Radio lost a truly special person yesterday.
After a long bout with cancer, Bob Rivers passed away yesterday, but not before he staged one of his best shows – a multi-year embrace of a life he truly loved living. And like many of us, Bob had his share of personal and professional challenges that make staying alive as long as you can well worth it.
We met when Entercom bought KISW and built its powerful Seattle cluster. Bob was already successful and well-established on the station and in the market. But we didn’t establish a personal connection until years later when I saw some of Bob’s best performances as counselor, coach, and mentor at the Morning Show Boot Camps. During these moments, this big-time morning radio star was available, generous, and vulnerable. It was impressive and it made me thankful I worked in radio and got the chance to know him.
Later when Bob called it a career in 2014, I reached out to him and asked if I could do an “exit interview” with him on this blog. He readily agreed, was excited to organize his memories, thoughts, and feelings. I figured it would be a nice post for him – and you who read this thing. Well, Bob had so much to say, and it was so good, it became a two-parter. In honor of how he gave so much to this business and this craft, I’ve combined them into one post today. I hope you enjoy it, and perhaps get a better measure of this guy.
Ironically, the last time we spoke was at last summer’s Morning Show Boot Camp in San Diego. Bob had a couple of thoughts he shared with me after my AQ6 survey presentation which I appreciated. Later, he dropped me an email and asked me to call him. He invited me to join him for a conversation. I figured maybe an hour – and like this original post, we talked for more than two hours – about everything.
Going into our chat, I did not realize he was terminally ill. I was amazed at how he was approaching his time – with family and friends, taking in concerts, shows, and other activities to enjoy as much life as he had left. He had moved to Vegas, primarily to be in a position to take it all in.
We talked about life – his and mine – family, careers, radio. Everything. I was so touched I got this time with him.
I’m sending my most positive vibes to Bob’s wife, Lisa, and sons, Andrew and Keith, along with his extended family and those who had the privilege to work with Bob throughout his many radio adventures as will his legions of fans.
Radio misses him, as do we all. – FJ
August 2014
Last week, another radio icon walked out of the studio for perhaps the last time. Bob Rivers is hanging up his headphones, but plugging in his amp – lots of them – to tour with Heart By Heart – at least for now. While some former radio stars go the podcasting or satellite radio route, Bob is leaving the daily radio routine to go on the road and perform on stage.
It’s not the first time. Way back in the day, Bob walked away from WFTQ in Worcester, MA, to join a band called Legend, only to return to WAAF where his radio career got underway in 1981. So maybe Bob’s departure from Seattle radio last week is déjà vu all over again.
The picture at left is from those days, and shows the same spirited performer that audiences in the Boston, Baltimore, and Seattle areas came to know and love – in addition to the millions of fans of Bob’s Twisted Tunes franchise. Note that he’s holding a cup of coffee.
I was fortunate enough to work with Bob at KISW after Nationwide sold the station to Entercom. After years in Seattle radio, Bob and his team were truly hitting their stride at that time. If you know Bob Rivers, you know there’s a genuine quality to his art that has been there long before words like “authenticity” became overused in describing idea radio personality qualities.
During a crazy week as Bob wrapped up this phase of his radio career, he was kind enough to spend a generous amount of time answering a few questions. What started out as a few questions with Bob Rivers turned out to be an “exit interview,” and a chance for me – and now you – to tune into one of radio’s best entertainers. For those on the management side and those in the air studio, Bob’s words and thoughts are a primer for the ups and downs of enjoying an amazing radio career.
Bob’s “content” is so strong that we’re dividing our posts into two parts. Today, it’s about Bob’s career path and his team.
FJ: For all intents and purposes, you’ve only worked in three markets. Aside from not paying U-Haul and Atlas Van Lines, how has that been advantageous to your career?
BR: I view it like this. We are in the relationship business, and each gig is like going on a date. In the first nine years of radio I was career promiscuous, on lots of radio stations (one of them was literally a one-night stand!) I was making mistakes, hopping from transmitter to transmitter, figuring out who I was and what did and didn’t work. I’m sure lots of embarrassing things happened and I’m really glad there was no Facebook record of it all.
