Posted by Bud on January 24, 2010 at 08:22:53:
DJ carves niche swinging to beat of different ballroom
From this console at WDCB (90.0 FM) radio station in Glen Ellyn, DJ John Russell Ghrist keeps the big band music alive from 5-7 p.m. Saturdays during his Midwest Ballroom show.
During the turbulent 1960s when rebellious teens were spinning the new rock 'n' roll vinyl coming from bands such as the Beatles and the Rolling Stones, John Russell Ghrist ran a pirate radio station out of his parents' home in the south suburbs.
"I wasn't into the rocky stuff. I was playing the easy listening and jazz," Ghrist says, adding that he covered the 1964 election without any of the typical "anti-government" commentary. "The station was in my house. We sounded pretty good. We read the news and did the time and weather."
Nearly a half-century later, Ghrist hasn't changed much. He's still volunteering his time to bring the old Big Band sound to a society where new music has relegated the Beatles and the Stones to oldies stations. Next month will kick off Ghrist's 10th year as the host of the weekly Midwest Ballroom show (from 5-7 p.m. Saturdays) on WDCB, 90.9 FM, the public radio station owned and operated by the College of DuPage in Glen Ellyn.
"He started off with an hour, and we liked it so much we increased it to two hours," says Ken Scott, director of marketing and fundraising for the station, which makes room for that ballroom music in a lineup dominated by jazz. "That's something we are very proud of it. We're the only ones who have got it."
Not only is Ghrist, who goes by his radio name of John Russell on the air, devoted to the genre, he builds his show around local bands and performers.
"I started with a shoebox of CDs from local people. Now it covers the whole wall with shelves of CDs," says Ghrist, who estimates he's played more than 15,000 songs by local artists. "You used to be able to play everybody you got in one hour, and now they are lucky if they get on every couple of months."
He plays selections from local bandleaders and vocalists such as Steve Cooper, Teddy Lee, Ron Smolen, Rich Weiss, Jay Witcher, Dick Gulbrandsen, Seymour Axelrood, Johnnie Kaye, Vito Buffalo, Larry Bemben, Lee Stevens and The Alan Gresik Swing Shift Orchestra. Ghrist says his fan base includes people who remember that music, but also younger people who watch TV's "Dancing With the Stars" or are looking for wedding bands and music.
"He gets a ton of mail. He's the only one doing this, and people really appreciate that he's keeping this music alive," Scott says.
"It's in my blood. I've never played popular music," says Ghrist, who has worked for 15 radio stations during his career.
"At one point I was working for five stations at once," says Ghrist, who supplemented his radio "hobby" on stations in Elgin, Geneva and beyond by working 19 years as a dispatcher for the Illinois Department of Transportation in Schaumburg. He even did traffic congestion reports on the radio as "the voice of IDOT."
"People would hear me and say, 'Hey, you should be on radio,'" Ghrist says. "And I was."
As part of his Midwest Ballroom program, Ghrist also includes a history lesson about what was going on in the world when a particular song was popular. Currently unemployed, Ghrist lives in Rockford now and drives to Glen Ellyn to record each weekly episode of Midwest Ballroom. He figures he puts about 30 hours of work into each show.
"I am the only Big Band-disc jockey in Chicago now, which is sad," says Ghrist, who turns 61 in February. "They can't get their music played anyplace else."
He volunteers so much time because he loves that old music so much better than today's music.
"I'm just not into the wild guitars and the beating drums. I'm into the melody," Ghrist says. "When you pull up to the traffic signal and the car next to you is vibrating, that's not my style. I'm playing local people who are keeping the music alive."