live 100.5 (the day the music died)

if you’re from birmingham and love music you are probably still wearing black for the loss of one of the best stations this city has ever heard.

3 years ago i switched to xm radio because there was no good new (or old) music on the airwaves.  occassionally i would tune into reg but seemed to never catch him.  when 100.5 switched it’s format i could tell the whole culture of birmingham changed.  better bands and musicians were coming to town.  people seemed excited about music again.  i found myself actually  listening to fm.

sometime this past summer i noticed some artists i had never heard before on the radio like patty griffin & lyle lovett. really remarkable in the days of payola and 5 minute pop hits.

back in november i had an assignment to photograph the program manager at citadel.   turns out he’s an old friend of mine.  ryan haney manages 6 stations (maybe more) among those Live 100.5.  this past summer there had been some talk about shutting it down.  ryan negotiated another 6 months with him at the helm.  i must say the last 6 months have been the greatest radio i’ve known in birmingham in my whole life.  unfortunately these days it’s all about the bottom line and 2 weeks ago they pulled the plug.  i emailed ryan as soon as i heard to see if there was anything listeners could do.  he said the decision was made from the top and it was going to talk radio ( i think that makes 6 now!).

it’s a sad day but my hat’s off to this guy for doing the best he could.  i actually got to shoot this while finebaum was in the middle of his show.  btw, finebaum is one of the nicest guys you could meet.

kindof a random post but a lot of people are wondering what happened to their music.  i felt i needed to shed the little light i had on the issue.