The Story of KMFA
by Katherine Tanney
The Sound of KMFA
Nancy Scanlan Classical music lovers have an affinity with the music that can often be traced to an original “Aha” moment. For example, Scanlan’s grandmother took her to see “Rigoletto” when she was 23 and that’s when she “got it.”
“The next year,” Scanlan said, “I heard Joan Sutherland and I remember thinking my mouth was so dry and I realized it was wide open, like, just stunned.”
Dawes went as a second grader to hear the Austin Symphony Orchestra. “I saw these ladies and gentlemen seated in chairs with violins and so forth. And then a big timpani roll opened the concert and they played the ‘Star Spangled Banner’ for full orchestra and I was mesmerized.”
Kennedy remembers doing somersaults to Debussy at five; Kodosky’s opera epiphany occurred in Munich, Germany where business associates gave him front row seats for “Aida.” Announcer Diane Donovan’s earliest affair with the music was as a child, dancing around the living room to Ravel’s “Bolero.”
It is the love of this music and the power of such moments that make KMFA so vital to its listeners, many of whom are particular about how it should be presented.
Sara Hessel Sara Hessel became KMFA’s first music director in 2005, after Allen was promoted to general manager and created the position. (Hessel, who has a degree in Musicology, began as a fill-in announcer in 2001. She still announces and she also hosts and produces “Ancient Voices” and “Banquet Music.”)
“Basically, I do the programming from 6 a.m. to 8 p.m. weekdays and a little less on the weekends.” She also acquires new CDs, maintains relations with the record labels and manages the database. She and Allen have many discussions about how the station should sound. “He’s like the idea man and I put it into practice.”
Hessel said her greatest challenge is to make KMFA sound consistent, cohesive, and appealing. “Those are Jack’s key words, and yet he insists that KMFA always sound different each day, always interesting. I dig in that library, trying to find just that perfect mix. People want to know what they can expect when they tune into KMFA. The tapestry of sound always needs to be fresh and interesting.”
Allen, who sees himself as the “listener’s advocate,” came to KMFA from Minnesota Public Radio in 2003. He was first hired to be KMFA’s program director and was eventually promoted in 2005 to a hybrid position that included the general manager title.
“Those around me have learned that when the music ends and the announcer starts talking, they should stop [talking] because they know I’m air-checking. I’m listening and critiquing. And that’s my job: to be the listener.”
What does he expect from his announcers? Correct pronunciation, of course, but “…the ideal is to imagine that you’re hanging out with just one person when you’re on the air and talk directly to that person,” Allen explained.
John EddinsJohn Eddins, who managed the station from 1976 to 1996, had a similar goal. “Our theory was that we wanted the station to sound as if you were sitting in your living room playing records for your friends. You know, ‘Here’s something I really enjoy. Listen to this.’ We were trying to make that kind of bond between the listeners and the station.”
That is, when he wasn’t grappling with problems like the needle blowing off an LP or an ambulance tearing through downtown Austin during a recording session. (The air conditioning in the Perry Brooks building at Eighth and Brazos, KMFA’s original donated home, went off at 5 p.m., which is when Eddins cranked open the windows and things got “interesting.”)
What you don’t hear on the station is breaking news. Only a few times in the station’s history have outside events been deemed significant enough to slice into the dependable respite and peaceful oasis that KMFA represents for its listeners. Exceptions to the rule were: the explosion of the space shuttle Challenger, the deaths of Israeli Prime Minister, Israel Yitzhak Rabin and Lady Diana, and the events of September 11, 2001. Allen is all for “Casual yet very brief mentions of timely local and national events,” which keep the listener connected to the world. “A sense of localism is what sets KMFA apart from competitors like satellite radio,” he added. “But we want to be careful not to shatter KMFA’s reputation for being an island of sanity.”
“There’s so much chaos in the outer world,” said Small, whose specialization is music therapy. “Music has the ability to carve new neural pathways through the brain right where memory and emotion converge. And it can actually heal you sometimes.” Though she loves many kinds of music, Small especially appreciates the “quietness or solidity that comes from classical music.”
Leonard Masters The station’s first and most illustrious announcer was Leonard Masters (1967-1994), who was also program director until 1990. Very tall, very bald, and very overweight, his voice was well known to Austin listeners from his nine years on KHFI. What most people didn’t know about Masters was that he never spoke to them live if he could possibly avoid it.
“He was very nervous when he was on the air,” said one of Leonard’s closest friends, original KMFA board secretary Emil Szafir (1967-present, emeritus). “He taped most of his announcements so he could go over them if he flubbed them, so his announcements were all very smooth.”
Scanlan remembers his style being “a little austere. It seemed to fit with the music. I always felt like he was my teacher. He explained just enough and he knew everything.”
