Biography

“I grew up a misfit,” Jo Maeder says. “I wasn’t a square peg. I was an octagonal one.” Her father was a retired Marine Lt. Colonel and “Mama Jo” was obsessed with dolls. It would later remind her of a John Waters movie, but at the time she just wanted to flee. “I suppose having those dolls watching my every move prepared me for a life as a performer. I was used to a captive audience.”

Like a lot of radio people who were outcasts growing up, once Jo spoke into a microphone she was never the same. “I was very shy around most people. A microphone gave me permission to speak to anyone. Being called ‘The Madame’ (later “The Rock and Roll Madame” on K-ROCK in New York City) let me be someone else.”

As a DJ, Jo is renowned from her years on South Florida’s Y-100 and I-95 (“Up and at ‘em with The Madame”), and New York’s WKTU, K-ROCK, and Z100. She also co-hosted a home improvement talk show on WABC without any knowledge of the subject. She has interviewed celebrities from Bob Marley to Michael Jackson to the Bee Gees. Her encounter with James Brown on Z100 is in the Paley Center for Media, as is her former K-ROCK show devoted to Bob Dylan, “Knockin’ on Dylan’s Door.” Her “Rock and Roll Madame” changeovers with Howard Stern are among the many highlights of her radio career.

In time, Jo grew bored of “The Madame” act. She left radio to earn an M.B.A. at Columbia University. “I felt like a groundhog coming out of her hole after a long winter. A whole new world opened up to me.” She grew her voiceover business and fell in love with writing. With her insatiable curiosity, it was a perfect fit.

Jo’s books include the bestselling memoir endorsed by Maya Angelou  When I Married My Mother: A Daughter’s Search for What Really Matters – and How She Found It Caring for Mama Jo, the travel adventure Opposites Attack: A Novel with Recipes Provencal, and the satirical roman a clef Naked DJ. Her latest is non-fiction and co-written with her father 33 years after he passed. Zerk ‘Em and Pull the Push Rods: A Wry Squint at Aviation in the Mid-20th Century has quite a story behind the story and has received ringing endorsements from author and aviator Clyde Edgerton and Space Shuttle Commander and pilot Robert “Hoot” Gibson. Her essays have appeared in The New York Times, Vanity Fair, More and Dame among others. She holds bragging rights to Best Cookie and Best Overall Yummy Treat at the Oak Ridge Country Fair. The winning recipe is in the paperback and e-book versions of When I Married My Mother.

In 2018, she experienced a medical miracle. It was accidentally discovered she had a rare non-cancerous tumor in one of her adrenal glands. Only about 100 pheochromocytoma cases are reported each year in the U.S. It was churning out ten times too much adrenalin on and off for, perhaps, decades. Once removed, “Life became so much easier! It was like I was living with high tension power lines inside me and thought it was normal.” With a new lease on life, she became a licensed auctioneer for Custom Benefit Auctions, specializing in charity galas. She traveled all over the United States raising money for great causes. Then came the pandemic. She married and re-focused her life. Jo now lives quietly in North Carolina with her mathematician husband, writes, and is looking forward to traveling again.