No-Frills Station Broadcasts Bluegrass From a Van

April 10, 2002 -- If you had a dream to start a radio station that played mostly homegrown country music featuring real instruments and unembellished voices, you'd have to get pretty creative.

In the radio business, that music — known as "roots" or "mountain" music — hasn't had much airing. Or much financial backing.

But Tony Lawson of Clinton, Tenn. was determined. He couldn't raise a lot of money, so he started 200-watt WDVX public radio — in a 14-foot RV camper.

Where the bunk beds used to be is now Studio A. The warehouse is where the restroom used to be, the broadcast equipment fills the space once occupied by a refrigerator, and microphones can drop from the ceiling whenever a live band stops by to play. There are 3,000 CDs tucked into every nook and cranny in the camper.

And while the occasional thunderstorm can provide some tense moments, life is basically good for Lawson and his renegade staff. Five years after it went on the air, WDVX is flourishing.

"We just went on the air doing something we felt good about," says Lawson, who does a number of shifts as a DJ at his station. He has a handful of staff now and an annual budget of $150,000 — pretty impressive for someone who couldn't convince commercial radio that the music had an audience. But with the popularity of the movie O Brother, Where Art Thou? and its Grammy-winning soundtrack of old-time tunes, Lawson is looking rather prescient about now.

"It was like, hot dog, you know, that's us boys," says Lawson of the movie, which featured a 1930s era radio station. Back then, it wasn't unusual for folks to just stop by a station with a fiddle or guitar and play for a while live on the air.

That happens all the time at WDVX, although it can get pretty crowded when a 9-piece band comes to play.

"We put 'em on the sofa," says DJ Freddy Smith. "Down in Studio C."

No Corporate Shackles

Studio B is a mere foot and-a-half away, at the camper's kitchen table. And studio A, the announcer's booth, is 2 feet farther. The cozy quarters suit the DJs, especially the red-head who goes by "Red Hickey." While she concedes the camper's square footage can be constricting, the freedom the station's independence affords is liberating.

"We can be this way because we don't have corporate folks to tell us what types of music or what labels to play," Red Hickey says. The song play list is free-form. "We can play what we want, basically."

That might include selections from Patsy Cline, the Ozark Mountain Daredevils and a cut from an obscure album entitled Thirteen Hillbilly Giants. Or a live visit by any one of dozens of local bands.

"In East Tennessee we have tons of music," Red Hickey explains. "And this station's been very beneficial in exposing the rest of the world to a lot of local and regional talent we have here in east Tennessee."

The rest of the world? Indeed. Although WDVX is just a 200-watt station, Lawson found a way to put WDVX on the Internet three years ago. That has made all the difference to this listener-supported station. "We get e-mails from just about every country there is," says Lawson.

Freddy Smith is answering the phone, taking a pledge of $50 from a listener. It's not unusual to take a pledge call from London, or Indonesia, Smith says.

New Fans Worldwide

Still, he is sometimes surprised to find out who's listening. "I guess the strangest things, I got an e-mail from a nuclear physicist in Russia," he recalls. "He loves bluegrass music."

There are some concerns. When Lawson first began broadcasting on the Internet, the fee charged by the Internet provider wasn't a sizable part of station's budget. Now it is. And there are worries those costs may climb out of reach for small stations like WDVX.

"That would get you into the tens if not hundreds of thousands of dollars," says Lawson. He is keeping a close eye on proposed federal legislation to control Internet fees.

But for now, he has a more immediate worry. His engineer is very worried about the camper's floor. It just wasn't meant to hold all this equipment — and people walking in and out. Someday, he worries, it may just give out. There's talk of moving. Much debate. Maybe a 20-foot camper. Maybe.