Radio
Donald Fagen visits my K-ROCK show late 1980s.
Hey there groovy guys and gals! Let’s step into the Way, Way, Way Back Machine!
Okay. I never said “groovy guys and gals” when I was a DJ. But I said plenty of ridiculous things. Even more ridiculous things as a voiceover talent. I’ll spare you.
It all started with a guy. Of course.
I was 16, a clueless Miami hippie, with a mad crush on Criteria recording engineer and producer Karl Richardson. Karl would go on to work on many classic albums, including a little one you may have heard of called Saturday Night Fever. Hanging at Criteria released a dormant jones in me for cold studios, hot multi-track tape recorders, and dozens of faders and bouncing V.U. meters.
Wanting to speak Karl’s language, I enrolled at Miami-Dade South Community College and started hanging out at the “radio station.” Back then, it was a P.A. system broadcasting to the snack machines. When the student running WMDS refused to let me be a DJ because “Chicks can’t do Top 40 radio” I added “disc jockey” to my techno geek aspirations.
I’d been raised in a conservative home (father a retired Marine lieutenant colonel) and was rather introverted until I realized I could talk to anyone if I was speaking into a microphone.
In December of 1977, I became the first female DJ on South Florida’s #1 hit music station, Y-100. The station already had JoJo Kincaid on the air so I couldn’t use Jo. Nor could I think of a real fake name (or fake real name?). My boss and mentor, Bill Tanner, suggested I call myself Madame Midnight until I came up with something.
I was soon moved to the noon-3pm shift (one of the first females in the country doing Top 40 in the daytime), and became The Madame. With a name that was obviously made-up it was much easier to be outrageous. And people remembered it. In a medium you can’t see, where ratings rely entirely on listeners’ recall, it served me well.
Karl, however, remained unimpressed.
There are more airchecks on my Soundcloud page. Each station is under Playlists.
Bee Gees Special. This aired on Y-100 October 6, 1979, before their sold-out show at Miami Stadium that would wrap-up the Spirits Having Flown tour. Jimmy Carter was President and America was in the throes of an oil crisis. Inflation was in the double digits. Public confidence was reeling. Saturday Night Fever was still huge. It would stay on the charts from January 1978 until March 1980. This interview was run commercial-free with no station I.D.s. What other station could you possibly be listening to but Y-100? Produced by Alan “Herr” Leininger. New introduction recorded June 20, 2011.
Michael Jackson, circa the “Off the Wall” LP, 1980. It was a bad phone connection. I was too intimidated to ask him if I could call him back. I figured we could “fix it in the mix” (the last words a sound engineer wants to hear). Bill Tanner, my boss, yelled at me later, “You should have called him back!” Oh, well.
One interview I wish I had was the one I did with singer/songwriter Bobby Caldwell (“What You Won’t Do For Love”) on Valentine’s Day, 1979. Probably for the best. I was already smitten and probably sounded like a fool. Within five months we were engaged. We were together five years.
I-95/WINZ-FM South Florida. 1982-1984. The “Up and at ’em with the Madame” glory days
From January 1983 to July 1984 I was the morning show host on I-95 (WINZ-FM), a first for a woman in that time slot in South Florida. Rounding out the “Up and at ‘em with the Madame!” show was wise-cracking Jeff DeForrest doing news/sports/traffic and George Streapy producing. I had a great time – even if I had to get up at 4 a.m. and pretend I wasn’t remotely stressed out. After beating my direct competition, Y-100, I asked for a raise and was fired. I was replaced with Don Cox (famous for handing out Cox Sucker lollipops to his nubile fans). The firing from I-95 was a blessing. I was soon offered my dream job: DJ-ing in the Big Apple.
The flamboyant radio personality and consultant Sunny Joe White brought me to WKTU when it was located at 92.3 FM on the radio dial (it’s now at 103.5 FM). It had lost its disco heyday bragging rights as the city’s number one station due when the new kid in town, Z100, pulverized it rather quickly. Co-hosting the morning show with the hilarious Jay Thomas, then doing my own show after, was fun while it lasted.
K-ROCK/WXRK, New York City, July 13,1985-November 1991
On July 13, 1985, WKTU vanished. 92-3 K-ROCK was born in its place. Eventually Howard Stern would reign over mornings and begin his steady ascent to “The King of All Media.” At first, my show followed his. Management thought “The Madame” was too “hit radio”; I needed a hipper, more rock and roll name. I became “The Rock and Roll Madame.”
A big shot at Rolling Stone magazine once told me their typical reader starts subscribing in college and stops around age 32. They just don’t care what Bruce Springsteen or U2 had for lunch anymore. When I reached that age, neither did I.
In the fall of 1991, I started the Executive M.B.A. program at Columbia University and quit being a D.J. For good, I thought.
Z100/WHTZ, New York City, 1995-2003
When program director Steve Kingston first asked me to join hit radio Z100 — one of the best stations on the planet — I said no. But DJs have a mental filter that views everything as material. Over and over I thought, Can I use this on the radio? If the answer was yes, I’d pretend in my head I was on the air. It was clear I had to be on Z100. I was also finally able to use my name, Jo Maeder, on the air. No more Madame.
My last show was in January 2003 when the #1 song in America was Eminem’s “Lose Yourself.” I moved to North Carolina to care for my declining “Mama Jo.” By losing “DJ Jo” I found a new me, and home.