award-winning singer/songwriter Jim Lauderdale and
interviewer Craig Havighurst. The show was created and produced by Todd Mayo
and John Walker and is supported by valued underwriting partners Nissan, Star
129, Ascend Federal Credit Union, Acceptance Auto Insurance and Vietti Chili.
More information at www.musiccityroots.com.
