Vicki van Dyke - For me, life at The WAVE is perfect. It doesn't get any better than working at a radio station where you love the people that you work with and you love the format of the music that you play. For us at The WAVE to be Canada's first Smooth Jazz station and for me to have been there right from its inception from before day one in terms of a radio gig it's dreams come true time for this girl.

John - The format is still really in its infancy in Canada but how do you look at the future of the format.

Vicki - Well, what we are finding here at The WAVE is that as people find out who we are and what it is that we do they are very loyal. I use to work Country radio and the country fans are loyal to the end. I am finding that Smooth Jazz fans are the same and once they find you and once they discover you they are completely dedicated to listening to you. I think that people who listen to AC radio and other formats have a tendency to jump around a lot. Where as I think the people who are discovering Smooth Jazz are getting hooked on it and what works in our favor is that the Smooth Jazz listener as a rule is a very upscale kind of listener. We are talking about well educated and well informed people. So, even if you don't get these big numbers you get loyal numbers of people with money to spend and a very specific demographic, which is very appealing to certain advertisers.

John - And they will give you long hours tuned.

Vicki - Exactly and what I found is that I use to be a radio jumper and I was always in the car pressing buttons. Then the WAVE came along and all of a sudden I found myself not pressing buttons anymore. It is just the vibe that comes from Smooth Jazz that I appreciate. Even though I have been in radio now for fifteen years I think of myself as a musician first because I was a musician first. I still am very able to listen to radio from a musical standpoint as opposed to a disc jockey standpoint where the whole process is putting together a good radio show. I do that as well but I still very much enjoy radio for the music and so I enjoy listening to a station like The WAVE that plays incredible Smooth Jazz. I think that we have really tweaked our music and we are still in the process of tweaking it to find the right balance between vocals and instrumentals and familiar tunes, new tunes and new artists. It is the familiarity that is initially going to grab a new listener, a new Smooth Jazz fan. Then as they listen as I have listened over the past three years you will get to know the Boney James, the Rick Braun's and the Mindi Abair's and the people that would not necessarily brought you to the format in the first place because you don't know who they are.

John - One of the things I have always liked about being in this format like you said is I would listen to my own radio station non-stop.

Vicki - I will honestly say that when I worked Country and I love Country music and I love Classical and Pop and Heavy Metal. I also love traditional Jazz and Rhythm and Blues and just a lot of different styles of music which is maybe why it was difficult for me to find one radio station that would please my palate. But when I worked Country I got my fill of Country songs during my five hour show and I didn't listen to Country at all apart from that. Now I find that I have The WAVE on all the time and I either listen to that or CD's or the odd time if there is a crisis going on in the world I will tune into 680 news just to get that little news it but that's it. (Laughing)

John - I like the fact in Smooth Jazz that announcers don't shout out at you. I like to wake up in the morning and I like to listen to someone that is waking up or sounds like they are waking up with me or sounding like a real human being at least.

Vicki - I think there is a vibe that has to go along with the entire Smooth Jazz sound and that is something we are muddling through here at The WAVE now. We don't have the huge numbers and we are getting more and more national advertisers but we have a lot of local spots that are produced in house or spots that are provided to us by the clients. We get emails from our listeners that will actually say," That spot from that client or customer irritates the crap out of me" because it totally breaks the mood of the radio station. You get some guy coming on doing a hard sell either screaming or yelling or some twangy guitar playing in the background or whatever and it totally breaks the mood. We are realizing that the offices, the businesses that are tuning into The WAVE are tuning into us because we provide them with a very specific vibe that they want in their environment. We have to make sure that the vibe comes from all areas and not just the music but from the announcers and from the commercial sets and our jingle package. Everything we do has to buy into that vibe or else you are negating your own purpose right there.

John - In 1986 that is the first thing I learned about this format and that was the first thing that hit me in the side of the head and it hurt because when I started doing this I didn't have any ratings. There was no one there and I took over for a beautiful music station and started doing this half New Age and half Smooth Jazz and I had to deal with all the spots. It never occurred to me at all that somehow I would have a problem with that. We had major problems with that because it turned out that all the spots were very loud. We got so many complaints with the spots where as no one was complaining about the music they loved that. So, yes it is a big deal.

