Hall of Famer "Merry" Mary Mancini has done it all - both in her time at WJPZ and since. When the University took over WAER, she found a better, more tightly formatted, home at the world's greatest media classroom. Starting (like many of us) as an overnight jock, she eventually became part of the Crazy Morning Crew and also music director.
While she's quick to give credit to other Hall of Famers that put the station on FM, the new sound at 89.1 was carefully crafted by Mary. She made it a point to play all types of music within the CHR format. Throughout Syracuse, reaction to the FM station was big. Mary witnessed an uptick of record sales for songs she put on the air. The morning show's phones were lighting up. The station was no longer just a place to learn radio - it was having a real impact on its listening area.
Following Syracuse University, Mary takes us through her "twisty turny" journey - from working with Rocco Macri at Hot 97 in New York, to moving to A&R for a record label, and eventually packing up and heading to Nashville, Tennessee.
Imagine this former music director's horror to find that the city did not have an independent record store. She created one, "Lucy's Record Shop," in 1992. It quickly became a community staple. Its all ages shows attracted musicians, visual artists, and thinkers alike.
Following the record store, and a career in IT, Mary's radio roots pulled her back in - getting on the air talking politics in Nashville. As her profile grew, more opportunities opened up, becoming executive director of Tennessee Citizen Action, and eventually chair of the Tennessee Democratic Party. She credits what she learned at WJPZ for helping her every step of the way.
As she ponders her next move, she created a podcast, featuring the "kids" from Lucy's Record Shop, now 30 years older. You'll find it here: https://www.lucysrecordshop.com/
We wrap up with a story involving Mary, Jag, and a favor from a very famous distillery in Lynchburg, Tennessee. The story is a microcosm of what WJPZ alumni do for each other.
Join Us in Syracuse for Banquet on March 4th: https://bit.ly/WJPZ50BanquetTickets
The WJPZ at 50 Podcast is produced by Jon Gay '02 and JAG in Detroit Podcasts
JAG: Welcome to WJPZ at 50. I am Jon Jag Gay. So happy today to be joined by Mary Mancini from the class of 1985 and Hall of Famer.
Mary: So good to be with you, John. Thank you so much for doing this and for having me. Appreciate it.
JAG: There is so much to talk to you about. I learned so much about you at your Hall of Fame induction speech a few years ago when you took us really behind the scenes of what life was like at JPZ in the early and mid eighties. Tell me from the beginning how you ended up at Syracuse and at the station.
Mary: Yeah, sure. So I grew up in a small town on Long Island and I was very enamored with radio. Growing up, listening to Brink and Belzer on WABC. Listening to Howard Stern on WNBC.
JAG: I believe you mean W ENNNN B C.
Mary: I do. I do.
And then also on Long Island, there was one of the first alternative rock stations that came out in the genre called WLIR. And so I became enamored with that station. So I always loved radio. And when my guidance counselor pulled me in and said, what do you wanna do? Oh, I was also doing announcements, high school announcements as well.
JAG: Me too.
Mary: Did you really? Yeah. Yeah. It seems to be a thread, right, that runs through. Everybody did their high school announcements and so I said wanna do radio. . And so at that time we, there was you know that a very rudimentary computer where you could put your interests in and it would churn out the schools.
I remember that paper. And it was really noisy. And the paper that had the holes on the side.
JAG: The dot matrix printer!
Mary: Yes. Dot Matrix Printer. Yeah.
JAG: I think airlines still use them.
Mary: Oh yeah, exactly. And so Syracuse University came out and so did, what was the other one? I guess the University of Idaho also had a really good broadcasting school. And so I was looking at both of them and the obvious choice was Newhouse in Syracuse to go and learn from the best. And so that's what I chose and I was fortunate enough to get in and it was a great experience.
JAG: How did you come into the halls of WJPZ when you got to Syracuse?
Mary: So I think if I remember correctly, I actually started out at WAER. Doing radio and I think that was mostly because of the music aspect, right?
At WAER at the time, it was a freeform station. You could pretty much play whatever you want. And so I, again, I was into the music at the time. And so I did that mainly. And then I went to JPZ because AER got shut down really, or I shouldn't say, got shut down. The way we knew AER as being a student run, operated, freeform music station, was taken away by the administration and there was a padlock put on the door that locked all the kids out and.
