Boss Radio: Revealed at Last
    Ron Jacobs & Bill Drake
    June 19-20, 1999       home

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The Day FDR Died...On the Radio

RON JACOBS: When do you think that you can first remember hearing the radio and what was on it?

BILL DRAKE: Well, I remember listening to the radio as a kid but it was just sort of there. I was amazed by it. It astounded me the day that Roosevelt died. To me, up until that point in time radio was just a box that talked and there was music in it and I never paid that much attention to it. But, I remember that my grandparents and my mother who were the strongest people I knew. I remember that particular day. I went in to the house after playing outside. The radio was on and I heard: Franklin Delano Roosevelt had died in Warm Springs, George. And everybody went ape shit.

RON JACOBS: How far were you guys from Warm Springs?

BILL DRAKE: Well, it was a hundred and fifty miles or something like that. But, that wasn’t the thing. The thing that amazed me was that the radio, which I’d never thought that much about before, could absolutely and totally destroy the three strongest people that I knew. And I thought to myself, what the fuck is that? Having no idea that it was because of Roosevelt and that it was a once in a lifetime occurrence. All I knew was that whatever happened, it was because of that damn radio. My grandparents and my mother went fucking nuts.

RON JACOBS: In my mind, the radio could connect us on the little island in the Pacific to the mainland. And it was more of a communications thing. But what’s interesting in your experience was radio was this inanimate object and it could have such emotional impact. It was all of a sudden impacting these people who were the strongest people you knew. So, when this radio impact happens, you learn that the box becomes this thing that could carry emotion.

BILL DRAKE: Well, I was intrigued but I couldn’t figure that out initially. And didn’t maybe think about it a whole lot after that. It stuck with me for a while and then after the war and everything else, those thoughts sort of go away. But I started listening to the radio as I got older and into high school and the music.

RON JACOBS: Okay, just a second. So what you’re saying is the notch of awareness of what radio could do was cranked up when FDR dies. But, from then on you knew that it could deliver more than just words. It wasn’t any big deal until you got interested in music?

BILL DRAKE: The thing is, my interest in life changed because then, you know, when you get to be a teenager you start getting interested in girls and listening to music and you’re thirteen, fourteen. That was five, six years after Roosevelt died.

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