Category: Broadcaster's Lounge
Hey Yall!!! Okay, I havn't a clue why it didn't copy/paste. Here ya go! Enjoy!! And be sure to visit http://www.djheadlines.com to check everything about Chicago Radio!!
Smooth Radio: The voice, musings of Delilah are perfect relaxer for her legion of fans
BY MICHELLE BEARDEN, Winston-Salem Journal, 10.08.06
TAMPA, Fla. - Forget television. At the end of the day, after dinner and before she drifts off to sleep, Courtenay Hill of Riverview, Fla., tucks 5-year-old
Carly into bed and turns on the radio. For a few minutes, mother and daughter snuggle up and listen to one of their best friends, a person they've never
met.
"We love Delilah," says Hill, 38, who investigates medical malpractice for the state.
And so, apparently, do millions of other listeners around the country.
The self-proclaimed Queen of Sap, with the milk-and-honey voice and a mental Rolodex of easy-listening music, is syndicated in more than 200 markets, drawing
an average nightly audience of 7 million. The show can be heard in the Triad at 7 p.m. weekdays and Sundays on 99.5 WMAG.
Although she works in the secular world, Delilah is not afraid to use the "G word" (God), the "p word" (prayer) and the "b word" (blessed). She quotes Mother
Teresa and gets her inspiration from Rick Warren's best-selling Christian book, The Purpose-Driven Life.
"For the most part, religion divides," she says in a phone interview from her Seattle office. "Especially whenever you have someone proclaiming they're
right and you're wrong. That's not what the God I serve is all about. He loves everyone and wants the division to stop."
One of the sure signs of celebrity is needing only one name. Delilah, born Delilah Renee Luke, is on a first-name basis with everyone. She thinks radio
has something to do with that.
It's a medium that invites her into private places where she has permission to dispense advice, offer encouragement and help with emotional healing. She's
a single mom raising a multiracial clan of three biological and four adopted children ages 6 to 21. She takes in foster children, as well. Twice divorced,
she has been disappointed in love. Her own life experiences give her plenty of fodder on overcoming adversity and keeping a positive attitude.
"My rule of thumb: I never want anyone who calls me or tunes into the show to feel worse than they did before our encounter," she says. "If that happens,
I've failed."
Callers don't mind that she's not a trained psychologist, or that she sometimes comes off as a little too perky, even schmaltzy. She's so sentimental, she
still has her first corsage from her first boyfriend. Goofy stories are welcome; tears acceptable. She steers away from political commentary but is a rah-rah
supporter of the troops. If her radio persona were a comfort food, she'd be meatloaf and mashed potatoes.
"It's been that way since I was born. I was always talking to strangers," says Delilah, 46. In grade school, a teacher got so fed up with her, she duct-taped
Delilah's mouth shut.
She found her calling early in life. Music dominated her home. Her dad had a country-western band, and her brother played jazz. She got the lyric-writing
gene, not the singing voice.
But she could talk. By her pre-teens, she had parlayed that gift into a show called Delilah, On the Warpath, reporting news and sports on KDUN-AM, a small
station in her hometown of Reedsport , Ore. The owners gave her the gig after she won four of five divisions in a junior high school speech contest.
That laid the groundwork for a journey that would take her to stations in nine cities all over the country, working as either a disc jockey or call-in host.
She got fired 11 times, she says.
Her big break - the one that shaped the show she has today - came in 1984 when she was working at KLSY-FM. Then-programming director Chris Mays remembers
Delilah, then 24, as a "crazy young thing," showing up to work with her baby and an entourage to help care for the infant while she was on the air.
"She was unbridled, a tremendous communicator and full of passion," recalls Mays, now the program director at KLLT-FM in San Francisco . "She also was undisciplined,
with a very, very raw talent that needed work."
She guided Delilah, teaching her how to channel her energies and delineating the boundaries. In the meantime, Delilah cultivated her fan base, with listeners
calling in and sharing their stories. She did her own listening, on and off the air.
She sensed those stories would make good radio, so she asked Mays for her own call-in show. Mays gave her two hours a night - and one ratings period to
prove herself. Delilah took the slot from No. 13 to No. 1.
In May 2004, she found a home with Premiere Radio Networks, the same company that syndicates conservative talk-show hosts Rush Limbaugh and Glenn Beck,
pop music guru Casey Kasem and sports personality Jim Rome. Although her program commands a great deal of her attention, her priority is first as a mom
- shuttling her kids to school, helping with homework and assigning chores in their renovated old farmhouse on a 46-acre spread with gardens, goats and
horses outside Seattle.
"It's her own little haven, as beautiful as can be," says Andrea Fanning, the editor of Southern Lady. She recently ran a profile of Delilah.
Fanning came away impressed. At 5-foot-10, Delilah is "larger than life, witty and outgoing - just what you'd expect from hearing her on the radio," she
says.
She watched Delilah take calls in her home studio, asking her customary "What can I do for your tonight?" and doling out sisterly advice without casting
judgment. Occasionally, she'll chastise a caller - kindly but firmly steering a woman away from an affair, urging an estranged father to make amends with
his grown son.
"All the while, her kids are running around the house when we're doing the photo shoot," Fanning says. "There's nothing fake about her. She's as genuine
as can be."
The show and its stories appeal to women of all ages. That's why Delilah started Friday Night Girls, encouraging female listeners to gather at the start
of the weekend for an activity, support group, prayer meeting or to just socialize - and listen to the show together. She makes on-air calls and sends
out packages of goodies to select groups every week.
On any given night, though, as many as a third of the callers are male.
Delilah's energies seem to have no limits. She also leads Point Hope, a foundation she founded to help forgotten children. She's focusing on refugee children
in Ghana and special-needs kids in the foster-care system. She keeps her fans up to date by a journal on her Web site, www.delilah.com, where she also
publishes her poetry, photos of children who need homes and pictures of her ever-expanding garden.
On the fifth anniversary of Sept. 11, the phone lines were jammed. Listeners were feeling low after being bombarded with televised images of a day that
changed the world. They needed some cheering up, and who better than the cheerleader of the airwaves?
"Remember this: If God brought you to it, he's gonna get you through it," she says. "I'm here to help you renew your love, renew your dreams and remind
you to love others with every fiber of your being."
• Michelle Bearden is a reporter for The Tampa Tribune.
She seems like a good lady. I've never listened to her very much only on Christmas time.
Hi! Yeah, she does!!! I listen to her all time on the internet!!
Thanks for reading.
Amber