JAG: Wait, so they had a padlock too?
Mary: I believe They had a padlock too. Yeah. I'm pretty sure.
JAG: This was a university padlock, not a government padlock. Okay.
Mary: Exactly. And it was snatched away from the students who were running it.
Because the administration, the new chancellor or someone thought it would be a great idea to turn it into an NPR affiliate. And it actually became a much more professional incubator of students who were interested in doing radio after that. But it did take away some of the heart and soul of it.
So it was a news and sports focused NPR affiliate, and the music was just not there anymore. Because that happened, I sought out the next best thing or the better thing it turned out, which was WJPZ. And I remember, I think my first shift was four to seven in the morning. at the old building, the old Spectrum Records building.
And I just remember so clearly climbing up those rickety old wooden stairs to get to the studio. And I remember, just being on the air and really learning how to be a DJ. And we couldn't play whatever we wanted, but it was a better media classroom, I think for someone who was interested in radio.
So that's how I landed at WJPZ. Sophomore year, I believe 4:00 to 7:00 AM and whew. That was tough.
JAG: We have all been there, many of us. I remember the four to six shifts. I remember the six to nine on Saturday morning. Wasn't much easier after being out on Friday night too.
Mary: I have no idea what you're talking about.
JAG: Tell me about your time at the station and your different roles you had there, Mary.
Mary: So I started out as a DJ and I believe I did traffic and not I think what people mostly think of traffic, they think of helicopters and road traffic, but traffic in radio is logging all of the commercials and the, what else do you log?
JAG: PSAs and sponsorships, everything that's not music or a sweeper.
Mary: Thank you. That's exactly right. Yeah, so I did that for a while. And then I worked my way up. I think I did some afternoon shows at some point, but then became part of the Morning Crew, the Crazy Morning Crew, which was the highlight. That was so much fun. And if you like to laugh, just, I was just surrounded by a lot of really funny people and really creative, funny people.
JAG: Who was on the show with you?
Mary: Tom Giarosso and Scott Sookman. They handled most of the production and the bits and stuff like that. Then there was the team of Dan Class and David Bosco, may he rest in peace. And they also were a team that did their own bits and I was on with them sometime.
Happy Dave Dwyer, who's being inducted into the Hall of Fame. Oh gosh, I'm trying to think who else. So many. And then there was a whole news and sports division. Rob Weingarten did sports. Danno Wolkff, God, and I know I'm leaving people out and I'm so sorry. But it was just a really great class of, like I said, really creative, funny people.
That was the highlight. And then I was music director which made sense. That was actually great too. Because what I wanted to do as music director is I didn't wanna concentrate on one genre of music. I said, if it's a good song, it's a good song , right? It doesn't matter if it's rock or pop or new wave. It didn't matter if it's a good song. R and B or whatever. If it's a good song, it's a good song and we should play it. And so WJPZ at that time became known for that, right? For just mixing all the genres together. It's still a top 40 station. But you didn't have to be, it wasn't like strictly a rock station or strictly a pop station.
And I was given the freedom and the latitude by the program director and the general manager to do that. So that was a lot of fun. That was a great creative outlet for me as well.
JAG: You were there, you are very famously in the annals of WJPZ history featured in the Daily Orange when the station flipped over to FM. Tell me about what went into that and how that happened.
Mary: Oh, my parents were so proud to see my picture on the cover of the Daily Orange.
JAG: There's a lot of things you could be in the Daily Orange for. This would've been a good reason, right?
Mary: Oh yeah. I think there's better people to tell that part of the story than me.
I was really focused on the music part of it. What I knew is that there were people like Eric Fitch and Bob Flint and Chris Mossman and Mark Humble just doing all the work in the background to actually make that happen. And I think at the time, I was on the air, I was doing the music and I'm not sure if I didn't appreciate what they were doing.
I'm not sure if that was it, but it wasn't really on my radar. As much as it is now and looking back on it and realizing how much work it was to put a radio station on the air because they just did it. They just didn't make a big deal out of it. And so this is what they wanted to do.
They're single-minded, professional people and they just made it happen. But it was I remember the feeling of just that first time we were on the air and of course I cried cuz I'm a crier and it just was such a great feeling. Relief and release, right? We're gonna flip the switch.