Vicki - What is funny which I find about that is there is no other format where I have ever heard people complaining about the advertising. Like I said before you have really intelligent, well educated listeners and they know what they want and they know what they don't want and they know they have a right to tell us. They have a right to ask us and they have a right to express their opinion and they do whether it is on our website or guest book or just an email. Bob in the morning and Gary in the afternoon they are both totally just smooth guys but they are not smooth robots. That is one thing I hate which is a robot personality. You know a lot of radio stations especially the over consulted ones now have gone to liner radio where all the jock can do is read what is in from of them and there is so little spontaneity and so little personality involved. What I like about the jocks at The WAVE is that even though they are very smooth they have their own distinct personalities.

John - And they are still talking to you. When people are overly consulted they sound like robots because they are not talking to you they are just reading to you. Hey, what are you drinking there, is that a beer (laughing)?

Vicki - No (laughing) it is a glass of iced cold water.

John - I always thought this Vicki Van Dyke drinks beer at 10am kind of thing. (laughing)

Vicki - (laughing)I don't even drink beer anymore. I use to love a glass now and then but now I am just a straight wine drinker.

John - You're all grown- up.

Vicki - Yeah, I am all grown-up now. I was drinking beer when I was working Country radio and now I am in Smooth Jazz and drinking wine. (laughing)

Vickie - Well, you know we have a huge pool of amazing Smooth Jazz talent in Southern Ontario and Eddie Bullen is certainly one of them. Eddie Bullen is a fantastic musician and producer and gets involved in a lot of other interests other than just his own stuff. So it is great to have him around but my personal favorite is Chris Smith. I love Chris and he has a new CD and he called me up and Greg Cavanaugh is producing Chris's new CD. Anyways, I have always been a huge fan and a great supporter of Chris's stuff and they said the wanted to play me some stuff so I invited them over for dinner. They played nine new tracks, all of which are fantastic and we sat around my dining room table and jammed. It was just great, we got out the guitars and Chris is the type of guy that will play anytime and anywhere. He loves making music so much and it is such an affair of the heart for Chris. I was just in Nashville and I was visiting my friend who lives down there and she works for William Morris and she had a "guitar pull." Do you know what that is?

John - No.

Vickie - I just love that term "guitar pull." It's where all of these song writers get together and pull out their guitars and play the new stuff that they have been writing. So, the first night I was there my friend she had a guitar pull in her back yard and we are talking the crème de la crème of national songwriters. You know the people who have written for George Strait and Allan Jackson and Faith Hill. So it is a lot of high powered talent. I get there and I am fresh off the plane and she introduces me to this one fella and there is nobody else there and he's got his guitar and I say, " Hey, play me one of your songs" and he said, "No, I have to wait until everybody else gets here." I was trying to coax him to play just one song and it didn't even have to be his best. I asked this guy how many songs he had written and he said, "Well, I have written thousands and I have had one hundred cuts or whatever." So I say, "Okay, then just pick one." He wouldn't play a song for me and do you know why?

John - Why?

Vickie - I wasn't a big enough audience. He had to wait for everybody else to get there. I am thinking, "Oh, Icky!" Chris is the kind of guy where you ask him to play a song and he will play a song and if you ask him to play an original, he will be even happier. Anytime and anywhere, he just loves music so much which is one of the reasons I love him. Now, Greg I guess has gotten into more of the producing side of things but sure enough my husband has got a bunch of guitars and Greg gets a guitar and starts jamming along with us. After we had done about three or four songs and I was singing and Chris was signing and it was just great. Chris turns to me and says, "You know, this is the first time in twenty years that I have seen Greg pick up a guitar just for fun." So, Chris is just my guy and if I can ever do anything to help his career and to get the word out and what a fantastic singer, songwriter, entertainer and all around person he is I will do that. I love the guys in Monkey House and they have a new project and it is going to be 'the best of' and I believe there will be five new tracks on that one too. So, we are big supporters of them and people like Demo Cates, there are just so many. We are so lucky and do you guys have a lot of talent based there in Calgary?