These relationships were all building towards the dream show. The one that becomes your family.
At WAAF, I ran into brilliant leadership. Working with owners and programmers who were on the cutting edge of team building and marketing. If you have a chance to work next to people who are way smarter than you, that’s a great gift. Led by Dick Ferguson and Steve Marx, programmed by people like David Bernstein, Rob Barnett and Steve Stockman. That station was a monster. So many brilliant radio talents were born there. I was taught to find something you can do better than anybody else and focus on that. That’s when Twisted Tunes were born.
There was a sign hanging on the Sales Department wall: “If it is to be, it is up to me!” That made people excited to do the work and strive for excellence. I wrote scripts and produced comedy bits and made song parodies. I bought a VCR so I could tape Johnny Carson and study his cadence and style of hosting. Consultants gave me tapes of Howard Stern. I didn’t want to be a shock jock, but I got that he was much more than that. His sharing of intimate thoughts with an audience bonded them to him. The Bob and Zip show was really my first serious relationship. Six years is a long time. But I wanted to live the WKRP dream in a bigger city than Worcester.
98 Rock in Baltimore is where I went to be a shooting star. Here I was, in a major market, full of vim and vinegar. Working hard, but also partying hard. All of my focused energy went into the show, and it went well. But I had lost that magical chemistry I had with my friend Zip (I was the driver; he had the big heart and smile and ready laugh that endeared us both to the listeners). Lesson to be learned. Chemistry is lightning in a bottle. It is magic, and if you know how to find it and keep it, you will be happy and successful.
In just two years, I was making it in a major market with a highly-rated show, incredible promotion, surrounded by really good people. Baltimore is one of the most charming, friendly, family oriented cities in America. The hills in northern Maryland where I lived were gorgeous. My PD and GM (Russ Mottla and Chuck DuCoty) were smart and supportive. The Baltimore Orioles Marathon was the NAB promotion of the year.
And yet I blew it. Did you ever break up with someone and say, “It’s not you, it’s me”? Well, Baltimore. It’s not you. It was me. I needed rehab.
I came to Seattle. If there are any of you radio types out there who’ve ever had a drinking, wake and bake, or nose candy detour… you know that sooner or later you have to deal with it in all your relationships. I was very lucky to be working for Nationwide, an insurance company-owned radio group that saw my situation as an opportunity. It’s an illness, and if he gets better, we will be the beneficiary. Again I got to work with radio legends. Led by Beau Phillips and Steve Young. I was also fortunate that my wife, Lisa, gave me a chance to grow and become a better person.
Newly sober, I decided to marry this city of Seattle for good. My cast of characters was all interesting, talented people I randomly met who had never done radio. And it was all about the chemistry.
Spike was a car salesman and singing bartender I came across in Baltimore who also did voice impressions. He has a genius comic mind. He could rant, rave, get angry, be sad, do it all unscripted, and be both full of shit and genuine at the same time. Genius.
Joe was a Southern transplant to the Pacific Northwest selling espresso drinks. At the time this was sold at local coffee shops all over Seattle. One of them had just a few locations – STARBUCKS, I think it was called. The espresso shop where Joe worked was an “herb friendly” establishment. Even though I was a no-imbiber now, I wanted a radio family of diverse people and opinions. Joe was not standard radio fare. Slow talking, dry wit. Full of wisdom, and not afraid to share his heart and vulnerability. He had that lovable chemistry I hadn’t felt since WAAF. Pure gold.
Rear left to right: Pedro Bartes, Jodi Brothers, Spike O’Neill, Luciana Bartes, Joe Bryant, Arik Korman.
Front: Interns Madeline and Joshua with Bob in the middle.
Our news gals over the years were not the giggling sidekick variety. All were successful broadcasters. We all loved, laughed, fought, agreed and disagreed, and almost always managed to do it in the spirit of fun. Maura Gallucci, from news leader KIRO, Kaci Aitchison, who left us and became a Fox News Television Anchor, and eventually, Jodi Brothers… who is the strongest, funniest female personality I’ve met and who will no doubt now be hosting another morning show.
