The road goes on forever and the party never ends.
—ROBERT EARL KEEN, “The Road Goes On Forever”
Miranda Lambert is a crafty little thing.
Let me explain.
As radio DJs, we have the power to influence listeners and give new artists their first big chance to be heard outside of the honky-tonks and clubs where they play. And never more so than at KPLX-FM, The Wolf, in Dallas, a radio station that dominated the airwaves of the biggest country music market in America. We were rebels: true industry disrupters. We prided ourselves on our ability to pick out an artist or a song that our Texan listeners would love. We weren’t interested in what the record labels were trying to sell, unless we believed it was genuinely great. Just because a record was on the Top 10 in Nashville didn’t mean we’d give them a spin on our station. We played mainstream Nashville country, of course. But Texas is a whole different music scene, and we were loyal to our local artists.
I was the music director, a role I relished. We were always on the lookout for new artists and songs and, apparently, I had a knack for spotting the next big star. It was a question of scavenging through all the demo tapes sent our way. I loved that hunt. As a pure fan who paid close attention to the blend of lyrics and music, I prided myself on knowing a hit when I heard one. I guess that’s why I won Music Director of the Year nine times during my ten-year tenure at the station.
In 1997, when I first got to the Dallas–Fort Worth area, one of the best sources for talent were the Texas honky-tonks. When I saw lines of people going around the block, I got curious about who the artist was and stopped by for a listen. They were almost always Texans like Jack Ingram, Pat Green, or Robert Earl Keen. A Nashville artist could never fill those bars up with fans the way a Texan country artist could, and we gained a huge following because we were brave enough to deploy these artists into the mainstream. And if we played a song, everyone’s head would turn in Nashville. That’s how much influence we carried.
The more we listened to what was out there at the grassroots level, the better we got at picking up on things that everyone else missed. No one in our industry was noticing the fact that our homegrown Texan talent was killing it. They were so laser-focused on what was coming out of Nashville that they were deaf to the pure gold that was right there on the doorstep.
I am proud to say I “discovered” a few new artists while at The Wolf, but I can’t take credit for Miranda. Just a teenager at the time, she was already making her own music and singing her own songs, although she hadn’t yet broken through. She caught our attention when she delivered these homemade cowboy hats along with her demos to our door. They were awesome: painted red, white, and blue like the Texas flag and bedazzled with beer bottle caps around the edges. It was an ingenious marketing move. Or I should say, crafty. For a gorgeous hat like that I just had to listen, and I was blown away. We started playing her music regularly, and before long she was on Nashville Star, a country music reality TV singing competition. Shortly after, she got her first big record deal.
I sure wish I still had that hat!
Of course, The Wolf didn’t exist as we know it when I first got there. By the late ’90s it was still called “K-Plex,” the third-most-listened-to country music station out of three in the Dallas market, an also-ran that was straining for relevance with a bunch of older jocks stuck in their ways, uninterested in rising country musicians or what their listeners might actually be into hearing. And when I showed up, a young fella at twenty-three, fresh from a second-tier radio market in Orlando, it wasn’t exactly a warm reception.
It’s not that I was totally without experience. After my Mormon mission, I worked for my local radio station back home in Columbia. In my spare time I studied communications in college for a couple of semesters, but it wasn’t enough. I was burning with ambition and, much as I loved being back home and eating Mom’s cooking, I felt stuck. Then, in 1995, I leapfrogged to the number one country music station in Orlando, K92.3. When the opportunity came along, I figured I could make it in radio without that college degree and, as always, my parents supported me in my decision even though I wasn’t following a straight line. My dad, who was already bursting with pride that he got to listen to his son’s voice on his local station, was thrilled for me.
Fortunately, the program director in Orlando, Mike Moore, saw something in me.
“You’re way better than the market you’re in,” he told me over the phone. “If you’re willing to come down here and do a show, K-92 would love to have you!”
Mike went out of his way to make sure I felt welcome, picking up this country bumpkin right at the airport gate (back when that was still allowed). He spotted me as soon as I stepped off the plane and managed not to chuckle too loudly when I grabbed my luggage off of the baggage claim carousel, broken suit bag and all. When I asked Mike what he remembered about picking me up at the airport, he said, “That broken suit bag!” We’d never met before, but I knew it was him the moment I saw him: a bold alpha male ready to take me under his wing at the new station. He was only a few years older than me and soon became like a big brother. And, certainly, my biggest fan.
