Tom Joyner: The Work Ethic Works : Radio: The first African American to host a nationally syndicated morning show doesn’t want to be thought of as either a pioneer or a role model.
Tom Joyner is so ambitious that he chose to do what probably no other radio personality would even consider.
For eight years, the disc jockey shuttled 1,610 miles a day to do a morning show in Dallas and an afternoon program in Chicago. Racking up more than 7 million frequent-flier miles, Joyner rightfully earned the nicknames “fly jock” and “hardest-working man in radio.”
Now that hard-driving work ethic has paid off as Joyner has become the first African American to host a nationally syndicated morning radio show.
These days he’s heard in 37 cities around the country--and he doesn’t even have to leave his home base of Dallas.
Though he is breaking new ground as the first black man to host such a syndicated series, don’t call Joyner a pioneer. Or a role model. He’ll say he’s simply in the business of providing good, clean fun.
“I’m just trying to do entertaining radio and keep it clean every day,” said Joyner, whose 5-10 a.m. weekday show is heard locally on KACE-FM (103.9).
Joyner believes his upbeat show will pave the way for other African American radio personalities.
“I’m just the beginning,” he declared in a telephone interview from the Dallas radio station where he broadcasts his show. “When everybody’s put their success stamp on this, there will be lots more. I think of myself as being on the ground floor of something that’s going to be around for a long time.”
With its debut in January, “The Tom Joyner Morning Show”--syndicated by ABC Radio Networks--joined the ranks of such nationally syndicated programs as those headed by Howard Stern and Rush Limbaugh.
But Joyner prefers not to be lumped together with either man, pointing out that, unlike Limbaugh or Stern, he plays music on his show. But he does pay grudging tribute to Stern.
“I hate to say this but I think Howard Stern proved to radio that a syndicated morning show could work in a major market,” Joyner said. “He proved that you could bring top-name talent to a major market and people would dig it. I can’t stand Howard’s program personally, but I have to thank him for it.”
Besides playing about six R & B songs an hour, Joyner has a live band on the air with him--although not in the same studio. Uncle Butchie and the Live House is hooked in from a studio in Chicago. It plays songs before and after station breaks and performs with guest artists a la Paul Schaffer on David Letterman’s late-night TV show.
While music is an important element of Joyner’s show, he refuses to play violence-laden gangsta rap, despite its popularity among teens.
“It’s in vogue now not to be into gangsta music, thank goodness,” Joyner said. “I don’t think I have to play gangsta rap to get the younger audience. If my audience wants it, then they’re just going to have to go somewhere else to get it. . . . What we try to do is entertain positively. That’s what’s going to make our show work.”
Joyner began his entertainment career 25 years ago in what was then a little-known singing group that later became the Commodores, fronted by singer Lionel Richie. The two grew up together in Tuskegee, Ala. Indeed, Joyner still regularly kicks himself for quitting the group before it got famous. His family urged him to leave, believing the group had no future. He started working in radio a few years later.
“This is a bitter subject,” Joyner quipped good-naturedly. “I’ve been friends with Lionel Richie since childhood. We go back to nursery school. And here I am getting up at 3 in the morning and he doesn’t go to bed at 3 in the morning! Do I regret it? Here I am going to the bank every Friday and the bank comes to him. ‘Got any checks for us today, Mr. Richie?’ Don’t get me started.”
Joyner’s radio program is an energetic combination of comedy, music, sports, news and celebrity interviews. Some recent guests included Don King, Curtis Mayfield, Sam Donaldson, Aretha Franklin and Andrew Young.
Joyner also pays tribute on his morning show to one of his favorite forms of entertainment--the soap opera. He’s long been a soap opera aficionado and decided that instead of doing reports on “All My Children,” as he used to during his Dallas show, he would create his own 90-second daily soap spoof. “It’s Your World” is produced in Los Angeles and stars Roxanne Reese as Fontella, a businesswoman who owns a beauty shop.
Joyner introduces the segment by recapping the last episode, then closes to the accompaniment of organ music.
Although the ratings for his first few months on the air in Los Angeles were among the lowest of all the stations tabulated by Arbitron--Joyner finished in 37th place, attracting only .4% of the audience--KACE officials said they plan to stick with him.
“The one thing people don’t like is change,” said KACE music director Mark Gunn. “I just think with time the show’s going to work. . . . He’s got a fresh perspective. It’s almost a ‘stop and smell the roses’ type of thing. He’s a very down-to-earth type of person. And you don’t really get that much in morning radio anymore. You’ve got the superstar mentality that distances the listener from what’s happening on the radio.”
Not only does he not have the arrogance of a superstar, Joyner also doesn’t have much urge to become one. Don’t look for him to make that now-familiar segue from radio personality to television star in the near future.
“I don’t know why (radio personalities) want to do it,” he said. “They don’t look so good. I don’t look so good either, but I know my place. I’m glad to be here. I ain’t looking for movies and television. I’m staying right in radio. On radio I look somewhere between Wesley Snipes and Denzel Washington, and when you see me, you say ‘Damn!’
“I want to stay on radio so I can look like whoever I want--or whoever you want me to look like.”