Our morning show family from time to time needed counseling, and we weren’t afraid to ask for help. Our meetings and annual show retreats boiled down to a reminder that we needed to support each other, be clever, and always playful.
There are three other families involved here, too.
The Listener Family. When you marry a market for 25 years, you are a significant part of your audiences’ life experience. We just had an intern who’s a 4.0 honor student at Yale. He’s been listening since he was 8 years-old. A listener with ALS who wrote a book about Lou Gehrig’s disease wanted to meet me and thank us for the show before they unplugged his life support. Governor Jay Inslee calling one of our final shows to reminisce about the day we signed on in 1989. Husbands, wives, kids, all telling us what part of the show influenced and changed the course of their lives.
The Advertiser Family. We’ve been connecting our audience with great products for 25 years. I heard an inspirational speech delivered by Paul Harvey at an NAB Convention many years ago. He said radio should stop apologizing for running ads. We should instead be proud of every ad we run, and the great job we do bringing customer and client together. Wow. So who knew that after 25 years every one of our endorsement clients would want to keep me, Spike, and Joe as celebrity spokesmen? But that’s what’s happened.
Our Broadcaster family. When you work in one market for four different broadcast groups on three radio stations, with six program directors, seven market managers, and roughly nine corporate VP regionals (some of them were literally one-night stands), you know everybody and everybody knows you. Change is the only constant. Yet the more things change, the more they stay the same. In the end, we’re all a family, and it’s all about relationships.
Tomorrow, Bob talks about Twisted Tunes, his show’s community efforts, his family, and what’s next. He put a lot of time into responding to my questions, so please feel free to leave any comments you have.
From on-air stunts to creating a franchise like Twisted Tunes to life-changing charitable activities, Bob’s impact is a college-level course for fledgling air personalities.
What About Bob? Part 2
Yesterday, outgoing Seattle morning star Bob Rivers talked about his career path and his three families in what’s turned out to be a revealing exit interview. Bob’s career exemplifies all those old school values – hard work, a belief in the team, a commitment to the community, and an understanding of what’s important.
Of course, it wasn’t easy, and in today’s post, Bob talks about some of his career hallmarks, from his famous on-air marathon in Baltimore to his Twisted Tunes franchise. And of course, there’s the question about what’s next for Bob Rivers.
FJ: Tell us how the parody song format started for you and why has it been so successful? And what’s your favorite Twisted Tune?
BR: I’ve always wanted to be a musician. When I was 5 years-old, my grandfather gave me a transistor radio and an unlimited supply of batteries. He also taught me how to use the phone. I loved hit records and DJs right away, go figure. I started calling request lines and even won a contest! I was on the air live at 5 years-old.
Like many, I got into radio partly to be closer to the music scene. I took a few piano lessons in grade school, and tried to play in a band when I was about 21, but I did suck. Radio was my first love, and musicians need to get their 10,000 hours of practice. So making song parodies for my morning show was a way for me to meet and hire great musicians and record and produce perfect copies of hit records. Truthfully, that was my motivation for recording them so authentically. I could have a radio product that was better than anyone else, and follow my other passion: music.
Song parodies were a great way for a morning show to have impact. People talked about them; eventually we made videos, record albums, syndicated them, and shared with the whole country.
I started with a 4-track, then 8, 16, 24, and Pro Tools. I got my 10,000 hours times three making sounds just like the original and working with musicians. Now, stepping away from the mic for a while, I will be on the road with a band. It’s a great story in itself. Heart By Heart features the original rhythm section from Heart – Mike Derosier on drums (a guy they call the American John Bonham) and Steve Fossen on Bass (cross Paul McCartney with John Paul Jones and you get Steve- melodic punchy rock and roll).
Do I have a favorite? No! I have maybe 100 favorites out of 1,000.
But if you do a Google search on Bob Rivers’ Twisted Tunes, one song comes up first. “What If God Smoked Cannabis?” (Bob’s “twist” on Joan Osborne’s “What If God Was One Of Us?”)