As the only soul I happened to know in this town, I moved into the same apartment complex as Mike. I was grateful to have him nearby both at work and at home. Of course, I’d moved around a lot in Seattle, changing neighborhoods, but this time there would be no mission president or companion in my little bachelor pad, just me, and for the first time in my life I had to figure things out without that built-in support network. At least if I lost my keys, I could knock on Mike’s door!
Part of doing radio in a bigger market like Orlando is being out there, among the listeners, doing promotional events and building your brand. Every Saturday night our station hosted a show at Sullivan’s, a giant bar where five hundred to seven hundred country music fans heard live music, drank, and line danced. This fresh-faced Mormon boy wasn’t used to the ruckus, but if I was to understand our listeners and this country music culture, I needed to dive in and be a part of it all. On one of those nights, I gave into temptation and had a beer, or three, or seven. I remember going to the restroom to pee, then feeling my first alcohol buzz.
Oh, so this is the feeling they’re singing about in all those beer-drinking country music songs! I said to myself. I guess I needed to go over to the dark side to appreciate what the temptation was all about, and I can’t say I hated it, not that it happened again for years. Luckily, Mike was around to make sure I got home okay.
Working at K-92 was the first time I experienced standing in front of an audience of thousands. We were hosting a George Strait concert at what was then known as the O-Rena (Orlando Arena), with a crowd of about eighteen thousand. Mike told me to go out onto the stage, welcome everyone, and introduce George. Backstage, my heart was in my throat. With thousands of people watching, I was terrified I might choke. My palms were sweaty, and my stomach was spasming as someone handed me the mic. But as soon as I walked out, the nerves disappeared. I felt completely at home. Bathed in the energy of thousands of country music fans, I said a few words to whip up their enthusiasm for the performance that was to come and got a taste of the euphoria artists must all feel as they stand in front of a live audience. It was like a drug, or maybe that recent beer buzz?
Working with Mike, I got to experience a lot of firsts. People started recognizing me around Orlando. Paul Williams, who was a marketing executive at the Universal Studios theme park, heard me one night and approached Mike about having me host a nationally syndicated weekend show. Also a radio industry veteran, Paul had an ear, and a clear idea of how his ideal country radio show should sound. Over the next few months, the three of us worked together on this passion project of ours and became the best of friends. When we weren’t putting extra unpaid hours into brainstorming the show’s potential, we were laughing at the crazy stories Mike and Paul shared about their lives in radio. I soaked up every word.
About a year later, Dallas called. The general manager, Dan Halyburton at K-Plex, had heard me on a demo tape for the CMA Awards and decided I was the new blood they needed. On one level it was a no-brainer: triple the market, triple the salary. I wanted to prove myself, obviously, but I still took time to ponder the decision. I canvassed the opinions of a handful of people in the industry I’d met and respected.
“Why would you do that?” one of them asked me. “It’s going to be a battle for a losing station that will never be anything but third place!”
My station in Orlando was number one. I could be a big fish and not take that risk.
Yeah, I thought to myself, but maybe I can help win that battle.
I wanted to be in a bigger market, even though I might fail. The hardest part was telling Mike, who was reluctant to let me go.
After a few chats and days to consider, he relented. “I’d love for you to stay but I realize this is something you need to do,” said Mike, who’s now a genius program director for Cumulus Media, which owns radio stations across the country.
Paul was also understanding, even though it meant I would no longer be able to launch his show at Universal.
“Cody, you’ve got to do this!” he told me. “Dallas is a great place and it’s a hell of an opportunity.”
The fact that I was more than tripling my salary, from $20,000 a year, which I somehow managed to live on in Orlando, to $70,000, an actual living wage, was another incentive, but not the primary one. What drove me most was the chance to prove myself as a fresh young voice in the industry.
Of course, that meant starting all over again in a new place, and it wasn’t long before I started missing Mike’s friendship and support. Thank God I had someone like him in my corner, who thought I was the shit. Just having someone nod at you and say, “You can do this,” is incredibly powerful. If you listen carefully to that positive reinforcement, it can stay in your cells and power your growth. Mike and Paul’s belief in me gave me the gumption, helping me to build just enough of a foundation of self-confidence to get through what lay ahead.
The Dallas station was in a pickle. You could feel the dysfunction when you walked into the place. There was no sense of being a team, and the station itself didn’t have any identifiable brand. After starting out with a middle-of-the-road format in the ’70s, it switched to country in the ’80s, with the slogan, “Flex Your Plex.” This was followed by some success, then years of flailing, with no conviction about the music they were playing. Meanwhile, I thought the veteran radio guys hated me, constantly pointing out how green I was. One DJ, who’d been in the business for forty years, started picking on me like one of the mean girls in middle school.
