Kim Simpson - Early '70s Radio

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Adult Event

Start: 01/25/2012 7:00 pm

Musician & KUT Radio Host
KIM SIMPSON
will speak & sign
Early '70s Radio:
The American Format Revolution.

We'll have complimentary beer on hand at this event (for those 21+),
courtesy of Saint Arnold Brewing Company. Join us!

Early ‘70s Radio focuses on the emergence of commercial music radio “formats,” which refer to distinct musical genres aimed toward specific audiences. This formatting revolution took place in a period rife with heated politics, identity anxiety, large-scale disappointments and seemingly insoluble social problems. As industry professionals worked overtime to understand audiences and to generate formats, they also laid the groundwork for market segmentation. Audiences, meanwhile, approached these formats as safe havens wherein they could re-imagine and redefine key issues of identity.

A fresh and accessible exercise in audience interpretation, Early ‘70s Radio is organized according to the era’s five prominent formats and analyzes each of these in relation to their targeted demographics, including Top 40, “soft rock”, album-oriented rock, soul and country. The book closes by making a case for the significance of early ‘70s formatting in light of commercial radio today.

Kim Simpson is an independent musician, writer, and radio host based in Austin, Texas. He records singer-songwriter and solo fingerstyle guitar music, gigs around with his acoustic guitar and multilingual repertoire, and pumps out the occasional rock 'n' roll recording with side projects like the Mad Dukes and the Head Counts. He hosts The International Folk Bazaar (Thursdays at 11 AM) on Austin's KOOP-FM and serves as co-host for Folkways on KUT 90.5 FM (alternating with Ed Miller every other Sunday at 2 PM). Kim holds a Ph.D. in American Studies from the University of Texas.

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