Folk Alley and the Betsy-Mobile

Cleveland and the Northeast Ohio region are so rich in the musical variety available here. Of course, we have the Cleveland Orchestra at the top of the list, and the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame and Museum, plus a veritable triangle of jazz flourishing between Cleveland, Akron and Youngstown. But then, you may not have known there’s another musical form with a strong world-wide presence, originating almost in the middle of the jazz triangle. Care to guess what it is? It’s Folk. As in Folk Alley, the brainchild of WKSU-FM (89.5) the radio station of Kent State University.

What? How? When? Well—it’s not exactly the most direct path, but it all came together through a chain of linked circumstances, beginning back in the 60s when a youngster by the name of Al Bartholet fell in love with radio. There was a chain of stores, by the name of Forest City, that sold appliances and audio equipment, and many of these stores had ‘sound rooms’ or small booths where one could listen to a recording before purchasing it. Al thought these rooms looked just like a radio station (or if not, they were certainly as he imagined one in his mind) and he was a goner.

“I knew in the 6th or 7th grade that I wanted to be in radio,” he says with a huge grin. “And I never wavered from that notion. I never really even considered doing anything else.” Along with Mark, a pal at school (Archbishop Hoban in Akron) he started a radio station there. “It was really nothing,” he says now, “But it was great experience. The school was all wired, there were speakers in every room, and the teachers could turn them down if they wanted to. It was station WHOB, audible only in the school building (giving new meaning to the term ‘closed-circuit’) and Mark and I took turns, announcing, playing music, and reading school announcements. We didn’t do any sports, because there was just no way. The gym wasn’t wired.”

“We did have one turntable, and to change records required very careful choreography or it wouldn’t work. I dreamed about turntables for years after that. Maybe they were more like nightmares,” he mused. But such determination led him to KSU for college, and working for the station while there, merely cemented his notion of a radio career. And now, twenty-nine years later, he and several of his current staff at WKSU have just taken their first jaunt to a major Folk Festival in Newport, Rhode Island, in the custom-made ‘Betsy-Mobile’.

This 30 foot long motor home which contains a recording/broadcast studio, bath with shower, several bunks, kitchen and dining facilities, was made possible by a generous donation from a listener who loves folk as much as Al does. She has been a strong supporter of the folk movement at the station, and this is her way of demonstrating her faith in the concept. There are also pull-out room extenders on each side, and at the rear of the coach is a drop-down panel which makes a small stage or performing area.

Al always loved folk music, at first unaware of just what it was he was hearing. Country and western was big in his household as he was growing up. “The first song I can really remember was Jambalaya by Hank Williams. My folks were both from the south, so we listened quite regularly to Grand Ol’ Opry. We looked forward to it, as a matter of fact.”

After graduating from Kent with a Bachelor of Arts degree in Telecommunications, he worked in commercial radio for four years (two of them in Akron at WKDD, then two more in Georgia) before returning north to Kent once more. This time he stayed put, beginning as Operations Manager, and working his way up to now wearing two hats as both the Executive Director and General Manager of the much larger station. When he first began, the most important part of his job was to ensure the station was on the air 24/7, even if it meant he did air-time himself. And he did—playing jazz and classical, as well as his personal favorites blues and folk.

When he first came to WKSU, and it was becoming part of the vast NPR network, it couldn’t qualify for funding from CPB, because there weren’t five full-time professionals on staff. The budget then was roughly $200,000. a year. That’s a far cry from today’s station which has a budget of 4.5 Million dollars. The majority of that increase was generated by Al during the 18 years in which he was Director of Development. He increased underwriters and funding streams, which, as they brought in more dollars, required more people to manage not only the dollars but the additional programs that followed along as a result.

“The object is to know your audience, and what they want to hear. That was one of the first things I learned at Hoban with Mark.” He learned his lessons well, moving up to station manager, and then, in 2000 or so, up to General Manager—his current post. He still loves jazz, and still takes lessons on blues guitar. “Practicing is so valuable. It makes you appreciate all kinds of music more than you might otherwise.”