Here it is. This has been months in the making and now it's finally gonna happen. And again, looking back on it, I think we were all working really hard in an entity that wasn't really making an impact. but we were still doing it anyway, right? Like we weren't doing it because we wanted to be heard on the air.
We were doing it because we wanted to learn how to do radio and we wanted to be a part of that community, which was a fantastic community. We wanted to learn every aspect of how you, outside of the classroom, put all what you learn in the classroom into practice. And so I think when we finally went on the air and let me just speak for myself, the difference was it was night and day right?
From where we were to finally being on a station where people could hear you.
JAG: And not to mention all those records you were picking out probably sounded so much better on FM too.
Mary: That's right. That's right. And people heard 'em and so what that translated for me as the music director was putting a song on and then going to Spectrum Records and seeing that a song that was being played, the sales for that song were now exponentially higher. And so that was like, what? Wait, what? So now we're making an impact. And I think it was like that, not just in the music department, but it was like that across the board in all the different departments in news and the crazy morning crew was getting more phone calls. It was just, it was really eye-opening and gave us a sense, I think of again, let me speak for myself, but a sense of, wow, now we're doing something that's having an impact on the community at large.
And it just became so much bigger than it was. And it was big back then. It was big before.
JAG: So I think that's really telling what you're saying about how, on the AM dial, it was more about getting the experience, learning how to run a radio station, but then it's almost like the cherry on top of the sundae, now you're on FM, you're getting that same experience, but now you're actually seeing, hey.And then we've all had that, there's people listening to me, they heard what I said on the radio, or they heard the song that I picked out to play on the radio where they listen to the morning show. There's such an amazing feeling to that. And I think that crosses all 50 years of the station that we're covering here.
Mary: I think that's right. I think that's 100% right. There was that. Then there was also the, oh crap. Someone just heard what I said.
JAG: Yes, I'm, I was definitely guilty of that when I was there.
Talk to me about your career after Syracuse Mary. So you were done at Syracuse in 85, and where did you go from there? And tell me about the incredible journey that you've had thus far.
Mary: Yeah, it's been twisty, turny, but I moved to New York and Rocco Macri. So again, there's just an incredible community there of people that support each other. It's an alumni network like none other. It's just beautiful, right? It's just so wonderful. So I moved to New York and I got a part-time job working with Rocco, who was at Hot 97 at the time. He was a music director at Hot 97 New York City. There's some other stuff in between there, but it's just like me finding my footing and trying to figure out where I wanted to be and what I wanted to do. So I ended up in New York City and Rocco said I have a part-time job.
And I took it while I was looking for a full-time job. Now remember, I am someone who has loved radio and I always wanted to be in radio. So this is a really weird thing that I did because while I was looking for a part-time job, I got an offer from a record company called Elektra Records, which was having just a heyday in the 80's, to be an assistant in the publicity department. And I told Rocco and he said we're looking for an assistant music director, so I wanna offer you the job. So what do you think I did? I went with the record company.
JAG: Wow, okay.
Mary: Which was just, it's just, I look back on it now and it's just weird to me.
I think my decision making was. It's expensive to live in New York, and the record company job paid just a little bit more. And so that informed my decision back then. So thank you Rocco for that. I often, as a thought exercise, to think what if I had done the other thing?
What if? Yeah. It's just weird. Yeah, we all have those. So that was a real crossroad. So I spent a few years at Elektra and I moved in from the publicity department to the A and R department, which is the department that signs bands and musicians. And then I felt like I wasn't really getting that far in my career and it's really hard and expensive to live in New York.
And I wanted something different. So there was a job that opened up in Nashville, Tennessee, for a record company that was starting a rock office there. Most people think of Nashville as country, but every few years the record companies say, we wanna go explore what rock is and pop is down in that part of the world, so we're gonna do this.
So there was a job open and I was like I don't have the job yet, but I just wanna change, so I'm gonna move there. And I did. Picked up, moved to Nashville. I didn't get that job. But what I did end up doing was I realized that there was no independent record store in Nashville at the time.