I was just starting my shift and he was ending his when he came out of the booth and said, “What’s that bird’s nest on the back of your head?”
One of the things I liked least about myself was the fact that I was going bald. By my early twenties my hairline was already receding, and I was getting thin at the crown, with just enough tuft to cover the bare scalp if you didn’t look too closely. As anyone going through hair loss knows, seeing all those dead follicles in your comb can be traumatic. Pointing out this “defect” was just the thing to say if anyone wanted to make me feel crummy, the perfect start to my day. I laughed it off because I don’t like confrontation, and I always try to be respectful, but it was a nasty remark intended to hurt.
It was one of several attempts to embarrass me and make me feel less than. It wasn’t long before I started hearing thirdhand that some of the old guard didn’t like me. No one said it to my face, but there were rumblings that I didn’t fit in at the station. I felt completely alone, with nothing but my four-hour shift from 3:00 to 7:00 p.m., prime-time driving, with millions of people listening.
Despite these early humiliations, it was at this point in my career that I was really beginning to find my voice. I was becoming Cody Alan, the on-air name I’d chosen for myself when I first moved to Dallas. Unfortunately, I was not born with a sexy name like Ryan Seacrest. Alan Chavis does not exactly trip off the tongue and besides, it’s common for radio personalities to go by stage names. In Orlando, Mike Moore and I went through the phone book and came up with Cody McCoy. We sat in the conference room for a couple of hours, writing down my favorite first names and my favorite last names on a whiteboard, then cross paired. Cody sounded country, and it happened to be the name of a friend from childhood whose swagger I admired.
But I never loved McCoy. The combination of names made me feel like a cartoon character, or a guy from a spaghetti Western movie walking around with boot spurs and a ten-gallon hat. Besides, there happened to be another Cody McCoy on radio in the Dallas area, so the name had to change. I asked my new program director if I could change it to Cody Alan so that at least I’d still have some semblance of my real name. It felt right, and it stuck.
Meanwhile, I’d cultivated relationships with new mentors, like K-Plex program director Smokey Rivers, who took a risk when he hired me. Both he and GM Dan Halyburton had my back and taught me how to be a great on-air talent. They led by example, and I studied their approach, which would serve me later in my career when I had opportunities to do my own radio station programming. Finding these folks was just a matter of tuning out my detractors and hearing what mattered most.
Months after joining the K-Plex crew, I was paired with Stacey Brooks to do the morning show. In radio, morning and afternoon radio jocks tend to be two different beasts. The morning hosts create their own crazy universe, with plenty of fun on-air bits with banter and phone callers. The world rotates around them and everyone is in their orbit. They are characters, or caricatures of themselves, on the air to perform and be heard. They do crank calls to entertain the drivers stuck in traffic. Sometimes they are shock jocks and comedians, in the vein of Howard Stern, although he is in his own league. When they’re good, they’re brilliant, like Elvis Duran. It’s pure entertainment.
At the time, I was much more of an afternoon drive guy. My sweet spot then was taking requests from listeners, making them feel like I am communing with them one-on-one, overlaying our conversation with the music and a smile. It’s not that I am necessarily more introverted than the morning guys. I just want to create a sense of intimacy between my music, my listeners who are calling in, and me. So, the change in shift forced me to stretch and grow.
Of course, I wanted a shot at that prime-time morning spot. In radio, it’s the morning jocks who are the stars because they have that captive morning-drive audience. But, aside from having to get up at 3:15 a.m., I had to learn how to carry on an hours-long conversation, bouncing off my cohost in a way that was witty, fun, and authentic. To our listeners, it had to sound easy, like two colleagues sharing effortless banter at the office over coffee and donuts.
But I was always on, wired and worried as I thought about the next topic, or how I was going to come up with the next spontaneous witticism. I wanted to prove I’d got this, but damn it was hard at only twenty-three! Stacey was generous, easing me into my talkative new role by lobbing softballs at me until it felt natural; doing all she could to make me look good. I was intimidated by what a pro she was at the morning radio banter and never quite felt her equal, but if Stacey ever felt I wasn’t up to the task, she never showed it.
There were stumbles. When Ellen DeGeneres famously came out in April 1997 in Time magazine with the headline, “Yep, I’m Gay,” the station management decided it would be a good idea for Stacey and me to have a debate on the air about the subject. Stacey would be pro Ellen coming out, and I would be against. We reflected the conversations a lot of our listeners were having across the nation, which was much more conservative and homophobic a quarter century ago. Deep in the closet as I was, I assumed the fake role of homophobe and duly criticized the woman who was to become one of my all-time greatest heroes. It felt icky, and now I can’t look back on the incident without cringing. Just because I was playing the game, pretending to play a character with an opinion, didn’t make it right.