Something I never could have anticipated. Some of our songs have mashups and videos all over the world. We interviewed a girl in the Ukraine who posted a cover of the tune she sang in her bedroom.
There are hundreds of listener-made Twisted Tunes videos from all over the world on YouTube and “Twisted Christmas” is an RIAA Certified gold record on Atlantic, and all told, we’ve sold almost 2 million records with all of the albums combined.
FJ: Your time at 98Rock in Baltimore was punctuated by an on-air marathon that coincided with the Orioles starting the season by losing all those games (11 days?). How big a contributor was that event in your career and why don’t we see more of those moments in radio?
BR: Hmm. I did bring up the nose candy earlier, but that was just a sidebar.
The truth is this was a kind of risk-taking promotion that you just don’t see much of today. This is both good and bad. It’s good because when these things go bad, they can go really bad. Doing something like this today might be considered dangerous. What if the DJ developed a health problem?
Who doesn’t feel empathetic to the Sacramento DJs who thought of the water drinking contest! In Seattle, we did a cheese eating contest on KISW. Yikes. That could have been us. Water is safer than cheese, isn’t it?
On the other hand, in the name of not taking chances, not offending anyone, and not being stupid, we may risk losing something of greater long term value.
Spontaneity.
That Baltimore promotion took all of ten seconds to get approval. Chris Emery, the afternoon guy, suggested it. Chuck DuCoty, the GM, said, “That sounds like fun!” We did it.
FJ: Please talk about the importance of the team. How big a role have they played in your success?
BR: Chemistry is one of those intangibles. You can’t research it. You can only feel it.
Don’t get me wrong, I love research. I happen to think some radio research is very useful. But research is by its nature just a sample, not the whole meal. And when it comes to human emotion, our sample sizes are generally tiny compared to the amount of variables. A team, no matter how it looks on paper, whether it is a musical group, basketball, or radio show can only be great if there is the right combination of love and luck. And this luck usually happens because someone feels it in their “gut” and takes a risk.
I started this business very insecure, wanting to be liked. Like a lot of radio folks I’ve met. I was the facilitator.
At KZOK, I was finally mature enough to embrace and collaborate with all of the talented people in our circle. Guided by the vision of Lisa Decker and the Carey Curelop, the entire radio station was in sync.
Spike and Joe were the devil and angel that sat on my shoulders.
If we were The Wizard of Oz… I was the Scarecrow, Spike was the Lion, and Joe was the Tin Man
Joe cried and we needed the Oil Can on the last day at KJR FM.
Our VP/Programming Keith Cunningham, and Market President Kent Hael, not to mention everyone up the ladder at Clear Channel trusted us for two weeks saying farewell in improv mode. That’s not common these days, but it was made possible by the chemistry of the group we had put together.
Of course, none of this would have been possible without (talent agent) Paul Anderson. Funny story. He and I became friends through a chance meeting when he was a lawyer… and running a dot com startup. I was struck by his limitless optimism and superhuman situational awareness.
I had never used an agent. Didn’t trust them. But my friend BJ Shea needed help doing a deal with Entercom, so I thought “Maybe Paul can help BJ”. Obviously that worked out OK. Little did I know Paul would end up with a Google-like market share of Seattle media talent. Every time I leave a radio station, he brings them a great replacement. You’re welcome Danny Bonaduce. 😉
FJ: A true career highlight? Proudest accomplishment? Maybe something that would surprise people.
BR: Our proudest accomplishment is happening off-air.
Working with World Vision, one relationship at a time, we and our audience have sponsored more than 5,000 children in Africa, Bangladesh, India, and all over the world. At about a dollar a day, and over the course of 8 years, that’s many millions of dollars. It’s education, medicine, community building, well drilling, and real change. Human beings empowered to improve their communities for generations to come.
When you look at mortality rates in the countries we visited, we know statistically that there are at least a few hundred children who didn’t die because of us.
Now I feel less guilty about the nose candy and the cheese eating contest!