And I had started DJing there and became enmeshed in that kind of world and that kind of community. And everybody was bemoaning the fact that they couldn't find any independent records. And I was like, “Let's just open one.” Because when you're what? 25, 26 you're like, sure, why not? I don't need any experience owning a small business or working in a record store. I'll just open it.
JAG: I love music. It'll work.
Mary: Exactly. Nail on the head there, Jon. 100 percent. But it ended up being a really great thing. So I had this record store where I started to import dance singles. I started to bring in independent vinyl. There's no place in Nashville that does that. And then with the help of some folks who were doing all ages punk rock shows, the record store, which was called Lucy's Record Shop, became the place to come see punk rock and indie rock, all ages shows.
JAG: What year did you open the store, Mary?
Mary: I opened it in 92. Okay. And that's really what put it on the map, because again, it was like filling a niche, right? So not only did you have this record store that was filling a niche, but now all of a sudden you have a venue to play that fills a niche, right? And there was no other place in town for that either.
There were other places in town that were doing shows, but they weren't all ages, right? It wasn't, the kids couldn't come. And that was a huge piece of it that really made it into what it was. And so for about five years, Lucy's became the place to play in Nashville. And that was during the time of like Riot Girl and grunge and pop punk and just the DIY movement, really the do-it-yourself punk ethos, which was, I could pick up a guitar on Wednesday and form a band in a week, learn a couple of songs and go play a show at Lucy's.
JAG: That's awesome.
Mary: Like you didn't really need that much experience to get that show. The DIY ethos also informed the way kids made flyers for their show, so a white piece of paper, cutting out pictures and letters marking when and where they were gonna play, and going to Kinkos and running it off and posting it on telephone poles or giving it out at other shows.
So that was an element of it. There was an element of DIY in people expressing themselves through what are called Zines, which are basically like xeroxed little magazines, where they wrote about things like racism and sexism. And so the kids that wanted to actually do visual art, right? Lucy's gave them a place to hang their art.
So it really became more of, again, a community and a community center for teenagers in Nashville. So I did that for about six years. It was great. And then it was just not great anymore. It was a lot of work. I had another crossroads at that point, I could either get another business loan and move the store to a place where there was more foot traffic and just make it into more of an actual thing cuz it was in this really weird section of town, an out of the way section of town.
Or I could just sell it and so I decided to sell it instead. Then I was like now I just want a nice, quiet job somewhere. . So I ended up, for the next 10 years working in technology. I got a job as the office manager for an internet service provider, and then over the next 10 years, just learned everything there was to learn about web development, internet service.
And I did all kinds of jobs at a couple of different companies. Everything from office manager working in the financial department, tech support customer service, a little bit of web development learning how to use content management systems, email marketing. And so I did that for about 10 years.
And then I don't know, politics came into it somehow, but the way that is relevant to my time and my love of radio is, So I'm working at this internet service provider and my office is a small company. So my office is basically in the conference room, which is where the front door was, right? So everybody had to go in and out of my office when they came in or left.
And one friend of mine who worked there, his name was Freddy O'Connell, and this was during the Bush era, the second Bush era. He would come in, and on his way out we would just sit and talk politics, local, national state politics and bemoan the state of the country and the war, and just really have this conversation.
And I said, this would make a really good radio show. And the only available station at the time was a college station, called WRVU, at Vanderbilt University. It was very much like WAER back in the day. It was freeform. Student run, student operated, freeform music station. Radio has to have an element of public affairs.
So I went to them and I said, I have this idea for a show. The 2004 election was coming up. And I said, this show is basically going to be a show that tries to get people active in the political process, right? That's the idea for the show. We want more people voting. We want more people knowing about local politics, state politics, what's going on at the federal level.
So can we have an hour? I don't think I asked that. I said, can I do the show? And they said, sure. You guys can have an hour on Monday mornings at 6:00 AM.
JAG: Oof. Good thing you had all that experience getting up and being part of the crazy morning crew.
Mary: It's a good thing. I had that experience of doing what you need to do. This is what JPZ taught me. Doing what you need to do to get on the air. Because the first shift I was assigned at JPZ was 4:00 AM. It was like I wanna be on the radio, so this is what I'm gonna do. So it was second nature, right? It was like, okay, we'll do it from six to seven. So we did that and the show actually became really popular, so they moved us to, I think we ended up Thursday morning's drive time.
