We got a number of emails about the music on WHQR recently. Friend of the station Jim Downey wrote George Scheibner to simply say “Thanks for playing “Living in the Past” by Jethro Tull. This generated a lengthy email from George comparing Jethro Tull’s Ian Anderson’s percussive approach to the flute to Rahsaan Roland Kirk’s saxophone style. Another listener wrote to ask “Who was that tonight covering Rod Stewart’s Someone Like You?? I missed George’s recap!” George Scheibner responded “That was Tim Hardin. He WROTE the song, titled "Reason to Believe" as well as "If I Were a Carpenter". Rod Stewart is a cover.” See what you learn listening to public radio?
But you can’t please all the people all of the time. One listener to the classical side wrote about our Allegro program one recent Friday to say “I normally love the choices you select for the station, but whatever is playing now is driving me to distraction, so much so that I had to turn off the radio. I am all up for alternative kinds of music, but the endless monotony of what I think is the xylophone is too much for me.” This is one of the realities of having hosts with the breadth and depth of musical knowledge they possess. They know our listeners favorites, but they’ve also heard and appreciate those lesser known works that may be more challenging but also more rewarding for some of our audience, so they take
chances now and again to expose us to something new. More than once I’ve heard music played on WHQR that moved me to add that piece to my collection and play it somewhat obsessively for a few days. And, full confession, more than once I’ve heard music on our air and thought “What in the world is that?”
We got another “complaint?” from a listener about our weekend morning schedules. He wrote “I listen to the BBC at night so I can stay awake and the aliens don't abduct me. When the old guy with the soothing voice talks about BBC until 7 on the weekends, I believe he is wrong because "The New Yorker" and "Life on Earth" comes on before 7 am.” This listener has uncovered an interstitial announcement we’ve been using for a number of years without realizing it was incorrect. The BBC used to be scheduled until 7 AM, but some years ago, we started our weekend schedule at 6 AM rather than 7 AM. What we didn’t do is record a new announcement with that new schedule information. Whoops. That one’s on us.Thanks for pointing this out. We’ll have the “old guy” with the soothing voice record a new one.
Finally, we got a very nice call from a recent arrival to the Cape Fear region. “I’m more than 80 years old and have been following National Public Radio most of my life. I was in the military and have experienced working all over the planet, and everywhere I went I could get NPR through the armed forces radio network if I couldn’t get it locally, and I love it. When I got here to Castle Hayne, I was very happy to discover WHQR and that you play classical music all the time.”
We love to hear from you. Please send us your questions, comments and criticisms. You can find us on Facebook, Instagram and Bluesky. You can email us at feedback@whqr.org. Thanks for your feedback, and we look forward to hearing from you.