Chapter 13

Jason stood before the WNLX stage at the Summer Blast fairgrounds. Aja was on stage singing a gospel number. The Master of Ceremonies, one of the radio station’s daytime talk show hosts, stepped beside her. “Ladies and gentlemen,” he announced, “a big round of applause for Aja Morgan!”

Aja bowed and replaced the microphone on its stand. She stepped backstage and shortly Jason spotted her coming from behind the structure. He waved to catch her attention and she sprinted to him. They embraced and he lifted her off her feet. “How did I do?” she asked.

“You sounded great,” he replied.

“Really?”

“Absolutely. You have an amazing solo voice, Aja. Are you interested in sticking around? Hearing any of the other acts or looking at the bazaar? Grabbing a snack?”

“I want to go back to the condo and do some laundry,” she replied, “before my eight o’clock gig.”

“Okay. With our passes we can come and go as we wish.” They headed, hand in hand to the bus stop where a special shuttle for the fair was running. They rode the bus to the intermodal station where they transferred to the line that went past her condo.

“Did you really think I was good?” she asked.

“Like I said, you’ve never sounded better.”

“The crowd seemed a bit ... unenthusiastic.”

“It’s early in the day. Tonight the crowd will be larger, drunker and thus more enthusiastic.”

“Do you think maybe they didn’t care for my material?”

Jason closed his eyes and drew in a breath. “Now that you mention it ... I think we’d be better off if you did pop tunes instead of gospel.”

“Gospel is what I know best. Derrick coaches me on the gospel numbers.”

“And, you nail them. The trouble is ... this is Summer Blast, not church. I think we have a mis-match between your material and your audience. It’s my mistake, Aja. We should’ve spent some time programming your performance.”

“I don’t know how to program a performance,” she replied. “I just know how to sing.”

“I know something about programming. When I was with the campus radio station, I hosted an hour-long oldies show every day. The station had some rules-of-thumb ... Don’t play two slow numbers in a row; don’t play two female vocalists in a row ... Well, that one doesn’t count in your case. What pop songs do you know that you’d feel comfortable performing on stage?”

“Most of what I know best are the songs my sister and I used to goof off to.”

“Like, Iko Iko?”

“Yeah, and some Supremes.”

“Supremes?”

“‘You Keep Me Hangin’ On’ for example.” Aja began snapping her fingers. “Set me free, why don’t you babe ... You know.”

“I know that song by Vanilla Fudge -- from my oldie’s program.”

“That’s funny,” she said. “I know the chocolate version and you know the vanilla one.”

“Let’s stop at the radio station and run through some things. I’ll bet we can put together a program for tonight that’ll be a killer. Laundry isn’t that urgent, is it?”

“It’s pretty urgent if you want clean underwear for tomorrow. I guess it can wait a little while.”

“This route goes past the station, right?”

“Right, it’s coming up”

Aja pulled the stop request cord and they headed to the radio and TV station. Jason punched a code into a combination lock on the rear, employees’ entrance and they headed for the radio control rooms.

Jason stepped into Control Room A and saw a lanky lad with long hair and a scraggly goatee sitting at the console. He turned around. “Well, hello Jay-Son.”

“Hello Art-Thur.”

“What brings you here on a fine Saturday afternoon, Jay-Son?”

“I want to use Control Room B, Art-Thur ... Unless you have a need.”

“Go right ahead, Jay-Son.”

“By the way, this is my girlfriend Aja Morgan.”

Arthur stood and faced them. “Pleased to meet you.”

“Same here,” Aja replied. She followed Jason into the secondary control room and he closed the door.

“That was Arthur Billings,” Jason said.

“Is he another intern?”

“No -- he’s a floater. He started as an intern a few years ago. As a floater his schedule ... floats. He covers weekends on radio and is a stage hand for the morning talk shows on TV. When one of the regular staff takes holiday or vacation time, he fills in.”

“There’s no studio here,” Aja remarked.

“There’s an announcer’s booth. This is where I record Jake’s news program every day. There’s also a boom mic over the console. Deacon Jones does his daily ag report show here. He’s a combo DJ.”

“What’s that mean?”

“He’s radio talent who spins his own platters.” Jason sat at a console and brought up the recordings he had made of her. “Let’s take inventory. We have ‘Today’ and ‘Heroes’, both of which you absolutely nailed. Could you do those on-stage?”

