10-4 Magazine - For Today's Trucker

MAY 2007 TRUCKER TALK
FINDING NEMO: FROM AM TO XM
By Writers and Owner Operators Rod & Kim Grimm

If you used to listen to Dave Nemo and The Road Gang on AM radio and wonder where he went, you can find him, along with Michael Burns and Marcia Campbell (America’s Trucking Sweetheart), on XM Channel 171 Open Road. You can enjoy the information, music and entertainment without interruption across the country. Dave broadcasts Monday through Friday, while Michael and Marcia team up for Saturday’s show, and then Marcia handles the Sunday program by herself. The advent of satellite technology has changed the way we listen to the radio – the days of searching for a new station every couple hours as you drive are long gone – but through it all, Dave Nemo has remained a constant.

Starting as a science project at Loyola University in New Orleans, the AM station WWL 870 was born in 1922. It was sold in 1992, and since then, this 50,000 watt “clear signal” frequency station has grown to include 105.3 FM and, after Hurricane Katrina, WWL OnDemand at 1350 AM. It covers five states during the day and the entire central U.S. (30 plus states) at night. It truly is the “Voice of the Gulf South.”

In 1972 Dave Nemo joined Charlie Douglas and the Road Gang at WWL 870 AM. They were on the air from midnight to 5:00 AM, broadcasting one of the first trucking radio shows ever created. In those days, when a driver wanted to call in, it wasn’t just punching redial on their cell phone – they had to stop, find a payphone (good luck in the hunt for one of those today), and then keep calling until they got through. Truckers often made requests, gave road reports or talked about the events happening at the time. A lot of the same issues they spoke of back then are the same topics truckers talk about today – stuff like hours of service, fuel prices, taxes and pay. The only difference today is that we have access to so much more information.

Trucking music was big back then in the 1970s. Names like C.W. McCall, Red Sovine, Dave Dudley, Red Simpson, just to name a few, were popular artists of the day. Popular trucking songs included Convoy, Wolf Creek Pass, Nitro Express, Hello I’m a Truck, Six Days on the Road and Phantom 309. The song Drive this Rig to Glory is just as telling today as it was back then (just change listening to 8 tracks to listening to CD’s).

In the early days of trucking radio, it was frustrating to try and listen to the shows while driving across the country because every couple hours (or less) you’d lose the signal – and it always seemed to be right when the punch line of a joke was being told. Dave told me that he could get a lot of mileage out of a joke, because so many listeners would miss the end.

Between 1992 and 2000 the radio station (WWL 870) was sold eleven times – once a company only owned it one day before it was sold again the next. In 2000, Dave was fired. That was when he decided to be independent. In 2001 he joined some AM stations as an affiliate and continued to broadcast at night. By February of 2002, he had started broadcasting on XM satellite radio – he would record his live show on the AM stations at night and then they would be rebroadcast on XM the next morning. Then in June of 2003, he went live on XM from 6:00 AM to 11:00 AM. The switch to XM live has been great, but doing those old late-night shows was a special time for Dave and he remembers them fondly.

Before going on the radio, Michael Burns was a cop, a sales rep for Kwikset, a sales rep for a computer company and then a truck driver. He ran from Nashville to New York because he liked it – the people in New York City were so patient. “They’d give you one shot to get in a dock, and then they’d start yelling and honking their horns,” he said. Where better to hone your driving skills than New York City? Michael loved the skill side of the job. But he still wanted to go home and pursue his first love, which was song writing.

Working on his music career, Michael got the opportunity to produce an album. As a co-writer of three songs on an MCA Records album, “Truckers Christmas” he met with Dave Nemo to be interviewed on the show. They later became friends at a truck show when Dave asked Michael’s wife Mary Kay to help line up song writers for the Song Writer’s Hour they were featuring on the show. About that time, Kevin Gaskin, the weekend guy, was leaving, which gave Michael an opportunity to become part of the show.
Dave and Michael became business partners about the time of the transition from AM to XM. When I asked Michael about that time he said, “We looked at it like jumping off the high board before checking for water in the pool.” To them, XM radio “made sense and we believed in it.” I think they found a full pool of water with the XM format.

If you listen to Dave Nemo, you can tell that he believes that all drivers are entitled to their opinions. I’ve always thought that Dave has been fair, giving drivers a place to “get up on their soapbox” about a variety of issues – and you don’t hear vulgar language on his show, which I think is good. Michael told me, “We made a decision to always take the high road, and if we make a mistake, we own up to it.” He also added, “Don’t let your head get too big when things go right.” That’s a good philosophy to have in trucking, too, working with all your dispatchers, shippers and receivers.

