This Sunday 8/16, Bobbi Booker hosts a special edition of Sunday Rotation 8 p,m. - 12 midnight celebrating 45 years on the air at WRTI. Tune-in from 8pm to midnight to hear jazz-funk classics, Philly deep cuts and much more!
Bobbi I. Booker has spent 45 years shaping how the Delaware Valley hears jazz. She talked her way into WRTI almost by accident: as a Temple University sophomore working security at the building that housed the station in 1981, she got roped into filling in on a newscast on short notice and never really left. She went on to work in nearly every role the newsroom and airwaves had to offer before being named co-host of Ovations (now Spirit Soul Music) in 1999.
Heard every Sunday morning on Spirit Soul Music from 6 - 9 a.m., Booker has staked her claim as one of the most distinctive voices in Philadelphia public radio. To mark her 45th anniversary at the station, Nate Chinen sat down with her to talk about how she found her way into broadcasting, the mentors who shaped her, and what's kept her at WRTI for nearly half a century.
Watch the full video interview, and read a few highlights.
Interview Highlights
On how she actually got her start at WRTI
I grew up in a time when radio was still king. My father, Benny Booker, was very attached to RadioShack — we built our own radios, we had these little leather-covered transistor radios and earbuds, so I was totally into that. Profession-wise, though, I always considered myself a writer — I started writing when I was eight years old, I was first published when I was ten. When I started at Temple University I was studying newspaper writing and publishing. I was also a student security guard, working the front desk of a number of buildings, and one of my assignments happened to be Annenberg Hall, which is where WRTI was located at the time. One afternoon, I was working someone else's shift, and one of my news-writing cohorts, a fellow student who happened to be the news director at WRTI, saw me at the desk and he had a problem, someone had called out. He asked me to fill in, and I said, nope, not doing that, I'm actually at work. And he said, “well, you can take a break.” I said, “dude, I have to write. There's no way.” And we're talking ninety minutes before the noon cast, one of the biggest newscasts for the station and in the area. And he went back into the studio and came back out with reams of AP copy — for those who remember the term rip and read — and gave me a couple of different colored markers and said, circle three local, circle two state, circle one national, we need sports, weather, you can do it. And he ran off. So I had less than ninety minutes to create my first newscast. Well, the five-minute cast seemed to have been a success. I go back to my desk, my phone is ringing off the hook, Temple Security is jumping up and down, bragging that one of their people was on the air. And I got an offer to continue my relationship, which I still said no to. I had to basically be convinced. And I finally just said, "okay, I'll start hanging around, learning some things here at RTI."
On radio as “theater of the mind”
One of the first things [Reggie Bryant] said to me was that radio is theater of the mind, and no matter what, you are only always speaking to one person. And that's what I keep at the forefront of everything I do. It may be a person I know, it may be someone who's written in or called and made a comment, but I'm almost always talking to one person, and it's a conversation that I feel I'm having with them. I'm sharing. And during the time period that maybe the music is playing, in my mind, they are conversing with me. So for me, I'm always in that one-on-one — we're in this together, and let's enjoy this ride together. So it's always a very intimate connection for me whenever I'm on the mic.
On “you never walk away from a media you can control”
When the opportunity arose with Ovations, which is now Spirit Soul Music, Warren Cooper at that time needed a co-host, and I said, I don't see myself getting up at three in the morning on a Sunday to do that program — I appreciate the offer, thanks but no thanks. And Reggie said, no, I think you really should consider doing that. And I said, “nope, I'm not gonna consider it.” And after hearing me fuss about it for about five minutes, he just said, “Listen, you're gonna do it, and here's why. You never walk away from a media you can control. You're good, and you need to do this.” It still took me about two, three years to realize what he had said. If you're good at it, do it. Just do it. Stop with the back and forth. My situation with RTI, I mean, this was never ever a full-time job — the roles that I had here were producer, assignment editor, anchor, reporter, fill-in, music host, water carrier when needed. But I always made myself available to fill in, to do those roles — I guess I never saw myself as attached until Reggie had that conversation with me and just said, no, this is what you're gonna do. I still poked my lip out and was like, telling me what to do. But it took me a couple, three years to realize that he was right, and I got that from the listeners, who understood what I was trying to do, especially with the Spirit Soul Music edition of Ovations.
On learning from Bob Perkins
I sat literally at the knee of a master and watched him work. His word economy when he opened the mic was stunning to me. We could sit there and chat about things for, you know, during our ten-minute music breaks or whatever, but when he opened the mic, he never spoke for more than ninety seconds. Maybe two minutes if someone had passed. But normally he would speak for thirty to forty-five seconds. But if you were listening, that's where the theater of the mind was in full effect — you would swear he was on the mic for three minutes, when indeed he was giving you that information and then allowing the music to do the heavy lifting.
On the message in the music
The one thing that I'm always aiming to do, which I've taken from the old tagline of Philly International, is about the message in the music. We can talk all day, but the sounds, the delivery that those artists have, it's gonna strike each person differently, but at a source that is internal — that theater of the mind. And my whole thing is, you may hear this tune now and really not get the message for three days, or a week, or even a month, or ever. But it's there.
