1017 – The WBRD Story

Test the microphone above…

I’m Nicky Butler.
And this… is WBRD”
Voice of The Whirlybird
1008 AM on your radio dial.
Radio for the Restless Spirit
Broadcasting from somewhere out on the edge of the Atchafalaya Basin…

Now the truth is… what we’re doing here isn’t new. South Louisiana already did this once before. Back in the early days of radio, stations around Acadiana and Southeast Texas didn’t run like those big corporate outfits you hear today. They ran more like community campfires.  Stations like KVOL in Lafayette… KEUN over in Eunice… KPLC out of Lake Charles… WWOZ down in New Orleans… WJBO up in Baton Rouge…

A typical day might start with a farm report… or maybe a traffic update coming out of Baton Rouge… then an accordion player dropping by the studio… or a brass band warming up down in New Orleans… Then a few local advertisements… and before long somebody might be broadcasting live from a dance hall down the road—or a club where the doors stay open a little later than they should.

The schedule wasn’t rigid. It drifted.

Maybe the band played an extra set. Maybe somebody walked in with a fiddle… or a horn case in one hand and a story in the other. Maybe a storm rolled in from the Gulf and the station cut in to warn folks along the coast.

Good radio isn’t a product, Y’all. It’s life… happening in real time.

On Saturday nights especially, the dance halls became the heartbeat of the signal—
fiddles warming up… boots on the wooden floor… laughter drifting through the music. People listening in their kitchens or pickup trucks were hearing the same sound echoing through the room. The line between radio and real life disappeared.

That spirit never really left this place – SWLA. It just changed shape. Now, The Whirlybird and WBRD works the same way. While this signal’s going out, Jolie might be in the kitchen keepin’ an eye on things… Bruneaux might be stirrin’ a pot of jambalaya… Pop Squally might be out back fryin’ chicken in that blackpot skillet over an open fire.

People drive in from God knows where. There’s always music. Barry or Bill might be out on the screened porch—splittin’ britches and stitchin’ sides. And there are stories… lots and lots of stories. ‘Cause that’s the Southern way to knowledge.

Some nights it’s a honkytonk. Some nights it’s a story circle. Some nights it’s just a campfire with a few folks warming their hands.

Now every once in a while somebody will say, “Hold on… that ain’t really radio.” Well… maybe not the kind that comes out of a glass tower in the big city. But it’s radio-like.

It is a place where music, voices, and a little bit of life drift through the night air. Which, come to think of it… is pretty damn close to what radio was in the first place. And—just like those old stations—we’ve even got our own tower. We call it The Elvis Tower. Now it’s not one of those giant steel things. This is a South Louisiana version. Yeah, you right…

We also call it… The Tower with a Router. But it does the same job. It sends the signal out—across the Atchafalaya Basin… across the Cajun and Creole prairie… and on out into the world. And, let’s not split hairs, Y’all, about radio waves and internet signals.  But truth be told, that signal carries a lot further than it ever did…

Let’s get this straight once and for all. WBRD is not a podcast.

WBRD—The Voice of The Whirlybird, in all its cultural and artistic texture—is a continuation of that old Louisiana signal… a place where music and stories move through the dark on a frequency that’s easy to find if you’re listenin’.

On any given night, you might catch a field report… a story that wandered in from somewhere else… a bit of music still warm from the room… or just a voice sittin’ with you a while, keepin’ the signal company.

Somewhere out there… somebody might turn the dial and think, “Let’s see what’s happening at the station tonight.”

This is Nicky Butler, y’all.
You’re listening to WBRD
Voice of The Whirlybird
1008 AM — Radio for the Restless Spirit.

À bientôt.
Until we meet again…

Keep the fire lit.