FJ: I saw you keynote at Boot Camp back in 2009 and you urged the other personalities in the room to embrace social media to extend their reach and their brands. You were earlier than most. How do you view the digital tools that radio personalities have at their disposal?
BR: A mixed blessing. There’s a lot of dreck out there, and broadcasters haven’t figured out how to separate the clutter and spam from the meaningful, because it’s all changing so fast.
But I see tremendous potential. Eventually, original curated content that emotionally entertains and connects us will create new stars who rise to the top. That’s unstoppable. It’s human nature. We want that.
Also, and you said this at Boot Camp, each one of our listeners has their own following. They are mini broadcasters who can amplify our reach, if we move them to.
Our platforms and what’s on them are still in their infancy. Cable television was around doing mostly reruns or nothing for decades before great programming like the Sopranos and Breaking Bad redefined what a hit drama could be. New digital media, the Internet, or whatever you want to call it, is still in disruption mode. Give it time. Netflix makes TV shows. The Internet will make Radio Stars. Look 
at what Marc Maron has done. Podcasts are kind of like Siberia for radio right now, but just you wait.
What’s good about now is that it’s providing fertile ground for experimentation. Everybody gets to be a broadcaster, even your audience. When something hits, it goes viral and gets big fast.
In the meantime, I’m not really that interested in seeing what you ate for dinner and the latest cute thing a cat did. Or knowing that you’re checking in at a store you shop at.
FJ: Last week, you got the chance to say goodbye to your broadcast radio audience. Many great personalities have moved to Internet radio, satellite radio, podcasting and the like. You’re heading off in a different direction. How come?
BR: I love radio. And I never said I was retiring, but I knew the media would. I’m sure I will do more radio. Someday.
I’m a new grandfather. (Above: Bob and Lisa with Hazel Ray Rivers.) My wife and I are celebrating 33 years together. That’s the exact amount of time I’ve been on morning radio. She deserves a lot of the credit for everything good that has happened, and she deserves more of my time, as do my boys Keith and Andrew.
I’m taking a break, doing music. It’s the second career love of my life. I couldn’t do this and the five day a week talk show without it feeling unhealthy. It’s fun. It’s team building. Playing keys is a skill I can now work on. It’s also about producing music that sounds just like the original, just like Twisted Tunes. Only now my job is to respect these great hits and reproduce them faithfully. Ironically, I’ve spent over 30 years practicing for this. I just didn’t know it.
These guys (Mike Derosier and Steve Fossen) are in the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. It was a bummer when early Heart broke up. Ann and Nancy (Wilson) still tour and are at the top of their game, but today there are so many casinos and fairs looking for great acts that we can all have fun and play for good crowds. And Lisa wants to come with me!
FJ: What’s your best piece of advice for fledgling radio personalities?
BR: Think outside of the transmitter. Notice I didn’t say box. If you get why that was clever, you can do anything.
We wish Bob nothing but success and great times in his new endeavors – both as a musician and a grandfather.
And thanks to former Jacobs Media consultant and Clear Channel VP/Programming, Keith Cunningham, for reconnecting Bob and me.
As I reviewed these posts on this sad day, it all feels like a very long time ago. But as you read Bob’s words, I hope it’s clear you’re channeling the thoughts of one very special person and talent.
And every time feelings of sadness well up when I think about Bob, I hear the “Twisted Tune” that made me laugh OUT LOUD the first time I heard it, and brings a smile to my face today:
“What If God Smoked Cannabis”
Jacobs Media has consistently walked the walk in the digital space, providing insights and guidance through its well-read national Techsurveys.
In 2008, jacapps was launched - a mobile apps company that has designed and built more than 1,300 apps for both the Apple and Android platforms. In 2013, the DASH Conference was created - a mashup of radio and automotive, designed to foster better understanding of the "connected car" and its impact.
Along with providing the creative and intellectual direction for the company, Fred consults many of Jacobs Media's commercial and public radio clients, in addition to media brands looking to thrive in the rapidly changing tech environment.
Fred was inducted into the Radio Hall of Fame in 2018.
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