Turn
off that super-powerful mega zillion-watt receiver in the living
room, the one with the six speakers, a subwoofer and Dolby 5.1
capability.
Put
away anything with a digital tuner or MP3 on it.
This
is not the time for this high-tech gadgetry. Not with Gabriel
coming on.
What
you need is an old transistor radio, some beat-up thing powered
by a 9-volt battery and a giant telescoping antenna. It should
have no more than one speaker that angrily crackles whenever
someone flips on a fluorescent light or lightning spikes slice
across the night sky.
Only
then, with this atavistic gear installed, can you really appreciate
Gabriel, the overnight DJ broadcasting from 12:30 to 5:30 a.m.
Mondays on community radio KDHX.
You
see, Gabriel is not of this time. No, he's got too much personality,
too much history to be a radio voice in this era of corporate-programmed
sameness. He's one of the last of those distinct, free voices
that echo through the night with grand stories and a sharp wit
that keeps truck drivers awake and lulls insomniacs to sleep.
OK,
now, do you have what you need? Are you ready? Its 12:30 a.m.,
its time. Turn that thing up and let's get it going.
And
now for your dancing, listening and reminiscing pleasure . .
. Ladies and gentleman, here's the man! . . . I mean The Man!
. . . The sensational! . . . The incomparable! . . . The king
of the blues! . . .
Gabriel playing the blues on KDHX
. . .
The
opening narration gives way to Bill Haley and the Comets Rock
Around The Clock. Then comes The Voice.
What
ya say? What ya know? Whats the buzz, huh?
The
voice sounds like a hoarse trumpet player gurgling seltzer water,
as if at any minute it's going to give up under the strain of
getting out the next syllable.
Yet,
somehow, it keeps going all night long as it has for 52 years
at radio stations around St. Louis and across the country. Despite
a certain haggard quality, Gabriel's voice is pleasant, calming
and offers a hint of grandfatherly wisdom that comes from a
lifetime of listening, playing and living the blues.
We'll
be playing the three B's tonight, Gabriel tells listeners. And
I'm not talkin about Brahms, Beethoven and Bach. I'm talkin
about boogie, barrelhouse and the natural blues.
Behind
the control panel at KDHX, Gabriels long brown fingers work
with feverish intensity. He cues up a tape, sets a CD in place
and plugs in a public-service announcement - all the while chatting
it up with listeners.
Thank
you to everyone who pledged during our fund-raising drive last
week, he says. But I came up short of my goal, you know. Where
were all of you? You get some crazy excuses come pledge time.
I've heard em all, folks. The cat chewed through the telephone
pole and you couldn't call in. Uh-huh.
Well,
I forgive you. Lets get things going with a little taste of
the blues, some James Cotton.
Two
quick key punches, the microphone is off and James Cotton is
on the airwaves. Gabriel turns to his left and begins hunting
for his next tune through the CDs and tapes piled on the desk
in stacks held together by rubber bands.
The
KDHX broadcast studio is filled with state-of-the-art equipment,
three CD players, a mini-disc player, a pair of turntables and
an audio cassette player. But when Gabriel is in studio, the
two most important pieces of equipment are matching battered
Samsonite suitcases held together by two frayed, scarred leather
belts.
Gabriel
props them up on two TV trays and opens them. Inside each case
is treasure held in square plastic CD cases and rectangle cassette
boxes. They may not have the market value of diamonds or gold,
but for fans of the blues, gospel - which Gabriel calls the
holy blues - and just about any music of the last 60 years,
the contents of Gabriels suitcases are priceless gems.
Nobody
is playing what Gabriel plays the way he plays it, says Tom
Papa Ray, owner of Vintage Vinyl music stores. He is the heritage
of St. Louis radio. Every single show is a history lesson in
rhythm and blues, and he's the professor with first-hand knowledge.
Gabriel's
entire 5-hour show is planned in advance. He marks each CD and
cassette with a number, which corresponds to a playlist held
in the plastic sleeves of a large powder blue three-ring binder,
the vinyl peeling back from the edges.
He
only plays music out of his own collection. While KDHX has a
large and varied music library, it pales in comparison to Gabriel's,
which dates back to the 1920s and includes approximately 50,000
records, tapes and CDs.
During
breaks, the portly man rolls up the sleeves of his blue and
black flannel shirt and shuffles over to the suitcases, the
cuffs of his faded black denim pants stopping at the tops of
his dusty wingtips with worn soft rubber soles.
He
flips through his tapes looking for some song that probably
only he could remember. Gabriel has spent the better part of
the past three years transferring his old vinyl sides to the
computer so he can burn them onto CDs, which are easier for
him to carry.
Back
in the day, I would have four or five of those suitcases filled
up with 45's, 78's and everything you can imagine, Gabriel says.
That was like movin' your whole house.
The
Dinosaur Age
This
suitcase DJ system has been with Gabriel as long as he's been
on the air. And hes been on the air a long, long time.