Thurmond was “enthralled” by Masters’s “deep, resonant voice, perfect diction, and excellent pronunciation. He was obviously British and obviously very knowledgeable, and it wasn’t until several years later that I discovered he wasn’t British at all. He was from Pampa, Texas.”
A former doctoral student in political science at the University of Texas, Masters found his calling in radio through a friendship with Dale Jones, who sold him records at a store on the drag and who later hired him to keep the books and program classical music at Jones’s fledgling electronics store-cum-Austin’s first FM radio station, High Fidelity, Inc. (The call letters KHFI reflect that store’s name.)
“I can remember his voice and articulation very clearly,” said Kodosky, speaking of Masters. “It was a little bit quirky, shall we say, but ultimately very enjoyable.” Kodosky then tried an impersonation, as did many of the people interviewed for this story, adding, “His pronunciation [of some words] was a little bit hilarious.”
“I had a terrible voice,” Masters told writer Patrick Taggert in 1974, in the American-Statesman. “I discovered it in 1946, when I was 18. I was horrified and decided something had to be done. I worked at a radio station in Odessa during the summers and practiced there on a wire recorder. It took me years to get the diction I wanted, and I went through hell, taking criticism for being affected.”
Emil SzafirSzafir was not a fan of what came to be known as “the Masters voice.” “I felt that his orotund style of announcing was off-putting. He seemed to me to be a very successful imitation of [NBC classical music announcer] Milton Cross. We didn’t discuss it because it quickly became apparent that neither one of us was going to influence the other.”
For every detractor there were dozens of adoring fans. An online post devoted to Masters, dated 1997 and found on an opera discussion board, is representative: He NEVER made any mistakes in pronunciation, and was always composed and authoritative as he gave the names of the work, composer, and performers. The great thing about Mr. Masters was his voice. This man was an institution, and had more authority on the air than anyone I've ever heard. I remember many happy nights in high school, listening.
“Leonard set just the right tone for the station at that time,” said Allen. “It is a bit dated in terms of a style now… A guy like Leonard would’ve been very uncomfortable with me trying to get him to look directly at the listener and say, ‘I hope you enjoyed that.’” But Allen added, “Leonard cared deeply about the music, which led him to be perfectionistic about the pronunciations. He did very well at a time when there weren’t many resources for coaching or growth as an announcer.”
According to Eddins, Masters relied on individuals at UT who taught foreign languages to help him with difficult pronunciations. (A note: when Eddins started as a part time “announcer” in 1969, the job didn’t involve any speaking. He had to match up announcement tapes prerecorded by Masters with the records to be played. Years later, when Eddins became station manager, one of the most contentious issues was getting “the great pronouncer” to allow other voices on the air. Dawes, who began announcing part time in 1982, started each shift by listening to pronunciation tapes left by Masters to guide others through that day’s play list.)
Custis Wright “Leonard was wonderful,” said Custis Wright, recalling one of Masters’s visits to the opera. “A woman had sung and Leonard was very correct. Instead of standing up and saying Bravo, he said Brava to have the right inflection for the feminine.”
Exactitude was so important to Masters, and his knowledge of the music so extensive that he occasionally said to Dawes something on the order of, “I don’t want to play this one because the conductor’s made some edits. It’s four minutes shorter than it ought to be.”
He was a very private man, with little known about his personal life. Kennedy, who worked with Masters for years after buying KHFI, was the only one who seemed to know that Leonard had been briefly married. “He married a young girl. It wasn’t a very successful marriage, but that’s the only other thing that I know he was interested in, other than going to the symphony and the opera. His life was that radio station.”
Kennedy was speaking of KHFI, but at KMFA Masters met Marguerite Agnes Grissom, a St. Edward’s University professor of Music Appreciation, a singer and organist at St. Mary’s Cathedral, a private piano and voice teacher, and an early KMFA volunteer who happened to be blind. In one 2005 obituary for Grissom, Masters was listed as her “special friend” and “soul mate.” Dawes, who succeeded Masters as program director, remarked that “Leonard spent a lot of time with his dear friend Marguerite, either working or listening to music.” The work the two did together involved Masters dictating the monthly program guide in its entirety (from handwritten notes legible only to him) as Grissom typed.
“For Marguerite, music was her everything and Sir Georg Solti [the famous Chicago Symphony conductor] was her first love,” remembered Allen, who chatted with Grissom on the phone everyday during her last year of life. “But Leonard was a close second.”
In remembering Masters, Kennedy made sure to add that, “He probably had the greatest influence on my cultural outlook and insight of any individual that I have known in my life. And he was a good man. Totally dedicated to being right”--here Kennedy laughed--“and making it obvious on the air. But he loved the composers and their work and the audience.”
Dawes agreed completely. “Being around Leonard was an educational experience everyday. I’ve never been around anybody else who loved what he or she did more than Leonard.”