Mistakes are inevitable. Few people can look back on the sweep of their careers without moments of regret. But I was lucky, because it happened in the days before Twitter and social media could amplify every misstep. A bad choice or an off moment didn’t have to ruin you back then. Folks in the public eye weren’t subjected to the level of scrutiny we’re seeing today. We’re all human; we all have off days. Even Ellen, one of the kindest people on television, took heat when it was leaked that things behind the scenes didn’t meet the stringent standards she’d set for herself. Although my profile is nowhere near as high as Ellen’s, I know what that pressure to be constantly “on” feels like. That’s why I make it a point not to listen when others in the spotlight face an avalanche of disapproval. There but for the grace of God go I.
Little did I know then that, twenty years later in my life, I would meet Ellen. It was in Santa Barbara, California, at a fundraiser for wildfire victims she was hosting, along with Brad Paisley. Over a couple of Modelo beers, I took the opportunity to tell her how much I appreciated her coming out, and how it had helped me and countless others. I’m sure she hears it all the time, but I didn’t care. I wanted her to know how I felt. After my gushing gratitude, I said to her, “I’m gay!” And she enthusiastically said, “Me too!” with a big smile.
Back to Texas in 1998—rumors were swirling that we were all about to lose our jobs, due to the station’s low ratings. Susquehanna Radio, the company that owned K-Plex, wanted a complete makeover of the station. They were hoping to make it to the number two spot in Dallas, which would finally bring the kind of listening audience and ad sales necessary to survive. So, in the summer of 1998, they brought in their star program director from Atlanta, Brian Philips, a guy known for aggressively turning around music stations.
Brian’s previous stations played Top 40 pop and rock, so the scuttlebutt was that he planned to change our format, which probably meant getting rid of all us country DJs. With the real possibility of being kicked to the curb, I’d already been casting around for a new gig and was offered a spot at a leading country music station in Nashville, WSIX. They even flew me to meet with everyone. I was dazzled by the place. They showed me around town and pointed to the houses where my music heroes lived. I spent time with the head of the new show and met my potential cohost, a cool woman who intimidated the heck out of me. We went to a local bar and played pool together. It was my first time playing and I felt so uncoordinated. Although I was flattered by their attention, they thought it was pretty much a done deal by the time they dropped me off at the airport. But to me, something about the whole experience felt forced.
Was this really the right decision? I wondered. I loved the life I’d built in Dallas and was reluctant to leave, but I wasn’t so sure I had a choice. For someone whose two greatest loves were country and radio, getting a show curating country music in the industry’s mecca, just three years into my radio career, was a dream come true. Plus, they would double my salary again! I should have been overjoyed.
I hardly knew Brian, who’d only been at his desk for a couple of weeks before I walked into his office to tell him my news.
“Hey, Brian, I have this contract sitting on my kitchen table, waiting to be signed. But I love Texas. What should I do?”
“You should stay,” he told me.
Brian planned to fire almost all the on-air talent. That’s how he approached the turnaround. It would mean letting go of some good people, but they weren’t projecting the kind of energy and excitement he was looking for. Some were too identified with the previous version of the station, while others weren’t open to change. But there was something about me he liked and felt would be a fit for the revamped programming. He wasn’t necessarily impressed with the job I was doing in my morning slot, but he instinctively understood that it wasn’t my best fit and liked the fact that I was young and energetic. He’d also spoken with Paul Williams, an old friend of his from back when Paul worked in radio, and my old friend from Universal Studios in Orlando.
“Cody’s a good kid, you’re gonna love him,” he assured Brian.
Brian took the time to explain his vision for the station’s relaunch. It would stay country. Instead of relying on heavy rotation of the same country songs that were being played over the previous decade, he wanted to bring some edge, taking a risk on new artists, especially those red dirt Texas artists that local listeners loved but weren’t being taken as seriously by the country music gods in Nashville. I’d be encouraged to curate the music I believed in, from any era, and discover the new, with an emphasis on raucous guitar-heavy songs that would appeal to younger, mostly male listeners like me. The hope was that we could recapture the eighteen-to thirty-four-year-olds who’d drifted over to Top 40. Brian told me he wasn’t content with just being the number two station. He wanted to be number one. He was planning to launch an all-out attack to dominate the market and change Dallas–Fort Worth radio as we knew it. He told me how they were going to spend big money on billboards and TV ads, and how he wanted me to be a part of something that was going to be bigger and better.