Folk has been a major ingredient of WKSU from the beginning. Ted Henry (yes, that Ted Henry) was an announcer for folk music programs in the ‘60s. Al’s turn came in ‘74 or thereabouts, and he was followed by Jim Blum, whose weekend programs took it through the roof. A confluence of new technological tools coincided with Blum’s devotion, leading up to what is now known around the world as www.FolkAlley.com In late 2001, WKSU began to archive Blum’s weekend shows, which proved to be immensely popular. On-line programs could be accessed any time at the listener’s convenience. What a radical notion!

About this time, attendees at the annual conference of the IMA (Integrated Media Association) were looking for ways to further extend and expand ‘normal’ radio onto the internet. The folks at WKSU dove right in. “It took eighteen months to assemble everything and get it ready for prime time, but on September 8, 2003, Folk Alley with Jim Blum went live, 24/7.” It was such a success that two years later, Bartholet added two more staff people, full-time! – just to work on and manage Folk Alley.

“This is a boutique, actually. It’s a new business model for radio—voluntary contributions.” In less than five years, the program has brought in more than a million dollars. Obviously, it’s working! There were a few hurdles along the way. Listeners (who do register at the site) are not only in the US and Canada, but world-wide, and asked for a safe, convenient way to send francs and Euros, etc. It took some doing, but the university now has a PayPal account. The top five US states for contributions are California, Ohio, New York, Pennsylvania and Texas. From elsewhere, the top four countries are Canada, the United Kingdom, Germany and France. As the listener registrations neared the 50 thousand mark a couple of years ago, everyone wondered who that person might be. Turned out to be a translator in Poland, who spent his work day at his computer, and listed to FolkAlley while he worked! Neat, eh?

Another coincidence was the appearance on the scene of a retired executive living in Arizona. He loved folk, and as the “Jules Belkin of Arizona” (in the words of Al Bartholet) he was heavily involved with the reunion of the New Christy Minstrels in 2004. Having listened to Folk Alley, he invited some of the Kent folkies to attend the reunion. As a result, he made the largest single on-line contribution to any public broadcast station as of that time -- $20,000. The second half of that donation was picked up in person, to the accompaniment of Green Green. Very fitting!

This is a pretty impressive record for a university-based public radio station. You probably won’t be surprised to learn that 66% of NPR stations are university or college-based stations. But not all the listeners are students. “One woman is a listener whose vision transcends even ours,” says Bartholet with a big smile. “She says ‘I see myself in a café listening to Folk Alley’, thus we now have our own Folk Alley Café.” The Kent folks have been invited to Newport by NPR to record the proceedings for future playback. “It will be very interesting to see how this all works out. We know there have been local concerts around the country inspired by FolkAlley—we get letters and photos from them. We want to meet and record new people, new music. We’re really looking forward to getting out on the road.”

For those of us staying here, WKSU is launching another new thing. In addition to the main station from Kent, there are four fair-sized repeater stations plus two smaller translator stations scattered across Northern Ohio. All but the latter two are now broadcasting in HD (digital, rather than analog) but that isn’t all. No, they have three (count ‘em – THREE!) channels on a 24/7 basis. Channel HDMain carries the current traditional schedule. HD2 is all Folk Alley and HD3 is all-classical, all the time. An all-news HD channel will appear, sometime in the future. Currently, WKSU is the only station in Ohio with more than two HD channels.

Bartholet understands the long-distance lure of the internet. Sunday afternoons allow him to listen to the “best jazz program in the country, from KPLU in Seattle/Tacoma. It’s also on Sirius once a month, as is Folk Alley, for a two-hour stint.” Upcoming trips will see the FolkAlley Café coming north to Cleveland in September for a special concert at the House of Blues for the PDPR, which will feature Hot Tuna and Ruth Foster, who has appeared at the Opry many times.

Then, they’ll be heading south to Memphis in February for the Folk Alliance National Meeting, while dreaming of Austin in June for the biggie folk and bluegrass gathering.

Happy Trails, Pardner!

From Cool Cleveland contributor Kelly Ferjutz artswriterATroadrunner.com

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