Blue Note Records

Syracuse blues fans could be feeling a little, well, blue, after the July 29 departure of Tom Townsley from WAER-FM 88.3’s Sunday Night Blues radio show. But the NPR affiliate based at Syracuse University didn’t have to look far to replace the local blues legend. It welcomed Tom Corbett, former host of the station’s Friday Night Blues program, on Aug. 5.

“Losing Tom Townsley after such a long period of time, we knew it was going to be an adjustment,” points out Eric Cohen, WAER’s music director. “The contribution he made to the local music scene here in Syracuse is amazing. But the senior management and I have every confidence that Tom {Corbett} will entertain our listeners as well. It takes a certain type of person to do what we do at WAER; after all, these are volunteer positions.”

Townsley has accepted a full-time tenured track teaching position in English at Mohawk Valley Community College, in Utica, which he feels presents a time conflict in hosting the program. He had been on the air since 1986, when he replaced Bruce Lockwood and his two-hour block of blues on WAER. Lockwood, who was leaving the area for law school, asked the local blues harmonica player if he would be interested in doing the show. Having done some radio hosting in his undergraduate years, Townsley thought it might be fun. 

“I figured I’d give it a little try for a while and see if I liked it,” Townsley remembers. Twenty-six years later, its apparent Townsley got his answer.

The big man’s love affair with the blues began with his introduction to legendary harmonica player, Little Walter Jacobs, while in graduate school seeking a master’s degree in English at SU. He began to play the harmonica himself, took lessons and became a real student not just of the instrument, but of the history of the harp and those who made it great, most notably Jacobs.

After grad school, Townsley began his harmonica playing career in Tampa, Fla., playing with a non-blues band for a few years, before moving back to Syracuse in 1984, where he accepted a teaching position in the writing department at SU, teaching freshman composition, and also began playing gigs with his newly formed group Cold Shot. “It was a very good time for the blues in Syracuse,” Townsley reflects. “The scene was just beginning to develop here and I was fortunate enough to be a part of it.” 

By the time he became the host of Sunday Night Blues, Townsley was an established member of the Syracuse blues community. Being a working musician in the area fostered a lot of contacts with other musicians, which allowed Townsley to promote not just the blues, but local blues talent on the air.

Along with local talent, Townsley highlighted classic blues from Muddy Waters, Howlin’ Wolf and Willie Dixon along with his inspiration, Little Walter. These musicians all owe the beginning of their careers to Chess Records, the Chicago-based recording company founded in 1950 by brothers Leonard and Phillip Chess. The record company did for the blues what Motown did for rhythm and blues and soul music a decade later.

Townsley says that like most people who enjoy the blues, he has always been partial to the music that originated at Chess Records. “I just played the tunes I liked,” Townsley explains, “which means I played, along with the staples of blues classics, a heavy dose of harmonica players like Sonny Boy Williamson II, Junior Wells and George ‘Harmonica’ Smith.”

The show caught on with listeners quickly, as Townsley recalls, and did so well at pledge time for the public radio station that management decided to expand the program to its current block from 6 and 10 p.m. WAER also created two spin-off shows in years to come, the first being Rockin’ & Roots, Rhythm and Blues hosted by Duane Coughenour (pronounced, “Coke-in-hour”), which can still be heard at 3 p.m. on Sunday’s, and later, Friday Night Blues hosted by Tom Corbett.

Corbett has been friends with Coughenour since high school through his brothers Kevin Corbett (New Times staffer and country music aficionado) and Tim Corbett. When the idea of a third blues program was being considered, Coughenour introduced Corbett WAER decision makers as a possible candidate to host the show. “Tom has a good knowledge of the genre,” Coughenour says. “He also has the personality and the love of the music that is so vital to being a part of a project such as this; I just thought he would be a really good fit.”

Corbett admits he was somewhat intimidated initially. While he possesses the love for and knowledge of the music, he had no practical experience as a deejay. But Coughenour mentored Corbett, showing him how to work the control board and other engineering responsibilities. After several times observing Coughenour Corbett felt he was ready, and so did Cohen.

“We started Tom out on our Friday Night Blues program about six years ago,” Cohen says. “I liked his energy and commitment and thought he would do very well.” Friday Night Blues had some similarities to the traditional music Townsley played on Sunday nights. However, Corbett’s interests also spread in different directions that the blues influenced in later years, especially the British groups that sprang up in the 1960s such as the Rolling Stones, Led Zeppelin and Cream. He’s bringing that format to Sundays. The Friday Night Blues program is no longer, having been switched to a jazz format.

“I paint with a pretty broad brush,” Corbett, 50, explains in a phone interview. “I like to play the mainstream forms of blues, but I also like soul music, a little bit of zydeco, rockabilly, some blues rock, music that people of my generation can appreciate. Variety is what I look to bring to the show and not just stick to the same groove that people are used to. Don’t get me wrong, I love Elmore James and Howlin’ Wolf as much as anyone who digs this style of music, but I also feel although not pure blues, people like Wilson Pickett and Aretha Franklin certainly have something to contribute.”

Corbett’s debut went exactly as he planned. He presented Junior Wells, Etta James, B.B. King, Eric Clapton, Ray Charles and a rendition of Stevie Wonder’s “Superstition” as performed by the late Stevie Ray Vaughan, among others.

“It’s a diverse music and I want to reflect that,” says Corbett, who lives on Tipperary Hill. “I love the Chicago stuff, I love the Delta stuff, but I want to show how the music has branched out and influenced other types of music and also some of the newer groups, The Derek Trucks Band for example.”

While Corbett recognizes that Townsley was a mainstay on WAER, he asks that blues fans give him a shot. “Tom Townsley did a great show. I have a lot of respect for what he did and doing this show for 25 years while promoting the Syracuse music scene was a real accomplishment. I feel some people may be put off by the new direction of the show, but I’m also hoping others will love the variety. So I’m curious to see how it goes.”