Switching It Over To AM

Radio in Atlanta has always frustrated me. I’m a big believer in local radio, which sometimes feels like being a Cubs fan. We have a solid college radio station, which means that I can discover a great (but unidentified) song, but only if I endure four others that border on unlistenable. Our public radio station refuses to play any of the wonderful PRI and NPR programs like “World Cafe” so it can have more time to play classical music. We have two commercial FM stations that I usually bounce between (both of which are much better during specialty programming). But I have a new favorite radio station, and it appeared in the most unlikely of places—the AM dial.

WMLB 1690 calls itself the Voice of the Arts. I hadn’t heard of it until our books editor Charles McNair told me that he was going to start doing a segment about books. So I checked it out last week. U2’s “I Will Follow” was playing. My commute is only about song long, but when I headed back to the office, that song was an acoustic version of “California Stars” by Billy Bragg & Wilco. I stayed in my car to hear the end. When I headed home, I caught the tail end of a Sondre Lerche tune followed by Lyle Lovett. Who has this kind of eclectic taste? Oh yeah, me. And most of my friends. And tons of Paste subscribers.

On the Sunday program I heard Louis Armstrong, The Blind Boys of Alabama, Bob Dylan, The Rolling Stones, The Beatles. The reception and fidelity doesn’t quite match 100,000-watt FM stations, but I’ll take it. Voice of the arts, indeed.

—Josh Jackson

Switching it over to AM
Searching for a truer sound
Can’t recall the call letters
Steel guitar and settle down
Catching an all-night station somewhere in Louisiana
It sounds like 1963, but for now it sounds like heaven
—Son Volt, “Windfall”