Last [week] you played a selection that has changed my life. - Brad
Like most of you, I intend to soak up as much holiday joy as possible in the next few days. But first, we need to take a look at the Bah! Humbug! file. Listener Georgia wrote: “Sadly, I have not been able to listen to Classical HQR since you changed signals. . . Even before that, I was not enjoying the music as much as in the past, and frequently turned it off shortly after turning it on. I would rather have 100 well-chosen selections to hear than 11,000 of lesser merit and variety. Philip Glass, for example seed to disappear along with other contemporary classicists. Yes, I know, those of us who don’t support complain the loudest. Sorry.”
Listener Ger wrote on Tuesday:
Every time I turn on your station it makes my head spin. I just heard your announcer refer to an upcoming report on the Berlin terror attack as a report on "the deaths in Berlin", as though a bunch of people just suddenly died there. Unreal.
Ger is of course referring to NPR, not WHQR. I wrote to him on Wednesday morning that we’re not privy to NPR’s decisions, but it’s possible — though we don’t know — that NPR was waiting for the German government to officially describe the situation as a terrorist act, which they have now done.
This ends the Bah! Humbug! part of our show.
Listener Brad wrote to George Scheibner:
Thanks for your work. Last [week] you played a selection that has changed my life - Nancy Lamott, Days of Wine and Rose and Whistling in the Dark. Today I looked her up; her singing and story have brought me to tears. I have ordered several of her albums from Amazon. Those two are on the Come Rain or Come Shine album. Reading of her reminded me of my days in the Bay Area. I was a hippie, a Fillmore veteran. My favorite band of all time is It's A Beautiful Day which prompts me to tell you that their albums are readily available on Amazon, including the original of White Bird ( you play the Sam Bush rendition occasionally ). I don't know how I missed hearing Nancy Lamott till now. Thanks so much and keep up the great work.
George had a postscript for this. He writes:
I happened to play the song which Brad heard on Tuesday December 13th. I did not realize it was the anniversary of the day Nancy Lamott had passed away of cancer until I had actually started playing the recording. (I just happened to check her background on-line.) Makes you pause for a moment. . .and also remember how intimate a medium radio can be.
Listener Donna wrote:
Please ignore that cranky person who keeps writing to the [Wilmington] Star News Buzz section about not liking the nightly jazz on WHQR. My husband and I love it and often fall asleep listening to that great music. We think jazz is better than just about any other genre you could play, except perhaps Bluegrass. Keep up the good work.
And now I truly am ready for the holidays – whew, just in time. And what’s the holiday season without giving thanks? We give thanks for you, our listeners and supporters, for making the first half of our fiscal year such a success. We thank you for thanking us for winning a whole bunch of awards from our peers around the state. And we hope at least some of you will take the opportunity to slip over to WHQR.org and make a pledge to our emPowering Our Future campaign, which wraps up in a little more than a week.
In just a minute the nice announcer is going to play a special message about that. Most of all, thank you for listening to our stations, both HQR News and Classical HQR. You’re why we do this. And I wish y’all a joyous holiday season and a Happy New Year.
We’d love to hear from you on Friday Feedback. You can send an email message to feedback-at-whqr-dot-org, or you can leave a call at 910-292-9477. And as always, thanks for your Feedback.