Marcia started dancing when she was six years old, going to her first competition in South America for a Folk Festival United Nations Dance. She square danced and clogged. She’s danced on recordings by artists like Dolly Parton, Ricky Skaggs and Leland Martin. Look for the new CD “Soldiers Joy” by Everett Lilly & Everybody and Their Brother, which is the latest recording she’s participated in. To dance on these recordings, she uses a piece of plywood and her tap shoes.

Growing up backstage at the Grand Ole Opry, Marcia started dancing there when she was twelve years old. She told me that she was blessed to be a stay-at-home mom and, in 1992, while listening to her hometown radio station WDKN 1260 AM, she realized that they only played country – no bluegrass. Going to the station to discuss this matter, she found the music programmer was an old friend from school. That led to her own two-hour program called The Mule Skinner Bluegrass Show. It was named after Bill Monroe’s first Opry song.

In 1995, Marcia was hired on an overnight syndicated radio trucking show on Interstate Radio Network, working across the hall from Dave Nemo, who was working on the Road Gang program. Both shows were owned by the same company. Eventually, she joined Dave and the two have been working together ever since. Marcia told me, “I have so much respect for Dave – he’s my mentor.” Marcia loves to do research and find the quirky and crazy things in life to lighten up the mood while on the air. Marcia and Michael have a great on-air relationship that not only informs drivers, but entertains them as well. She says that Michael is like a brother to her and that the two of them have a mutual respect for each other. And just a few weeks ago, on April 5th, she became Marcia Thomas, marrying Billy Thomas who plays drums and sings for Vince Gill. Congratulations Marcia!

Dave has put together a great team to provide drivers with not only entertainment, but the show has grown to include several informative segments as well. The lineup is as follows: Monday: The Insurance Dr. Terry Burnett at 10:06; Tuesday: Higher Roads with CPA’s Kent Smith or Jack Milligan at 8:06 and Tech Talk with TMC with Robert Braswell, the Technical Director with TMC; Wednesday: Truckers Accountant with CPA John Turner at 8:06, then Dave visits with Max from Fikes at 9:20 (always an upbeat segment); On the 1st Wednesday every month, Dave spends half an hour with Volvo trucks featuring different guests talking about future technology; The 3rd Wednesday of every month features Truck Specing 101 and an hour with Volvo; Every other Thursday features ATRI on the air with the American Transportation Institute at 8:06; Doug McElheny with Forward Air comes in to visit once a month and Tim Ridley with Marten Transport co-hosts from 9:00-11:00 on the second or third Thursday of each month. My favorite is Rockin’ Road Friday – I really enjoy all the old rock n roll tunes. The Road Athlete with Mark Everest is featured daily. Another daily feature is Heaven’s Road with Chaplin Joe Hunter. Mixed in with all of this are listener’s calls, trucker’s chuckles, music and talk about what’s happening that day.

All of this couldn’t be possible without the sponsors! Dave would like to thank them all for their continued support, including Volvo Trucks, Centramatic Balancers, DuraLite, Fikes Truck Line, Forward Air, Grand Rock Systems, Gulf Coast Filters, Marten Transport, Lucas Oil, and Berger Transportation Solutions (the official mover of Nemoville).

The next time you are online, check out Dave’s website at www.davenemo.com. On the site, you can read more about Dave, Michael and Marcia and see their pictures. While there, be sure to click on their musical friends and visit their websites. Information is updated regularly, including bills that affect trucking and other trucker interests. The way the site is set up, you can easily e-mail Dave (or whoever happens to be on the air at that time).

AM is the trucker’s radio of yesterday. XM is the trucker’s radio of today and the future. It’s hard to believe that you can listen to the same station across the country without losing the signal. I can’t even imagine going back to the days when you had to hunt for a new channel every 50-100 miles. Sometimes it’s nice to be spoiled, and XM radio does that.

If the merger between XM and Sirius goes through, the variety of shows will increase even more. XM already offers traffic and weather for major U.S. cities, commercial-free music for all tastes, news, sports, and for us lady drivers, Take 5 (channel 155) and Oprah & Friends (channel 156). XM is to radio what cable was to TV ten or fifteen years ago. At that time, cable offered so much more than regular TV, and satellite radio is doing the same thing now.

Some days you might wonder if it really is better now than it was back then – yea, it is! If you haven’t yet stepped up to a satellite radio, get with it – you won’t be disappointed – and you won’t have any problem “finding Nemo” again.