In
more than a half-century filling the night-time airwaves, he's
done overnight stints at a handful of radio stations, most notably
KATZ (1600 AM) from 1959 to 1970.
Richard
Miller, now chairman of Truman Bank, used to own KADI and KXOW,
Gabriels competition. Miller recalls Gabriel's show on KATZ
when it was midnight to 6 a.m. six nights a week.
He
was a guy who could get to the guts of a community and really
make them listen, Miller says. He always played the really good
blues, you know? He was very much off the wall. He would take
phone calls from people and just talk music all night. He worked
in a little double entendre, not real racy stuff, but classy
and funny the way they used to do it. There was no script. It
was all ad-libbed.
Through
the years, Gabriel came to know many of the musical greats.
Heck, he grew up with some of them. Born in Louisiana, Gabriel
attended Lincoln High School in East St. Louis at the same time
as Miles Davis. Gabriel was buddies with Davis brother, Vernon
Davis, and the two played in school bands together. Gabriel,
by the way, was a trumpet and pedal steel guitar player.
Gabriel
has hung out with Muddy Waters, Howlin Wolf and rock and roll
godfather Chuck Berry. A buddy of another blues and rock elder,
Ike Turner, Gabriel occasionally mentions on air that he used
to shuttle Turners ex-wife, Tina Turner, to gigs because Ike
trusted Gabriel not to make a pass at her.
Gabriel
recorded and sold music as well, including a 1960s recording
of the blues tune The Buzzard Lope, a little story about going
to the house of doom to pick up welfare stamps.
I
cut eight or nine records and none of them did any good, Gabriel
says. I hooked up with Ike Turner for a while and that didn't
work out either.
He
ran a record store called the House Of The Blues in St. Louis
where he sold nothing but blues and gospel music. He owned part
of the old Majestic Theater in East St. Louis, but problems
with his business partner cost him more than $20,000 in the
deal, a financial debacle from which he says he's never quite
recovered.
The
first mistake I made was opening the thing up with a convicted
felon, Gabriel says. He couldn't get a license, so I put up
all the money for it. The thing went belly up, and they're still
sending me bills. Now that place is on the registry of historic
buildings. Who was the idiot there? Poor, dumb me.
As
long as he's been around, and as many people who know him, there
are a few things nobody knows about Gabriel - or if they know,
they're not saying.
For
example, whats Gabriel's last name?
I'll
let him tell you that, Miller says. Hes a private man.
Gabriels
not telling.
And
how old is he?
I'm
guessing he's in his mid-70s, says Bev Hacker, KDHX station
manager.
On
the question of age, Gabriel will only say, I've been around
since dinosaurs walked the streets of St.
Louis.
Creatures
of the night
For
a creature of the night such as Gabriel, the mystery works.
Folklore
is a part of the blues, stories that may not be 100 percent
accurate, leave out a detail here or there but create a fiction
thats truer than truth. In that way, Gabriel is KDHX's balladeer.
His one name and singular voice guide the regular after-midnight
howlers and prowlers through the darkness. His listeners are
a small but loyal crowd. Some are graveyard shifters at factories
and businesses. Later in the night, there are early-morning
folks, bakers and grocery workers getting ready for a long day.
There
is Bobbie from Troy, Mo., who celebrated her 90th birthday in
September. Gabriel played her favorite, James Cotten, to mark
the occasion. There is James from St. Louis, who calls in five
or six times a night. There's Don the Paperman, the newspaper
carrier.
A
semi-truck driver who runs a regular route to Kansas City, Mo.,
every Sunday night picks up Gabriel just west of Springfield,
Ill., and listens to him until he loses the KDHX signal in the
hills before Columbia, Mo. The driver sent in a donation during
the fall pledge drive because Gabriels show keeps him going.
Joel
the Cabdriver actually played an instrumental role in keeping
Gabriel on the air. A while back, Gabriel's car broke down,
and he was'nt going to be able to make it from his East St.
Louis home to KDHXs studio at the corner of Magnolia and Arkansas
avenues in the South Grand neighborhood. Joel, a loyal listener,
offered to pick Gabriel up and drive him to the show until he
got his car fixed.
With
KDHX broadcasting on the Internet, people from all over the
globe call and write Gabriel. He regularly gets calls from Brooklyn,
N.Y., Lawrence, Kan., and even Germany and London.
Yes
sir, we are worldwide, Gabriel says with a grin. It's nice to
be known. Of course, its not the kind of thing you can't take
to Schnucks and buy a plate of sausage with.
Call
to talk music
All
KDHX on-air talent are unpaid volunteers. With Gabriel's connections
in the music community, he could probably get a paying job on
a commercial radio station. He refuses.
I
won't play the rap crap, he says. I don't even know what that
Nelly is talking about. Who is this guy anyway? I'd rather play
Memphis Slim or Roy Acuff. These men are singing about being
so poor they can't afford to take a bath. Now I know what they're
talking about.
Gabriel
more than plays the blues. He lives them. After the financial
meltdown with his theater and record store, Gabriel says he
lives off his monthly Social Security check for income. His
wife, he says, left him some time ago.
