Fresh from his a Fox TV35 interview , an Orlando Weekly Cover story and an article in nation-wide music magazine, Blue Suede News, and local Winter Park weekly, senior citizen and Florida resident, Lee Douglas continues his quest for more publicity and a resurgence of Oldies music across the country “You take 500 songs and play them over and over again nation-wide and eventually people are going to tire of it and tune out.” He believes that the lack of variety is what killed oldies radio. That and the fact that most program directors aren’t old enough to remember even the Beatles so naturally anything before that doesn’t exist in their minds. The baby boomers have very little choice, of course there is satellite radio if they can afford it. So Old Time Rock n Roll was born, to give us an alternative.
Despite being the largest internet and podcast oldies show around the world, Old Time Rock n Roll, he has set his sights on getting on broadcast. “Everyday people come up to me and say I wish I could listen to you while I am driving to work”, Douglas says.
Six years ago, the retired teacher, began to translate his love for the music of the 50's and 60's lovingly called Oldies, into a new medium, the pod cast. Just retired from teaching after 35 years, he decided to turn in his chalk for a microphone. The 67 year old “new Pied Piper of Oldies” as he is called, refuses to let the music of the beginning of rock n roll die as a music of backgrounds for commercials. As a teenager in New York City he knew and was befriended by Rock pioneer, Alan Freed. Attending al the legendary performances of the great performers of the day, his knowledge and reminiscences further enhance the color and excitement of the show. An educator and pioneer in computer education, he was an advocate for teaching computer basics since the early 80’s in elementary school. Lee also was a producer, director and host for a local Florida children’s show in the early 80’s, where the kids ran the show and the equipment.
Today Lee’s focus is all music. His goal is to make the music of the 50’s and 60’s “cool” again. In November of 2006 he began his new career as a disc jockey and proponent of the new podcast medium.
His new show, which he called "Old Time Rock n Roll, would be different in the way it was presented. The usual play lists that are the hallmark of the Oldies AM radio stations were out the window. His own collection of 100,000 songs would be digitized onto his computer to lay the groundwork for the show. Instead of playing those songs which the oldies lovers had grown tired of, he opened his collection and played the songs that haven't been heard for many years. Then he would have a theme for each show, Novelties on one, doo wops on another, rockabilly on yet another. Each show replete with a dose of rock history and reminiscences
He researches each singer and each song to provide background for each show. On November 2006, he went on the air. By January 2007 he had garnered a listener ship of 25,000 world-wide, with an incredible 25% of his fans in the UK and Australia. In January 2012, Lee celebrated his 400th show Now he has added a challenge and request show, where listeners can ask for songs and try and challenge him to find and play. Over 800,000 people have now listened or downloaded OTRNR.
The thing that went mostly unnoticed, however, is that what Douglas is doing with Old Time Rock & Roll – racking up 229 musically packed episodes as of this writing – is unique, not just in Orlando but anywhere. A recently retired Orange County schoolteacher in computer programming, Douglas has turned his love of education and of rock, doo-wop, rockabilly and soul into a mind-blowing seminar for music lovers. He spent months digitizing his astounding collection of oldies, both well-known and rare, into an ever-increasing catalog of approximately 90,000 tracks, most by artists long forgotten. Douglas organizes his collection into various themes and put the songs in historical context in his grainy, excitable radio-jockey voice. An hour of Sun Records classics, Chess and Specialty Records, Ted Steele’s Bandstand, Dion and the Belmonts, shows devoted strictly to Jewish-American, Hispanic-American and Italian-American singers … you name it, he’s got it, and he’ll learn you a little something in the process. Sometimes he even surprises himself: In an episode titled “The Originals,” in which Douglas takes well-known songs and plays the very first recordings of them (the Exciters’ “Doo Wa Ditty,” Irma Thomas’ “Time Is on My Side,” a year before the Rolling Stones got to it), Douglas unearthed a 1950 song by Al Jolson called “Are You Lonesome Tonight?”
