e-town: e-chieving Radio Magic

photo by Lewis Geyer

“e •town is designed to be not what it seems,” says host Nick Forster, noting the irony of his weekly radio show. “We sometimes imagine that it’s a little like the Trojan horse, where you scan the dial and think, ‘Ah, that’s some great music.’ That sucks you in, and by the end you’ve learned something about somebody who is trying to make their hometown a little better. You might have heard some author or poet or scientist talk about something that they’re really turned on by. You might have heard the musicians talk about something that they feel strongly about. And you’ve also probably heard a couple of musicians play together who wouldn’t otherwise do so. At the end of that hour, if it all works, people are better informed and inspired to dig in a little deeper where they live.”

“And they’ve had a good time, too,” adds Helen Forster, Nick’s wife and co-host.

Having a good time is the easy part for the e •town audience, with guests like Willie Nelson, Delbert McClinton, Ben Harper, Ani DiFranco, Joan Baez, Sarah McLachlan, John Hiatt, Lyle Lovett, Kris Kristofferson, Natalie Merchant, Emmylou Harris, James Taylor and many, many others. Moreover, former President Jimmy Carter, satirist/filmmaker Michael Moore and consumer advocate Ralph Nader are some of the outside-the-box thinkers who have been interviewed live on the show.

e•town just moved into new offices in Boulder, Colo., a neo-hipster college town of 100,000 in the shadow of the Rockies. The staff shared a cramped house for a decade, and the buzz now is all about the central air conditioning and one-person-to-an-office layout that makes this place so much more appealing than the last. Nearby Denver has an international airport and it’s centrally located enough to be on most bands’ tour schedule.

The Forsters launched e •town in June 1991. Neither of them had any radio experience prior to Nick’s epiphany about a live program that would combine great music with environmentally sound conversation. He was just finishing up 16 years as the guitarist/bassist/emcee for bluegrass luminaries Hot Rize. An actress, singer and voiceover artist, Helen also owned and produced the Telluride Bluegrass Festival for a number of years. Between them they had many of the skills needed to start a show like e •town. It now takes eight full-timers, three part-timers, a day-of-show crew and several volunteers to put on the weekly variety program that’s taped in front of 850 people.

“I do a couple of live interviews,” Nick says, “or in some cases I’m doing four: one with the e•chievement Award winner, maybe an author, poet or politician, and two musical guests, and often I’m playing with both of those guests, so just to get through the show is a bunch of moving parts.” Those moving parts include the hotshot house band, the e•tones (Chris Engleman on bass, Christian Teele on drums and Ron Jolly on piano, with Nick on guitar and mandolin, and Helen on vocals). Each musical guest plays several songs, usually with the e•tones, and just like the golden days of live radio, Helen comes out and reads a brief message about the show’s sponsors. And each week, e•town—loosely a synonym for global village — delivers pure magic in the guise of the e•chievement Award, during which we’re reminded how good radio can be. Helen presents the tribute to someone in America who has done something extraordinary to help their community. Like the girl who, at the age of 10, started an organization to help feed the homeless in Baltimore, and five years later was helping to make more than 600 meals a week. Listeners of 150 different radio stations nationwide respond to stories like that each week on e•town. “About 95% of our listener correspondence mentions how much they love the e•chievement Award,” Helen remarks.

On Labor Day 2003, the e •town clan celebrated their dozen years by commandeering the 9,000-seat Red Rocks Amphitheater for e •town Rocks!, a music festival featuring Barenaked Ladies, Michelle Shocked, Keller Williams, the Blind Boys of Alabama and Yonder Mountain String Band. After 350 some-odd shows, each with a six- or seven-day-a-week schedule, it was time to party. “This project has been a big part of my life,” Helen says, “and I sort of eat, breathe, dream, sleep, talk, walk e •town—almost too much. It really takes that kind of effort to make this thing happen, but it’s fun. “I think it’s important that we’re contributing to getting this message out to people, at the same time hopefully providing an entertaining hour on the air and informing people, inspiring people, pitching hope … it all feels really good.”

For information on where to hear e •town in your area, call 303.443.8696.