John - Local stuff is starting to come out of the wood work. Unfortunately, there are a lot of trad people that just play traditional stuff and you can't play these guys because they don't fit the format. Even though they are great, the only traditional stuff we play is Legends of Jazz with Ramsay Lewis but we need to have more of a place for traditional stuff so we are getting a lot of that here. We certainly had a lot of that in Vancouver and not as much in Edmonton but they're there.

Vickie - I find that people find out that I am a musician as well and so I will get a lot of local musician's sending me their stuff asking me what I think. I love doing that and I am always very forth right with anyone who contacts me. I will happily take the time to listen to musicians stuff and critique it as long as they are prepared for brutal honesty. Having been a musician before and when I was recording back in the late 80's and I was recording country rock and I was sort of New Country before New Country even existed. The Music Director's you would talk to them and they would just bullshit here. You know, "Oh, it is on the holds pile and oh, we will look at it again next week."

John - Because they don't have a frickin back bone.

Vickie - For some reason they don't have the ability to tell you the truth and having been on the other side of the fence all I want is the truth. Because you lying to me is certainly not going to serve my career in any way as a musician and if there is no hope in hell of you ever playing my records than tell me that! I won't waste all this money on phone calls or whoever I have hired to promote my records to call you every week to. So, when I do this now with Smooth Jazz artists I say, "You know what, it is good but it is not Smooth Jazz." It is Jazz, it is trad Jazz and we don't play trad Jazz. Then you have to go through the whole thing of if we play Anita Baker and then we play your song and then we play Spyro Gyra, is it going to make sense? Is it going to fit in that run? A couple of years ago everybody was jumping on the Country band wagon and people who had been Pop suddenly decided that maybe if they went Country they would get more airplay. Now I am finding with Smooth Jazz people who were Country perhaps are saying that they will become a Jazz artist but they haven't really taken the time to differentiate between trad Jazz and Smooth Jazz.

John - And some of these people don't have the chops! They certainly don't and to play Jazz you gotta be pretty damn good, especially if you are going to play traditional jazz. I find that as far as Program Directors we need the Program Directors or the Music Directors or the radio people to be honest. I have run into so many people who will phone me up and really think they are unbelievable singers when really they just have a generic type voice. They are just kind of okay and good for Karaoke and they have this false sense of who they are. At some level this is nice because they have been given a lot of positive reinforcement growing up but was it really helping them in the long run. At what point do you tell your nephew or your niece that they have to work more on getting their vocal range going.

Vickie - The average Uncle or Aunt doesn't know that. They are just darn proud of little Betty and that is where the people who are in this business whether it is a Music Director or record label or even a lowly mid-day announcer, that is where we have to level. Because why should little Betty spend countless thousands of dollars in the studio or hours or whatever it takes to try to produce a CD when maybe the material is not there to begin with and the songs are not good enough. Maybe her voice isn't good enough or maybe her band is not good enough or whatever. When people come to me and they want to have my feedback before they've done the finished product because once the product is finished there is not much I can say except it is just not suitable or up to snuff technically or production wise. What I really enjoy is when they come to me with a demo and they say, "These are our songs and this is the direction we are going in, now you tell us because we want to have Smooth Jazz airplay."

John - The fact that they let you hear the demo shows that they are open right off the bat.

Vickie - And that is exactly what Chris Smith just did because Chris he writes a lot of great music and he writes from the heart. For him and Greg to come to me because they are saying, "We want to know how is this going to fit into The Wave." They would obviously love to crack the U.S. market and they didn't have much success with Chris's first CD "Room inside My Heart" which I think is a brilliant and I guess Warren Hill said to Chris, "You know what? You gotta make everything wet. Smooth Jazz is wet you need your sax to be wet and the whole production is wet!" Where as Chris's first CD certainly wasn't raw but I guess it wasn't wet enough.

