‘So multi-talented, he’s scary-good’

If you’re a fan of “Mixed Bag,” “Homegrown Music” or “All That Jazz,” you probably know that George Graham has been hosting and producing those shows on WVIA-FM for a good, long time.

Would you believe that as of todayhe’s been a WVIA employee for half a century?

“In this business turnover is a way of life. There are a lot of radio nomads, but that kind of life isn’t for me,” Graham said during an interview last week. “Some radio stations change their format every few years but at WVIA, the overall philosophy has not changed. That’s the reason I’ve persisted/survived as long as I have.”

His colleague Erika Funke would argue there’s another reason.

“George is so multi-talented, he’s scary-good,” she said. “There are dilettantes who seem to know about a lot of things, and not go very deep. But George really knows about things. He can repair and build radio control boards from scratch. And, he has such an ear, and such an unparalleled love of music.”

When Graham arrived at WVIA, the Carbondale native was 21 and the proud possessor of a degree in electrical engineering from Duke University. He’d also served as program director and garnered four years of on-air experience on the student radio station.

Although WVIA hired him to work in connection with the design and construction of WVIA-FM, his experience at the college station helped him move immediately to on-air work.

“In college I was able to do both. Then I was able to do both here,” he said, sounding pleased about the balance of on-air and off-air work. “I don’t do too much pulling wire and soldering things anymore.”

What he’s still doing often involves auditioning musicians, recording and mixing music, and choosing what to play from the shelves of archived music in the WVIA studio — and from the downloadable music that comes to his email as well as the piles of CDs that arrive via the postal service.

“This all came in today’s mail,” he said on Thursday, grinning as he lifted a hefty pile.

“Better than 90 percent of what I do is on CDs,” he said, explaining he appreciates the liner notes they contain and the way he can physically store them in the archives. What he doesn’t like about digital files, he said is that “it’s too easy to delete and lose something.”

Some of the interviews he remembers most fondly were have been with jazz trumpeter Wynton Marsalis, banjo great Bela Fleck and members of the rock band Fleetwood Mac, before they became famous.

“I dragged the tape machine to the hotel in Scranton where they were staying,” he said, recalling his “industrial strength” recording equipment was reel-to-reel and must have weighed 25-30 pounds. “I wanted to get good sound quality.”

He still recalls part of his conversation with Fleetwood Mack singer Christine McVie, when he talked about Elvis being the big act of 1954 and The Beatles doing the same in 1964. Who would fill that role in 1974? he asked. “Fleetwood Mac,” McVie told him.

Most of his work is done in the studio, at night. Graham said he doesn’t mind starting around 6 or 6:30 p.m. and working until the wee hours of the morning.

“I’m kind of a night owl,” he said.

As he looks back on his long career, he’s pleased to reflect on the 1,500 to 2,000 Homegrown Music recording sessions he’s produced — the next one will air, on Tuesday evening, and feature a group called International Orange. “They’re from New York, but they’ve played at the River Street Jazz Cafe,” Graham said, explaining the group’s local connection.

He’s also pleased with a recent honor: The WVIA original program “The Swingin’ Jazz Nutcracker Suite,” for which he mixed the sound and audio, received a 2022 Mid-Atlantic Regional Emmy Award nomination from the National Academy of Television Arts & Sciences.

Now 71, he has no plans to retire.

“I don’t know what I’d do,” he said.

So he’ll continue to work, to live in the Carbondale homestead where he grew up, to take care of his pet cats, to go for walks and to listen to music.

But he doesn’t listen to music all the time.

“I don’t surround myself with music,” he said. “Sometimes I listen for pleasure, but it can be fatiguing.”