Getting in tune with Duke Meyer

July 9, 1:15 AMLouisville Music ExaminerKevin Sedelmeier

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If you have lived in the Louisville area for any amount of time at all, you know the voice. For over 30 years, Duke Meyer has been a staple of Louisville radio. Long before he settled into the 9 A.M.-12:00 P.M. time slot at 91.9 WFPK, he was spinning the wax at other local stations, surving disco, witnessing the emergence of MTV, and avoiding both Falco and Taco.

The Shively native, Western High and Spalding University grad was with LRS-102 from 1976-1981 and 95.7 WQMF from 1981-1995. Evident throughout the years and at the various stations has been his obvious love of music and his pleasant on air demeanor – which may have been tested on occasion when presented with the classic rock assignment of playing Bad Company's Feel LIke Makin' Love twice every hour or so .

Before his time on Louisville radio, he was at WVLK in Lexington, where he had to adopt a different on-air name. Meyer explains, “At that time Bill Bailey was at WAKY here in Louisville. He was called The Duke Of Louisville, and you could hear WAKY in Lexington and WVLK in Louisville.” So, Meyer went with the name Brian Thomas. It wasn’t quite as dramatic as Gordon Sims becoming Venus Flytrap on WKRP in Cincinnati or Robert Weston Smith using the moniker Wolfman Jack, but Brian Thomas was the name of a friend of Meyer’s, so it worked during his tenure at WVLK. Being a University of Louisville fan in Lexington, however, was probably a much more challenging fate than using another name on the radio.

Meyer recently took some time out of his busy schedule to answer some questions and discuss various topics, including the old days of FM radio, some of his favorite acts, and his meeting with the paternal B.B. King.

Q. Your bio on the FPK website says you got started in radio with Armed Forces Radio and Television. What was your first non-military radio gig, where, and when?
A. My first non military job was WJCD Seymour, Ind. 1970. I was still in the Army Reserves at this time.

Q. For those who aren’t Louisville natives or are too young to remember, what was the FM radio scene like here in the late 70s and early 80s? From what I remember as a kid, LRS, for instance, would play rare, progressive tracks that weren’t singles – Alan Parsons Project sort of stuff. Did DJs have freedom back then on commercial radio?
A. AM radio and some FM’s were pretty formatted. We had music sheets to follow by category: old, new, etc., but we had some freedom of choice. We also played from a couple thousand albums.

Q. I still don’t understand the whole concept that “Classic rock” stations have such a small and predictable catalog of music and refuse to play new music by “classic” artists. On FPK, if you play a classic artist, you’ll spin songs like Holiday Inn by Elton John and Blue, Red, and Grey by The Who and thankfully leave out Benny and the Jets and Won’t Get Fooled Again. Does market research really suggest these listeners want to hear the same thing over and over?
A. What you hear on the commercial stations are the songs the listeners most want to hear, according to research. There are lots of ways to interpret the info - maybe the audience loves it when they hear it - but not all the time. But usually if it’s a top researcher, they play it as a favorite. With Relics (Meyer’s Saturday afternoon show featuring songs from the mid 60s to the mid 70s), I try to dig deeper to give a fresher feel.

Q. It seemed like you were out of radio for a few years. During that time, I would imagine that you still kept up with the music world because you’re also such a fan. Did you miss being on the air?
A. I was out of radio for about five years and really missed it. During that time, I trained for and received my National Certification in Massage Therapy and had my own business, but as soon as the folks here at WFPK offered me an opportunity to work here, I jumped at it.

Q. Of all the artists you’ve met along the way during in-studio interviews, at shows, etc. do any stick out as being particularly cool?
A. The four that stand out to me are Robert Plant, Mick Fleetwood, B.B. King, and John Hiatt. I remember being very nervous about meeting or interviewing them, and in each case they were very down to earth and spoke to me as a person not at me. Plant, Fleetwood, and Hiatt opened up, and it was like I’d known them awhile. B.B. King was almost fatherly giving advice. I’ll always remember he called me “young man” but it came out like “main”…”let me tell ya young main….”

Q. Since working at FPK, have there been any artists you were unfamiliar with previously and since have become a big fan of? And with Relics, have you made any converts of listeners who previously didn’t listen to music from the 60s and 70s?
A. The folks I’ve become big fans of, that I learned about here at WFPK are Angelique Kidjo, Nick Drake, Lucy Kaplansky, and Tim Krekel. I’m not sure I’ve converted anyone with Relics, but I think I may have rekindled some folks’ interest in that time period, maybe opened some new avenues for parents to turn their kids onto the music they like without hearing the same 250 songs over and over.

Q. How has the Louisville music scene changed over the years as far as quality, venues, and homegrown artists?
A. I think the Louisville music scene has always been quality from the 60’s through now. The venues have changed a bit, but there are still good places for local folks to play. Now today’s artists don’t have sock hops and weekend dances like the artists in the 60’s and 70’s, but they’ve got Facebook.

Few DJs can regale listeners with stories the way Duke Meyer can. Don’t be surprised if you hear things like “…coming up: a band that got its name from a Carol Channing movie” or “during the recording of A Trick of the Tail, Tony Banks wore an ascot to every session” or even possibly "on this day in 1980, Ringo Starr sang an acoustic version of Octopus's Garden to Jack Gilford on the set of Caveman." 

Duke Meyer is a rare breed who has endured through industry automation and playlist saturation. He is a font of knowledge but seeks more; he knows the old songs and embraces the new. When he hosted Louisville’s Lost and Found, a weekly show on FPK that celebrated local music history, you could tell how much he enjoyed the local music scene, which WFPK whole-heartedly supports.

So, perhaps with the venerable Bill Bailey long removed from the Louisville air waves, it is now safe to call Duke Meyer, the Duke of Louisville.