John - So, I guess he is recording in the shower with the new album. (laughing)

Vickie - Either that or in the pool. (laughing)

John - Yeah, right! One last thing about receiving music and critiquing music is as a pet peeve let me just say when I hear from a musician and right off the top he tells me how perfect his CD is for my format. I can't name how many times that has happened to me where a guy will let me know that, "This is perfect for your format you are going to love this!" Okay, you are giving it to me for me to decide but then I will hear it and it is completely off, it would break the whole flow. That is just one of my personal pet peeves.

Vickie - Well, speaking of that that takes me to one of my personal pet peeves about announcers is when they say, "I have a brand new song by the Rippington's and you're going to love it!" As a listener how the heck do you know what I am going to love? You have no idea what I love and I just might hate the Rippington's. You can't tell me what I love and what I don't love and you sure as heck can't tell me what I am going to love! What you can say is, "I love this track by the Rippington's and I hope you are going to love it too!" That is what you can say and when I hear an announcer try to tell me what I am going to love that just turns me right off. I think that as a disc jockey it is so important that we relate to our listeners but we always have to remember that it is all about our listeners and it is not about us. Our whole purpose in being is to serve them and I don't think we are serving them by telling them what they are going to like. I worked for a great general manager years ago named Keith James and he really knew radio in a very intimate way and taught me a lot about how to relate to an audience. We had this rule of thumb at that radio station that you never said anything about we're gonna give away a trip to Barbados or we're doing this or we're doing that. It was always you are going to have a chance to win this and you are going to have a chance to go on this trip and he was absolutely animate that we always said it that way. Because that puts the listener in the driver's seat then it becomes all about the listener. It is not what we are doing, what we the radio station is doing. It is about you and how you can benefit from us!

John - And that is intimate too and that has the right boundaries that is something I have always enjoyed doing and I always feel good saying that when I talk and it is like you are talking one on one too. Is The Wave still challenging for you?

Vickie - What has been challenging for me is really getting to know the instrumental artists. As a singer I like vocals and the one thing we are doing at The Wave is we are playing more and more vocals and introducing some new and different things which I really enjoy. So again, the challenge for me is getting to know all the instrumental artists and trying to figure out who plays what instruments and how to pronounce their names. I was reading one of your interviews on Porsche Stevens of WNUA in Chicago and she was saying that it is so important to learn how to pronounce all these names because we have to be authoritative when we are on the air and we have to know about this sort of stuff and I actually disagree with that. That may be true like say in Chicago where they have had a station there for a while but I feel that with our listeners it is new to them as well and if I can't pronounce the name I have fun with it. For the longest time when pronouncing Pat Metheny's name I would say Pat Methainy. I got an email from a listener and they said, "It's Metheny rhymes with weany!" (laughing) The email was just a hoot. They weren't angry or malicious, they knew that I was just having fun with it and I am the first to admit I have no clue and I am learning this just the same way you are learning this. That is the thing that works for me as an announcer.

John - I have this saying that, "Any bad joke can be made funny if the right person is saying the joke." For instance if I make a mistake on the air and God knows I have made enough and even if I am sweating inside and if I can laugh at myself and sound convincing and sometimes I am and sometimes I am faking it but if I can do that then all of a sudden people feel comfortable and they think I am in on the joke and that's fine. If you mispronounce something and you are comfortable with that and you don't necessarily make people feel uncomfortable then I think that could work really well. I think like I was telling Porsche that if someone is saying the wrong name and they are sweating bullets and they are uncomfortable maybe they shouldn't be there in the first place. So, I think it depends upon the person. If someone is going on and doing a trad Jazz show and they are mispronouncing a lot of names I think well trad Jazz is a different thing because a lot of their listeners are a little serious about the music, a little too serious!

Vickie - A little too serious and a little too informative and that is my other pet peeve. If you listen to trad stations because they are all quote on quote experts they want to share every bit of information they have ever learned.

John - Yeah, too much information.

Vickie - I don't mind a little shot here and there about something but I am not listening to the radio just to get a degree in Jazz 101. I listen to the radio because it helps me get through my day. If you can give me a little shot of information about an artist or whatever that's great but I don't need their biography. You just have to know when to shut up, you just do.