I like to say drive time Thursday mornings from seven to nine
JAG: Prime drive time. Absolutely. Yes.
Mary: Exactly. Exactly. And it was just a wonderful experience because Freddy O'Connell, who is now a councilman, he's running for mayor of Nashville. He and I would do exactly what we set out to do.
So we talked a lot about politics and activism, but we also interviewed so many people that were either running for office on every level or were in office. We talked to activists, people that were on the ground trying to organize and make things better, and it just became a beloved show. So I'm working in technology, but doing that on the side, and that really raised my profile in the city as someone who was involved in this kind of work.
And from there I was invited to be on another public affairs show called Teddy Bart's Roundtable, where they had the two hosts and then they had two people from the left and two people from the right. And we would have these just really great conversations. And that was a daily show. So I became a rotating cast member on that show.
I was invited to be on the board of an organization called Tennessee Citizen Action. So it really did, again, raise my profile in the city and in the community.
JAG: And this was a time when people on the left, and the right could actually have a civil conversation.
Mary: Oh, those were the days . It was so different back then. It really was. That's a whole nother podcast. So from there, thanks to that radio show, I was invited to be on the board of this organization, Tennessee Citizen Action, and at some point, three or four years in, the executive director of that organization left and I was offered by the other board members to take over that job.
And so I transferred from being on the board to being the executive director of Tennessee Citizen Action. And what my job was to help people organize themselves. So I traveled around the state. Most of the time teaching people how to become activists and advocates on their own behalf. And then I also lobbied at the state legislature for things like expanded voting rights, expanded healthcare.
I lobbied against some of the more harmful things that were being proposed at that time. I might be getting my timeline mixed up, but, the anti-gay marriage legislation and all that kind of negative stuff that Tennessee is famous for doing and keeps getting worse. And so I, again, being in that position and being at the state legislature about three years in, I thought, you know what?
I wanna be here as a contributing member. And so I ran for state senate and I ran in a district that was gerrymandered on behalf of Democrats. They had to put the Democrats somewhere when the Republicans did the redistricting. So they stuffed them all in a couple of state Senate districts. And so I was running against another Democrat, and the primary was going to be the election.
So whoever won the primary was guaranteed to win the seat, and I lost in the primary. But I had such a good campaign team around me that people were shocked at how well we actually did. So again, just doing these things, people were like, wow, we didn't know. They said she, but it wasn't me. It was again the campaign team that could run such a good campaign.
So again, raising the profile. And then a couple of months later, the chair of the Tennessee Democratic Party decided that they weren't gonna run again. And so I ran for that and I ended up winning and ran for that two more times. You have to run every two years. And so I was the chair of the Tennessee Democratic Party for six years.
And then I decided not to run again in January of 2021. Now I'm looking for the next thing. I took some time off to decompress because that's a..
JAG: Yeah I bet.
Mary: Right? I don't even have to go into that. It's hard to be a Democrat in Tennessee for obvious reasons. But it's also hard to be a Democrat in Tennessee and be a leader in the Democratic Party because, even though we made some modest gains in the state legislature, which was always our goal, it wasn't enough for some Democrats.
And I'll fight with Republicans all day, but I do not like fighting with other Democrats. It's just not in my nature. . So yeah, so I decided not to run, and looking for the next thing, decompressing. Oh, the pull of radio. Now radio is on-demand radio. And radio is podcasting.
I was like, I wanna learn something new. I wanna learn how to do podcasting. And so I basically taught myself how to do it. Before that even happened, I was like what am I gonna do? What subject is it gonna be? Because I wanted it to be something interesting. And I don't know, it took me a long time to figure it out. And I finally landed on revisiting Lucy's Record Shop.
JAG: Oh, wow.
Mary: So the 30th anniversary of Lucy's was approaching. And the thing about Lucy's and the community that was Lucy's is it was the kids that made it special. The kids that came there were the creative ones, they were having deep conversations opening up each other's minds.
They're now all adults. It's 30 years later. And I don't know whether it was because I had stopped traveling around the state of Tennessee, which was part of my job as Chair. And I was spending more time in Nashville, but I kept running into Lucy's kids as they're called or as they called themselves.