I'm
a bitch on wheels to know, Gabriel says. Don't nobody get along
with me for too long. When she left, I just said, OK, I'll miss
you but leave the keys to the refrigerator. As you can see,
- he rubs his round belly - she did.
On
the subject of family, Gabriel is as enigmatic and evasive as
he is about his age and last name. He says only that he lives
alone in East St. Louis.
A
lifetime of listening to music live or with headphones matted
to his ears has taken a toll on his hearing. Gabriel has nerve
deafness in both ears. With the help of a large hearing aid
in his left ear, he can work manageable conversations and still
hear his beloved blues.
You
can be speaking the Kings English as proper as you please, but
it just sounds like mumbling to me, he says.
With
this handicap, Gabriel needs a little help with the show, someone
to answer the phone calls, check the weather forecasts and make
sure the music is playing properly over the air.
The
job used to fall to Gabriels former wife. About a decade ago,
however, she needed surgery on one of her feet. Gabriel enlisted
the help of Dennis Brannaker, a former cab driver who listened
to Gabriel on KATZ while working overnight shifts for Victory
Cab Co.
He
gave me my introduction to the blues, Brannaker says. He taught
me to speak a whole new language.
Brannaker
met Gabriel at a KDHX function in the early 1990s. He liked
the old DJ so much he brought him doughnuts a couple of times,
which, of course, Gabriel liked. When Gabriels wife needed surgery,
he invited Brannaker to fill in for her and eventually the gig
became his every Monday morning.
Brannaker's
role is essential. Gabriel plays little games with his listeners,
tricks really. He asks them to call in and tell him who is singing
a particular song. His followers, such as James from St. Louis,
almost always cause the little yellow light bulb on the control
board to flash.
Gabriel
tries to stump them. One evening, he plays a version of Amazing
Grace sung by a very soulful female singer. Brannaker takes
the calls and writes down the name of the caller and his or
her guess on a sheet of scratch paper. He hands it across the
control board to Gabriel. No one guesses the Amazing Grace vocalist.
You
don't recognize Gladys Knight? Gabriel chides the listeners.
Come on now, friends, how do you not recognize Gladys Knight?
Gabriel
launches into a story about a piano player in Chicago who froze
to death. Gabriel's mind freezes, too, and he can't remember
the pianists name. The yellow light bulb flashes. Its James
from St. Louis. The piano players name was Avery Paris.
It's
like this giant sounding board, Brannaker muses. You put a few
sentences out there and it comes back to you instantly.
The
amazing part of the calls, though, is that the listeners call
in not to get their names in a drawing for a big cash prize
or to win a free CD or tickets to a concert. They call in to
talk music. They tend to say only a few words to Brannaker and
get back to listening, not wanting to miss what Gabriel might
play or say next.
Plight
of the downtrodden
And,
oh, the things Gabriel says.
Watching
him work is like watching fizzy soda pop being poured into a
glass of ice. Idea after idea just bubbles up to the top and
eventually spills right out into the microphone.
From
time to time, the old school Gabriel struggles to get the newfangled
KDHX equipment to follow his whims.
Well, I pressed the button and the little man didn't go,
he says. He's asleep at the switch. Now I know you people think
that these CD players work on transistors. Well, I'm here to
tell you there aint no transistors. Theres a little man in that
box and when you press the button, he's supposed to get the
music goin. Sometimes he's asleep. Let's see if we can wake
up the little man this time.
Gabriel
presses the button. The music doesn't play. He looks deadpan
at Brannaker. Dennis, set phasers to stun. It's gonna be one
of those nights.
Brannaker
is one of Gabriels favorite on-air foils. He teases his message
taker about the quality of his penmanship and the accuracy of
his accounts. Gabriel puts out a call to listeners to get the
date of Ray Charles death. The calls come in saying it was either
June 10 or July 10. (It was June 10.)
Gabriel
looks at the conflicting messages. Dennis, I'm glad youre not
the one taking the call from the governor at the prison for
the reprieve because if you were, that poor soul would be gone.
The
DJ laments strange trends to his listeners.
Friends,
I never thought I would live long enough to see Cadillac make
a truck, he says. They need that big space in the back to mount
a .50 caliber machine gun on there so nobody will take it away
from you.
Often,
Gabriel empathizes with the plight of the downtrodden and troubled.
A listener calls in and asks if Gabriel will put in a plug for
blind veterans who need assistance. He does and adds, You know,
I would'nt be president long. If I were president, I would up
the money for the veterans. I would up the money for the blind.
And the people with Cadillac trucks would have to get their
own. Nope, I wouldnt be president long.
But
Gabriel never gets into serious politics. He seldom dwells on
one topic for more than a few minutes. For him, and his listeners,
its always about the music.
Let's
get back to the blues, ladies and gentlemen, he says. Here's
a little something for you. Let's see if you recognize it. Let's
see if you like it. Youd better. Cause if Gabriel aint playin'
it, nobody is playin' it.
He
hits the button.