“I [always] thought it was an Elvis song,” says Douglas, working on his laptop at his regular haunt, Panera Bread. “I had to play it It was though the producers of Elvis’ version had just about ripped off the entire Jolson version. My listeners were astounded by the similarities.
Douglas, who grew up in Brooklyn right around the birth of rock & roll and spent some time trying to become a professional wrestler, today, carries himself as equal parts cocky and embattled. He’s confident in what he has to offer, but, because of financial concerns, he has set his sights on the nearly unbreakable market of commercial radio. He tends to feel the brick walls he hits especially hard. “I do this show until they have to carry me out on a gurney.,” Douglas writes on his blog. “Many would have already given up, but I “ain’t “that smart”, he quips.”
A natural storyteller, Douglas grew up idolizing Alan Freed, a New York radio DJ in the ’50s often credited as the “Father of Rock & Roll” because he exposed white audiences to African-American music. Douglas ingratiated himself with Freed and his family as a kid, something that would come back to him on a cosmic level later on.
“Alan Freed would sit down and talk to you and ask, ‘What do you like?’ remembers Douglas. “When I got divorced back in 1996 and I had to pay child support – and I did, which is what you’re supposed to; not like the rest of these deadbeats – I had no money to live on. My new wife and I were pretty broke.” Douglas was forced to sell off his collection of playbooks from each of Freed’s shows on eBay. “Turned out it was Alan Freed’s son [Lance Freed] who purchased it, and his wife took care of all the details. She said her name and I said, ‘You’re Lance’s wife, aren’t you?’ She said, ‘How did you know?’ I said, ‘I knew him when he was a kid.’ Actually, [Alan Freed] saved my life. So I do these shows as a constant salute to a type of individual that no longer exists in this business.”
Those shows can leave listeners in a bug-eyed state, thanks to constant revelations and downright oddities he uncovers. One recent find uncovered the work of Jimi Hendrix when the legendary guitarist was a member of Little Richard’s backup band. Another is a version of “Think Twice” by Jackie Wilson and LaVern Baker that Douglas, a conservative, will not play on his show.
With the addition of interviews with some of the old time rock n roll greats of the 50’s and 60’s like; Charlie Gracie, The Elegants, The Chantels and Joe Bennett of the Sparkletones, and Gary Lewis, Bobby Rydell and Little Anthony to name just a few, Old Time Rock n Roll zooms into 2012 with the goal of cracking radio. Despite doom and gloom arguments from the station managers of the large corporations that have dictatorial control over this market, he adamantly argues that the over 50 crowd is sorely looking for a way to tune back in to FM radio if something were available to them and AM radio has ceased to play music. He said,” No other group has more spendable income and more loyalty than baby boomers. And believe it or not he has a legion of younger fans that listen every week to his shows.
In February he co-emceed the Gary Lewis and the Playboys concert at the Mount Dora Music Festival.
The weekly show can be heard on several internet networks and almost every podcast service, including iTunes and RSS feeds. Old Time Rock n Roll can be heard by logging on to www.oldtimernr.com and then from there to the show pages. The show is available in the archives at anytime day or night. Just like the old days you can request or dedicate a song by e mailing Lee at otrnrcontact@gmail.com.
Oldies has a new champion that promises his listeners that the greatest music and performers of our lifetime.
Many times he even sneaks in a little Jolson, or Sinatra. “I play what my listeners want to hear, not what we want them to hear.” So after 6 years he continues to gain listeners who soon become converts and the apostles to spread the word that Oldies music is alive and well. He also gives this warning to the younger listeners, “Within ten years the same thing will happen to the music of the 70’s and you will say, “What happened to my music?” What you tell these blind money making machines today will affect that.”
His goal is 1 million listeners by 2013; he is well on his way. As Lee himself puts it, “I play music of a better time in all our lives, when the toughest problem we had was getting a date for Saturday night.”
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