Masters died of complications from diabetes in 1996. According to former board chairman, Frank Bash, the station supported him when he could no longer work. “We felt an obligation,” said Bash.
* * *
Rich Upton Of KMFA’s current full time announcers, Rich Upton (1989-present) has been around longest. As operations manager for the station, he is also in charge of training fill-in or “swing” announcers, which is how most people get their start at KMFA.
“A lot of times you find somebody who sounds good on the air but doesn’t know anything about the music, or you find somebody who really knows the music and doesn’t sound good on the air. My opinion is, they can learn about the music.”
Upton, who can be heard weekday afternoons, came to KMFA from a variety of announcing jobs, none of them at classical music stations. “I don’t sound here like I did at KKMJ. I was trained to sound a certain way over there and I had to try and lose that when I got here.” When asked about the KMFA style of announcing, he said, “You know, a lot of people admire Leonard Masters but we kind of made a deliberate effort to get away from [that] method of delivery. I think the more you sound like a real person the more real people want to listen. On the other hand, we’re not going to sound like Wolf Man Jack here. It’s just not appropriate to the music.”
In his many years as an announcer, Upton has on occasion sounded all too real. His most memorable gaffs include accidentally turning the mic volume way up instead of down when he needed to clear his throat; announcing Sir Arthur Sullivan as Sir Ed Sullivan; and calling conductor Michael Tilson Thomas, “Michael Tilson Wilson.”
Dianne Donovan Canadian born Dianne Donovan (10 a.m.-2 p.m.) was asked to become a full-time announcer in 2003. Like Upton, who is a singer, songwriter, and guitarist, Donovan is a musician who sings jazz at various clubs around Austin. She said her favorite thing about announcing for KMFA, where she also hosts and produces “Classical Austin,” is the music.
“I like connecting with listeners. Just about every day of the week there’s a new piece that I get to play and I like the sense that others are also discovering along this path.” She also enjoys doing research about the composers and pieces of music she’ll be announcing. “I try to read up about every piece and then in the hour I might have information about two so there’s not too much talking.”
Jeffrey Blair Jeffrey Blair, who begins his announcing shift at 6 a.m. each weekday in addition to being KMFA’s production manager and the producer of “Choral Classics” and “Piano Masterpieces,” says he couldn’t sing his way out of a paper bag.
“But I can take microphones and a mixing board and make an average performance sound like [audio] gold. So that’s my instrument of choice: a mixing board.”
Blair, who was hired in 2000, was the producer behind KMFA’s very first live simulcast in 2004, from Bates Recital hall, of a UT Symphony Orchestra performance.
When asked if it’s ever hard to manufacture his characteristic cheerfulness, Blair explained, “There are times when it’s getting toward the deadline when I’ve got to get a program done and I’ve got all these other things that are demanding my attention and I’m absolutely at my wit’s end, and finally I just close the door and I listen to some of the music… And I’ll start talking about the music and the more that I talk about it, the more that I think about it, the more that I enjoy it. And that comes through.”
It certainly does, according to listeners like Kodosky. “I travel a bit around the country and haven’t found another station that can compare to KMFA. They either just play the most popular movements of the most popular pieces or they have some advertising. But even the best that I’ve heard, their announcers don’t compare to the caliber of announcers that we have here at KMFA.”
In 1999, the station began broadcasting 24 hours a day. About six months after he arrived in 2003, Allen made the decision to switch the overnight service from WFMT’s prerecorded feed out of Chicago to Minnesota Public Radio’s nationally syndicated live classical music service.
“The world could end and the canned music and announcing would keep on going,” Allen explained, whereas the high caliber live announcers who now come to Austin’s airwaves between 10 p.m. and 6 a.m. each day can respond to potentially important news and events of interest to the audience.
Another savvy decision Allen made was to shorten the daytime host’s airshifts from six hours to four, allowing them to put more energy into their work, and allowing him to add the mellifluous voice of Dianne Donovan to middays. (KMFA recently ranked fourth in the market for all radio use in middays.)
Tom Morris Behind the sound of KMFA there have always been guardian angels such as engineering consultant Thomas Morris (1971-present), who can list just about every upgrade to the station’s broadcasting capability ever made. In his 36 years assisting the station in one way or another, originally for a nominal honorarium—“You don’t do this sort of thing for the money. I love classical music,” he says--he has twice climbed hundreds of feet up the tower, left his warm bed to fix technical problems, and added quite a few lines to his face just to make sure the station is still on the air. Before him, the go-to techies were Nockey Willett and Dale Jones, friends with whom Morris worked. All of them have seen the station grow from a 1300-watt, 11 hour-a-day toddler that could barely transmit its signal to the perimeter of downtown Austin to what it is today: a 24-hour, 40,000-watt long distance runner able to make it all the way to Fort Hood.
