I turned WRNL in Richmond/VA into a Contemporary Country music radio station in the Fall of 1981 and our success came almost immediately. By the Spring Book of 1982 we were holding a 10+ share of the 25-54 radio audience. Our ads and promotions pulled, and life was good.
GM Greg Pearson and I knew that we had to mount a serious off-air ad campaign to hold our lead. We knew that another Country station, probably an FM, was sure to come online soon, following our lead and taking bites at our lunch. I started looking at syndicated multi-media ad campaigns and probing music labels to see if any of their artists would be inclined to help us sell their records.
Trouble was, I had NO budget to pay any syndicators or nationally famous recording artists for their services. Not dime one. So much for helping Conway and Willie and Merle sell their damned records.
Well, I figured, there we were, the #1 Country Music Radio Station in the Capitol of the Confederacy. Who can we turn to? How about Virginia musicians?
In 1982, The Statler Brothers led the list. The group was led by Harold & Don Reid, out of Staunton/VA, made their homes there, had gone to high school there, had even bought their old high school building and converted it into their offices.
I made a phone call and asked the Statler Brothers office if the group would be agreeable to performing in a series of TV spots to promote country music in Virginia.
Okay, I kind of misled them...
They said Yes and I immediately hired a camera crew from a PBS TV station from Harrisonburg/VA to do the recording; we'd hook up with them at the Statlers' HQ.
So on an early morning in Summer 1982, Denise, the Promotions Director I shared with the company's FM, WRXL, and I took to the long highway, crossing Afton Mountain with all its scary fog, to hook up with the PBS video team in Staunton.
We brought with us huge cardboard cue sheets, on which I had written the spot copy that I had written and which had been agreed upon by our GM and consultants. I was feeling very big-time.
The Statlers, as you can see, were happy to work with us, and gave us their best effort. I should mention that Jimmy Fortune had just been hired by the group to replace Lew DeWitt and this was literally Jimmy's first day with the Statlers; he said goodbye to his previous band the night before he did this series of commercials with me.
This was Jimmy's very first time in front of a TV camera. He was as nervous, as they say in Virginia, as a long-tailed cat in a room fill of rockers.
Jimmy Fortune went on to write great hits and sing high tenor for the Statlers until they retired from performing years later. Along the way, he became very comfortable with TV and stage performance.
The Statlers, good sports all morning long while we tortured them, kindly sent us home with a huge box of band-swag. Denise and I had lunch at a Staunton barbecue joint and headed back to Richmond.
Finished product:
So I was the Producer/Director of the spots. I tried, I really did. But I quickly became aware of the limits of my skills. Back in Richmond, we produced five spots from the raw footage we recorded in Staunton, four featuring each of the Statlers as a spokesman, and the fifth made up from outtakes.
My thanks to Kevin McCarthy for making possible the digitization of the spots and raw footage from 25-year-old 3/4" Beta cassette masters.
Raw reel 1:
Harold, Phil, Don & Jimmy; the first unedited reel of tape:
Raw reel 2:
Harold, Phil, Don & Jimmy; the second unedited reel of tape:
