Interview with Charles Williams

Interview With Charles Williams, DJ at WRIR 97.3

Justin:

So you work for WRIR?

Charles:

Yeah its voluntary not really work. 100 percent volunteer station.

Justin:

So how are you involved in the greater Richmond music scene?

Charles:

Years ago in the 80's I was in a band called The Good Guys. And we played around here and up and down the East coast quite a bit. Did a tour with a band called Simply Red back in 86'. Probably a band before your time. Did pretty good until money started getting involved and management got greedy. (chuckles). It kinda went downhill from there. I got a little frustrated with the music business so I started to DJ here and there. There was a thing called color radio, not sure exactly what year it was, maybe late 80's. When we first got cable television here there was a channel that had color test padding at night. It was there all the time. Someone got the idea to broadcast radio over that. So basically it was like listening to radio on your television. I started to DJ there. Then in 98' I actually went out to the University of Richmond, someone suggested that I went there. And I talked about trying to get on the (Richmond) radio.

Justin:

Did you ever follow through with that?

Charles:

Yeah it was pretty funny, it was like the easiest thing I've ever done. They had openings on Sundays for an African music show. And they told me "yeah come on whenever". Apparently on Sunday's they had trouble getting students to get on there. So mostly the DJ's on Sundays were local Richmond music people.

Justin:

That's awesome.

Charles:

Yeah so I started doing a show in 98' called "The Motherland Influence", which is here (WRIR) now. The DJ's that came on before us started not showing up, so we just took their spot and didn't tell anybody (chuckles). My friend David 00:03:00Noise and I who did the radio show together started alternating every other sunday. He does a show called Obvious Congo, which is congo dance music out of Central Africa. And I do what's called "The Other Black Music", which is different styles of black music you might not hear otherwise on the radio.

Justin:

Yeah, so for my class we're actually studying Balinese music. Its related to congo music so there's a cultural feel we've gotten used to.

Charles:

Anyway in 2005 they got this station started (WRIR) so they asked us to come over here and we've been here since then. Basically I know a lot of musicians around town so radio wise I try to do what I can to help them out.

Justin:

So what got you interested in music at a young age?

Charles:

Oh boy.

Justin:

I know, a lot goes into that question.

Charles:

I don't know I was always just drawn to music. I would grab all my father's jazz records and play those all the time. As soon as I learned how to operate the turntable.

Justin:

Ah, so you got used to that pretty early.

Charles:

And I have a short attention span so I was always looking for something new. As I got older I would start cutting grass in the neighborhood, and I would take that money down to the record store and buy what I heard on the radio. I used to buy albums just for album covers. I didn't even know what it was. I'd go home with some rock record I'd never heard of or something like that. I would get lucky and get something I'd like, or just get some piece of crap. I discovered 00:05:00different types of music that way just by the album covers. The record store we had was in northside Richmond. It was a really good store can't remember the name of it though.

Justin:

It's tough to remember those things.

Charles:

Yeah it was on North Avenue, near Brooklyn Park Boulevard north side. And then across the street one of our neighbors brothers would blast jazz and we would have jam sessions that I would go over for. And then I was kinda a music junky after that (chuckles).

Justin:

Did you ever experiment with musical instruments, or were you just focused on the turntables?

Charles:

I kinda messed around with guitar a little bit, I didn't really get into instruments until a little later. In 79' I moved to Petersburg, I got offered a job to manage a McDonald's there. And I was bored out of my mind there, so I 00:06:00just bought a bass guitar and taught myself how to play.

Justin:

Oh wow. That's impressive.

Charles:

A year later I moved back to Richmond and met up with some of my old friends and we started playing together, and the band evolved that way.

Justin:

In the band you played bass guitar?

Charles:

Yeah. The band was called The Good Guys and we were like a reggae funk mix. I was in from the early 80's to when I left in 90', but the band kept going for a few more years after that.

Justin:

Do you regret leaving at all? Do you wish you had stayed?

Charles:

Well.

Justin:

I know you said there were money troubles with the band.

Charles:

Yeah well it was that and I started getting into table tennis.

Justin:

Ah. I'm also interested in table tennis.

Charles:

Yeah I started playing tournaments and it kinda got to this weird point where I was losing interest in the band. Let's say there was a tournament same weekend where we had to play somewhere, I would get upset. It finally occurred to me, maybe I should just stop doing this.

Justin:

Exactly! You gotta play that table tennis!

Charles:

(Chuckles) Yeah I'm still into it but I had some hip problems and had to stop for a while.

Justin:

It's one of those games though that you can just keep playing.

Charles:

Yeah unfortunately I had to withdraw from a tournament last thanksgiving. We play a team tournament up in Washington harbor. 3 day tournament, but I started having some hip troubles.

Justin:

So how has the music culture here in Richmond changed since you were in The Good Guys?

Charles:

I kinda wonder. With the internet, you're able to discover things a lot easier.

Justin:

Exactly.

Charles:

And I'm finding out there are African bands here and reggae bands here. I kinda wonder if they were here before, but we just didn't know about it. When I was coming up I hung out with mostly the reggae and funk scene really. It was a lot of "do it yourself" back in the 80's I guess. Music wise Richmond has kept exploding exploding exploding. There's a lot of local music here that's really good.

Justin:

I know if you go to a local bar or something, the live music is always known for being really really good.

Charles:

Yeah you can hear some great musicians here. I don't know if that really answered the question there.

Justin:

(chuckles) It's a tough question. There's so many aspects to it. Type of music, the culture, who's playing, etc.

Charles:

Well saturday I went to see a fundraiser for puerto Rican hurricane relief. There were 4 bands there and one of them was called New Orleans Soul. It was a guy on keyboard and drummer and bass basically playing New Orleans type soul sounds. There was a group called the Mummies from back in the 80's for a while. They were from offshoots of different other bands. Who else was there? There was a group called Rattlemouth. Jazzy almost middle eastern mix of sounds, it's 00:10:00really hard to describe them. You could go see that one one night and then see straight up funk another. You got metal here too. At this station we play a lot of local music here. We got bluegrass in here earlier. Pretty much any sound you're looking for you can find here someone will be playing it. We had a great salsa group BeeRipmo here too.

Justin:

Oh salsa?

Charles:

Yeah they were doing really well. They were kinda like alternative salsa not straight up salsa. They would mix other sounds into it. A lot of soul groups and alternative soul groups here.

Justin:

So at the radio station do you play these local musicians?

Charles:

Oh yeah! I'll show you around the radio station in a little we have a broadcast studio and then we have a live room where we bring in bands.

Justin:

Oh wow.

Charles:

Yeah if you go to WRIR.org and go to listen we have an archive of the local news and music shows up to two weeks. And we have a library of all the live bands that have played here since 2005 I think. There's a lot of them.

Justin:

Yeah there's a lot of bands around here. So do you play any mainstream music or is it exclusively local musicians?

Charles:

No I don't play all local I mix it in. I do a show 3-5 every other Sunday called "The Other Black Music". Its blues, funk, jazz, soul, and alt-soul. I had some 00:12:00country on this sunday from Memphis, also had a stacks label mostly known for soul. A lot of African Latin Caribbean mix. And then the "Motherland Influence" show which we have every Sunday from 5-7, it's African Latin Caribbean classics.

Justin:

So take me through a typical day here at WRIR.

Charles:

Early morning they have a breakfast blend with a different DJ each morning. Some might do a world mix, one does a soulful sound on Wednesday. Monday's are all female artists. That's from 6-8 AM. Then from 8-3 there's a national and local 00:15:0000:14:0000:13:00news talk program. After that from 3 PM until 6 in the morning again there's music. Let me find a program. If you find the schedule it shows you what different kind of stuff we have. 12 AM this morning there was a show called "Cosmic Slop" which is funky disco music. It's hard to keep DJ's on until 6 AM so they'll rerun the news program. "Lost Music Saloon" does a mix of a honky tonk sound. We play a lot of stuff out of New Orleans, a place I've been to quite a bit. I love the music down there.

Justin:

How often do you DJ?

Charles:

Oh I'm just on Sundays. There's 4 or 5 of us that take turns doing the Sunday 00:16:00morning jazz show. Then every other Sunday I do "The Other Black Music", and then every Sunday I do "The Motherland Influence". Sorry I kind of wander sometimes, I hope I answered your question.

Justin:

No no you did a great job. I can tell there's so many different parts to this 00:17:00radio station. So many different cultural aspects.

Charles:

Yeah we have a bunch of DJ's. I don't come in every day. We also have volunteers who man the board during the news and talk shows.

Justin:

So what do you enjoy the most about being a DJ? What's the most rewarding part about it?

Charles:

Sharing new stuff, or even resharing older stuff for that matter. Getting people to hear stuff they wouldn't normally hear on commercial radio basically. Hopefully a more intelligent sound than you might hear on commercial radio. We 00:18:00mix in some commercial stuff every now and then. I mean not all commercial radio is bad, there's good stuff on there. You just got to pick and choose. But it's mostly stuff people haven't heard. I try to turn them on to something new. We've been doing it since 98' so I guess we're doing okay.

Justin:

If you're still going you're doing a great job. That's how I see it.

Charles:

It kinda helped me also because i was doing live DJ at a place called Balliso. It's now called Flora on Lombardy Street. I've been doing that for a few years. 00:19:00It's an afro pop dance thing. They got pretty popular.Justin:

How do you feel about live DJ vs DJ at the radio station?

Charles:

I like doing live, but I have one of those jobs where I'm up early in the morning. So staying up late was rough sometimes. We're actually DJ'ing live next weekend at a fundraiser at Studio 23. It's a fundraiser for the studio and the station. So as an opening thing I'm the DJ for that. The live stuff is fun. 00:20:00Showing people they can come out and dance to stuff they've never heard before. That's what was so cool about Balliso when it was going. People came to dance when they had no clue what I was playing. They were like, "oh I can dance to this."

Justin:

To me that seems like one of the most rewarding parts about being a DJ. Getting to show people new music that they don't necessarily know.

Charles:

Changing the mentality of "oh I have to dance to stuff I know on the radio." People would ask for stuff and I'd go, "you have the wrong night, sorry" (chuckles). It was weird I was playing all African music one night and a guy came and asked for Deep Purple. I almost said no but I had a salsa version of a 00:21:00Deep Purple song that I played. He was like, "oh okay." and I said, "well that's as close as you're gonna get."

Justin:

So when you DJ do you mix songs together or play set songs?

Charles:

I try to mix them together if I can. I'm not one of those people who has to have the same beat going all the time. I have to be careful because once again my brain will kind of wander off (chuckles).

Justin:

So as a DJ how have you experienced the culture of Richmond? Have you gotten to know artists in the area?

Charles:

Yes. I have them on in the live room too especially for our fundraisers. We make a big deal of trying to bring in local bands for that. And the bands love it, they get attention also.

Justin:

When you were in your band did you ever go on a radio station like that?

Charles:

Yeah a couple times. Not very often but a couple times. We didn't do to much live. We would go in and be interviewed and they would play our record or something like that.

Justin:

What advice would you give to an up and coming musician in Richmond?

Charles:

Wow. Understand the business part of it. Try not to give everything away. People will take advantage of you. That happened with our management unfortunately. I used to joke, go to law school, and then start a band. Contract law or something like that. If you really are into it you will do what you have to do. You will 00:23:00practice wherever you can practice and play wherever you can play. Once again, don't give your talent away. The exposure kinda wears off after a while. It is actually work, you gotta remember that. If you're just doing it for the fun of it don't worry about all that then (laughs).

Justin:

(laughs) Exactly. So for you has it been about the fun of it or business part?

Charles:

It started off for fun until we realized people would actually pay for it. We kinda wandered wide eyed and clueless into it. For me it lasted like 12 years so 00:24:00it was fun.

Justin:

Yeah that's a good run.

Charles:

I got to see the US.

Justin:

How far did you tour?

Charles:

On our own we mostly toured down to Florida up into Maine and into Canada all along the East Coast. We then got a manager who did a good job of getting our name out there. Then back in 86' there was a band in England called Simply Red and they had a number one hit called "Holding Back the Tears". Anyway we got on their first US tour. We were this unknown band touring with this big top 40 group. So basically we toured across the US with them. We got some interest from 00:25:00labels and that's when the money thing became a problem.

Justin:

Where's been your favorite place to go on tour?

Charles:

Richmond was probably number one. And the New England area was also nice and we did really well up there. Boston, Providence, Rhode Island. Played in New York quite a bit too. In New York you're one of a gazillion bands. So yeah I guess the northeast was a lot of fun.

Justin:

What's your plan for the future?

Charles:

I got so frustrated with the business part of the band that I stopped playing altogether. Every now and then I think about it but I think it's the farthest 00:26:00I'll get. I enjoy doing this radio and I'll probably get back out and do some more live DJ. I don't know if I could pull off commercial radio or not.

Justin:

Are commercial radio and WRIR drastically different?

Charles:

Money wise yeah. You have to try and sell ads. That's about the only difference.

Justin:

I know you mentioned before you have a lot of DJ's here. Do you know how many?

Charles:

Supposedly we have 150 -- 200 volunteers altogether. Probably around 30 -- 40 DJ's here.

Justin:

Well that's all the questions I have for you.

Charles:

Alright. I hope I helped. Like I said I can wander sometimes.

Justin:

No you did great you gave me a lot of good information. It was really nice talking to you and getting a feel for how you're involved in the Richmond music 00:28:00community, where you came from, where you are now, and where you plan to be in the future.

Charles:

Glad I could help you.