“Yeah, I think so.”

“What about what other songs you sing at weddings?”

“That’s mostly Christian stuff, hymns and the like. I also know songs like ‘You Light Up My Life’...”

Jason regarded her. “Uhn-uhn. Do you have anything else the calibre of ‘Today’? Any love ballads?”

“It’s been a while since I did a wedding. I don’t do them that often.” She rolled her eyes in thought. “Probably nothing you’d think was appropriate for a gig like this.”

“Any contemporary artists? Katy Perry, Beyonce...”

“None that I feel comfortable performing. The songs I know well are the gospel numbers and the ones I sang with my sister.”

“It’s a half-hour set. If we budget five minutes per song, we need six numbers. Let’s start with ‘Today’. Then, we need something up-tempo to follow. Is there any way you could do Iko Iko as a solo? I mean, sing the melody line and improvise something for the call-and-response?”

She started snapping her fingers and then stopped. “I need a mic -- a hand-held one.”

“That’s no problem.” Jason opened an equipment locker and retrieved a hand-held microphone. “I’ll patch it in and we’ll record a bit so you can hear what it sounds like.”

“Okay...”

“Let me get set up...” He typed on a keyboard. “Rolling...” He cued her with his finger.

Aja sang the first stanza and refrain, holding the mic close for the call part and away for the response part to simulate an echo. “Let’s see how that sounds.”

Jason played the segment and Aja smiled. “Sounds good to me,” he said.

“Yeah ... Better than I thought it would.”

“If we could add the tambourine somehow, I think we’d have a winner. So we’ve got ‘Today’ and ‘Iko Iko’. What could we put next?”

“How about ‘You Keep Me Hangin’ On’?” She suggested and held up the mic.

“Let’s give it a shot. Rolling.” He cued her and she began. Jason made a slashing motion across his throat. “Cut.”

“What’s wrong?”

“It sounds too much like the Supremes version.”

“It’s how I learned it -- from listening to my mom and dad’s records.”

“Or, maybe your grandparents’ records ... Aja -- do you realize the two songs you really made your own were both originally recorded by male vocalists?”

“That makes sense -- I don’t have a man’s range.”

Jason turned to a computer display. “I want you to hear the Vanilla Fudge version. I’m checking to see if the station has a copy. I’d be surprised if we don’t ... We do. It’s in the Vinyl Vault. I’ll go get it.”

Jason stepped out of Control Room B. “Where ya goin’ now, Jay-Son?” Arthur asked.

“Down to the Vinyl Vault, Art-Thur...”

Jason returned with the LP. He took a dust cover off of one of the turntables and patched it into the mixer board.

Aja picked up the sleeve and looked it over. “Why would this station have a copy of this?”

“When WNLX FM first went on the air in the early seventies, the format was AOR -- album-oriented rock. We kept that format until the mid eighties when we switched to Easy Listening, our current format -- softer pop artists like Katy Perry, Adele, maybe some Sting. It’s office listening music.”

“Background music,” she added.

“Exactly. This station never throws anything away, and we still get DJ copies from labels in hope for some airplay. Now, take a listen...” He slipped the vinyl disc from its sleeve, set it on the turntable and placed the tone arm on the groove. “There...”

“What’s with the intro with sitar and all?”

“This was considered an acid rock band in the day. It’s supposed to sound psychedelic.”

“It doesn’t go at all with the song.”

“Just wait ‘til the intro is over and they start singing.”

“That organ sounds like the one at church.”

Jason looked at the record sleeve. “It’s a Hammond B-3. It is like the one at your church.”

The vocals began and Aja listened, slack jawed. “They’re singing at half tempo at most,” she remarked. “Maybe even slower.”

“I read an interview with one of the members of this band. He said what they were doing was to listen to the lyrics and try to set them to a tempo and vocal approach that matched what the lyrics were saying. The Supremes version is very up-tempo and happy sounding, almost bubble-gum. If you pay attention to the lyrics, you’ll know it’s not a happy song.” He lifted the tone arm. “Aja -- try making it your own. Instead of routing the lyrics from your memory to your vocal chords, patch them through your cerebral cortex. Think about the meaning and tailor your delivery accordingly.”