And having these wow, you're doing what now? And you have kids and you're married and you're still playing music, or you're an artist, or you're, you own your own record store, or just these really great conversations. And just, it took me a minute to figure out, but I felt like the universe was hitting me over the head, right, with a hammer saying, this is it. This is your podcast. And that's what it became. So in the process of telling the stories of all the kids that were part of this Lucy's community, I taught myself how to, write, edit, book guests again, all that kind of stuff, and think about doing season two next year.
And so I'm trying to figure out what that might look like. The way it is now, it is very niche and I think it could be expanded into something, but I love doing it. It gets me back to my radio roots without having to send out air check tapes or anything like that, , and it's fun to do and it's fun having these conversations.
As telling people's stories is great. I feel like I've been given a gift, right? To be able to tell these stories. It's fun.
JAG: It's really funny the parallels here between your podcast and this podcast because the reason that we've had success with this podcast is the fond memories and emotional connections that we all have to WJPZ and to the Alumni Association.
And what you're describing is the exact same thing with Lucy's Record Store, where it's just they have these fond memories and catching up and where are they now and all that kind of stuff. And you're a pro podcaster because one of my questions is always, how has what you learned at JPZ helped you throughout your career?
You've perfectly and expertly married, just weaved that all the way through. So I don't have to ask the question because you've already answered it!
Mary: Awesome. So we're done.
JAG: We're not quite done yet.
Mary: All right. All no but lemme just say one thing. You're 100% right, and I and so many others are so grateful that you are taking the time to do this podcast because every year we get together for the Alumni Association banquet and we retell these stories and we laugh, and we just love to reconnect. And for you to be able and willing to put that down now in something that will last forever is just incredibly meaningful. So thank you. Thank you.
JAG: I really appreciate you saying that. You talk about this bond that we have through this JPZ Alumni Association. I have a Mary Mancini story and you probably know which one I'm going to tell.
Mary: No idea.
JAG: Jack Daniels.
Mary: Oh!
JAG: So this speaks to the power of the Alumni Association and just what an amazing, wonderful person Mary Mancini is. So I didn't know Mary that well at the time. I had, I think, shared a cab with her to the airport in Syracuse once, and we had a perfectly lovely conversation. So I had moved from Detroit to New Orleans for a radio job and my best friend Kenny that I grew up with, we did the drive down together.
We stopped for a night in Nashville. He's a big Jack Daniels fan. We went to the Jack Daniels distillery and there was this bottle of this really special, at the time, hard to find Jack Daniels called Sinatra Select. And we looked at the price of the bottle and said, if we buy this bottle, we might not have enough gas money to make it all the way to New Orleans.
So let's not buy it on this trip. And so he got married a year or so later. And I really think back and think what chutzpah I had to ask Mary this cuz this is a big ask now that I look back on it 10 years later. But I said Mary, my best friend in the world is getting married.
We really wanted to try this special bottle of Jack Daniels. You can't get it online, you can't find it in stores. Is there any way you would drive an hour out to Lynchburg, Tennessee, and get me these two bottles of Jack Daniels and I'll pay you for it, but then, and then ship it to New Hampshire so I can go to my best friend's wedding and get him this bottle of Jack Daniels as a wedding gift?
And if somebody asked me that, I would've said, Who the hell is this guy asking me that? But you didn't even hesitate. You absolutely did. You went out of your way to do it for me, and I had a really cool story, got my buddy a really cool wedding gift and that's the kind of person you are. So I think the world needs to know that story.
Mary: Oh, I'm happy I was happy to do it. I'll do it for anybody. If anybody else wants a bottle of special Jack Daniels, just let me know.
JAG: But again, it just goes to the group of alumni that we have.
Mary: I think that's the point. I think that's the point that it is a special group. I don't think it was chutzpah. I think it's, you just knew, you just know you could call up someone from the alumni association that you don't really know that well at the time. And ask them for a favor and I don't think you'll ever get turned down. It. It is a special community and a special group.
JAG: I'm gonna look back on it that way. That's why I asked you. I like that explanation a lot better.
Mary: What else could it be?
JAG: Mary Mancini, Hall of Famer, class of 85. Thank you so much for joining us in the podcast today, and we hope to see you in Syracuse in March.
Mary: Absolutely. I'll be there. I got my tickets. Thanks, Jon.