Gather ’round the radio

Old-time radio show preserves Appalachian culture

BY JIM MELVIN • PHOTOS BY AL MCLEOD

Who knows what evil lurks in the hearts of men? The Shadow knows!” A generation or so ago, families gathered around the radio in the evening, eagerly anticipating the “Grand Ole Opry,” “Fibber McGee and Molly,” “The Lone Ranger” or “The Shadow.” In days past, radio was the main source of home entertainment, especially in rural areas.

Kevin O’Connell of Dahlonega had long wanted to do a live radio show like the ones he had listened to as a child. “I’ve always been intrigued by radio and the power it has to reach folks,” says O’Connell. “It’s a much more warm and personal form of communication than television or movies.”

So, O’Connell got together with friends George Butler, Joel Cordle, Henry Johnson, Mel Hawkins and a few others to develop an old-time radio show that would entertain while celebrating and preserving the fast-disappearing traditional Southern Appalachian way of life. Listeners could have a good time while learning about the unique history and culture of the area.

It sounded like a great idea, but how do you create a live radio show from scratch? “We really had nothing but the idea and the desire,” Cordle recalls. “We did have the advantage, though, of ignorance. We didn’t know it couldn’t be done.”   

Fortunately, O’Connell and Cordle had some experience in radio. At the time, O’Connell was with the local FM station, WKHC. When the station owners agreed, O’Connell came to the Folkways Center of the Georgia Mountains to produce the show.

Cordle also knew Henry Johnson, the “Doc” of “Doc Johnson’s Traveling Miracle Medicine Show,” where Johnson, a Gainesville native, re-creates on stage a turn-of-the-century medicine show, selling old-time remedies, almanacs and his patent medicine Wizard Water, complete with medicine wagon. He provides musical entertainment,  performs magic tricks, and generally amazes and delights his audience. “Medicine shows were common throughout the rural South until as late as 1950,” Johnson says.    

O’Connell’s idea for an old-time radio show set in Dahlonega’s colorful past inspired Hawkins, Butler, Margie McAbee, Joe Cronan and others to write some theatrical radio “skits” featuring humor with a little local history and culture thrown in. According to Cronan, a Dahlonega native, “We try to be true and accurate with our writing. We pay close attention to dialect, accents and the way people here talked years ago. No one’s doing a fake Southern accent on the show.”

After some trial and error, the group had a live radio show that actually captured the spirit and feeling of pioneer North Georgia days. Beginning January 2001, the show was broadcast monthly on WKHC 104.3 FM and became a big hit, winning GABBY awards from the Georgia Association of Broadcasters for best locally produced show. Today, “The Mountain Music & Medicine Show” airs on WRFP in Demorest, the Piedmont College radio station.

The show is an all-volunteer effort, requiring 20 to 30 people donating more than 200 hours for each episode. It originates from its new home at the historic Holly Theatre in Dahlonega.

The show features “Doc Johnson’s Traveling Miracle Medicine Show” and is set in Dahlonega’s historic past. Local and regional musical acts perform. The scene occasionally shifts to the local folks who have come to town to trade and socialize.

Area folks, led by Bobby Adams, Glenda Pender, Lavon Dyer, Bryson Wilkins, Gabe Russo and Harry Cronan, provide the authentic radio theater that makes the show unique. It’s sort of like the “Grand Ole Opry” and “Prairie Home Companion” rolled into one. “None of us are real actors, we just try to recapture that old-time feel,” says Wilkins. “We have a good time, and I think the audience knows that and enjoys it, too.”

—Jim Melvin is a Lumpkin County native. He remembers when the REA (Rural Electrification Administration) had not yet reached some parts of the county and listening with his grandfather to a battery-powered radio.