John - A lot of program Directors don't like to hear this but it is a format that is really great in the background. You can use it in the foreground of course but it is a really fun format to have in the background and sometimes that's what they want, they want music.

Vickie - And I think it comes down to the quality not quantity thing that when I open my mouth I certainly want to let them know who just played and if I have any information about the artist I would like to share that. For me, as a female disc jockey you go on the air and you got this sexy girl radio voice, which I use because no one wants to hear a screechy broad on the air you want to hear some one with a soothing tone. What I can't handle with female disc jockey's where it is all about the voice and that person isn't real because all you are getting is the voice. Holy mackerel aren't I sexy and boy you must really enjoy listening to my voice because God knows I do. (laughing) I mean the reason I do that is the sexy voice gets the men and the fact that I am a complete dofus gets the women. And I probably get more email from female fans than I do from men.

John - Yeah, you just hit on a major thing. I have run into a lot of women who hate the sexy voice women. They don't have time for it because they don't talk to other women like that.

Vickie - When people meet me in person I am exactly the same way in person as I am on the air and that is who I am. One of my favorite expressions is that I am having a blonde moment and I have lots of them!

John - I get the feeling that you don't take yourself too seriously, you are just having fun!

Vickie - And that is my other mandate, I don't take Smooth Jazz too seriously and I don't take radio too seriously because in the grand scheme of the universe there are many more things we should be taking seriously. I think that radio should be a wonderful, relaxing and fun accompaniment to a person's day, especially in mid-day show. Chances are you are already where you are going and you are doing what ever it is you do during the day and you just want a companion. You just want someone who can maybe make you laugh a couple of times, who is going to play some good music and maybe tell you a few things and that's that.

John - Who is your biggest radio hero?

Vickie - I really learned a lot from Aaron Davis at CHFI in Toronto. To me she was the quintessential female morning host. She was very intelligent, she was quick on her feet, very witty, had a beautiful tone to her voice and she wasn't a giggler. There are so many morning sidekicks who are just gigglers. When she was canned in the summer, she had started her own website and she had an email address on there. The one mandate I have in my life is to let people know when they've impacted my life in some way because so often we don't do that. With email now it's just so easy. So I wrote her an email and told her she was the biggest influence on me.

John - Let me ask you what would make radio better?

Vickie - If all radio stations were Smooth Jazz. (laughing) Seriously, I think if disc Jockeys spent more time worrying about what they're going to say as opposed to how they say it.

John - What was the catalyst that got you into radio?

Vickie - I was on the road with my band, I had some country records out and whatever town we were in I'd go out and do interviews at the local radio station. Once a guy told me after we were done and said, "God, you give good mic!" (laughing) He told me that if I ever give up singing I should get into radio. So when I gave up the road I thought of that guy who said I gave good mic. (laughing)

John - What was the best interview you've ever done with an artist?

Vickie - Garth Brooks because he was the most approachable, down to earth, self deprecating, fun, caring musician I have ever met. I have tons of respect for him as a human being and respect for him as an artist. I've met a lot of people who were doing it because they had to.

John - Tell me about the worse interview you've ever done?

Vickie - Probably the worse interview I've ever done was with an up and coming young Canadian girl in country music and she couldn't put three words together. I talked to her after the interview and was honest and told her she was a terrible interview. I told her if she was going to stay in this business she was going to have to learn to do media.

John - How did she respond?

Vickie - She said, "Thank you so much for telling me that." At the time she was eighteen.

John - Do you like the P.R. side of radio, the remotes, and the introducing of bands on stage?

Vickie - I love it. I love getting out and meeting our listeners. I can't deny it and I love being on stage. The only thing I hate about being a mc at a concert is I always want to sing. (laughing)

John - What's the best part of the job for you?

Vickie - That's easy. Listening to the music as music is such a huge part of my life.

John - Vickie, this has been a lot of fun. I always enjoy our chats.

Vickie - I do too, it's been fun. Give my best to Shannon.

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Recent Pictures

Vickie with Shannon Edwards of Smooth Jazz Now.com (2003)

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