“Cody, there is something about you that defines what this new station is going to be about. I love your ear, the way you talk to listeners, and your offbeat comedic timing. You have that feel for Texas Country we need. If you’re willing to go back to the afternoon time slot, I will take care of you.”
Brian was full of charisma and conviction. Before the conversation was over, he made me a believer and, when I got home that night, I tore up the Nashville contract. Moving to Nashville would have been the logical move. They made it clear how much they wanted me and were even willing to pay my expenses for the move. There were no guarantees that what Brian had in mind would work, and he was even asking me to accept a demotion of sorts by moving out of the morning drive show, where I was head of my own small ensemble cast, including the best news reporter in radio, Chris Sommer, and the mucho talented Stacey. But Brian could have told me to run into a burning house and I’d have done it. I could sense his decency and dedication. And I believed him, even accepting much less pay than Nashville was offering me. Six figures less! But money wasn’t my goal (ever). I’ve always been more prone to following my heart instead of my head and made that leap into the unknown with him.
The transition from K-Plex to “The Wolf” was one heck of an undertaking. A lot of thought went into our rebranding. For weeks, we researched Texas country music, from the biggest stars like George Strait to the more outside-the-lines artists like Robert Earl Keen. Brian ordered Paul Koffy, a newly hired jock who couldn’t go on air until the relaunch, to gather up all the biographical information he could on the artists we would be playing. He wanted us all to know their stories backward and forward. Of course, this was before Google, so Paul went to the local library to look up articles and compile information on every Texas musician he could find. He made hard copies of everything he dug up, stapled each bio together, and created a Trapper Keeper–like file folder for each of us. I am not sure if he intended it to be a joke, but each pink pastel folder was decorated with kittens, like something a little girl would have on her first day of class in grade school. Paul, who became a great friend and now does a nationally syndicated radio show out of Nashville, has been “Kitten Boy” to me ever since.
Brian kept most of the planning under wraps. We didn’t even know what the new station would be called because he didn’t want to risk the information coming out until the day of the launch, to deprive the other stations in town the opportunity to make fun of us. Shortly before the big day, there was a dinner with Dan and Brian. Dan took out a napkin and drew what looked like a paw. “The Mark of the Paw” would become our most recognizable piece of branding. It was there every time we had an event. When people saw that paw print, they knew they’d be in for a great time with The Wolf, with events, prizes, and great music.
On launch day, on a Friday afternoon about an hour before the first show came on air, Brian decided to play the instrumental theme from the movie soundtrack of Dances with Wolves. He wanted to create a sense of mystery and build up suspense, but for some longtime listeners, it had the opposite effect. Back then, we had these clunky old beige push-button phones in the producer’s room, with four lights to indicate when someone was on the line. The entire time we were playing that music, all the phones were lit up as people called in to complain.
“Have y’all switched formats?” one of them asked.
“Are you an easy listenin’ station now?” said another.
Uh-oh, I thought. But I felt strongly that what was to come would be the most exciting relaunch of a station in radio history.
Then, finally, we went live, launching “The All New 99.5, The Wolf.” Often when a new station launches or relaunches, the first song played is a theme song that evokes the new approach. Such was the case with The Wolf, as our first song became our new anthem. It was Robert Earl Keen’s “The Road Goes On Forever.”
Once we officially launched, the DJs each had forty-five minutes to introduce themselves on air between songs. I went on at around 6:20 p.m., after The Wolf had been live for an hour or so. It was a moment I felt I’d been practicing for my whole life, from the time I played with Mr. Microphone in my room. Like an Olympic swimmer about to jump off the high diving board, I was exposed in nothing but a metaphorical banana hammock. I had nothing more than a fifteen-second song intro to prove myself. I felt like it was my chance to jump off the high dive and do some twirls.
“This is The Wolf, Texas Country,” I said on my first live break, before introducing a Dixie Chicks song and enthusiastically welcoming listeners to our newfound sound as Cody Alan, a guy I hoped they knew and liked. I felt good about my delivery, which was crisp and fresh. I was showing off my chops as best I could, excitedly accepting the new phraseology of the station, and what would become a long and awesome new phase in my life. While the song was playing, Brian came running down the hallway and barged into the studio.
“Who did that last break?” Brian asked to the crowd of staff amassed in the studio.
Oh shit, I messed up, I thought to myself. Couldn’t he tell it was me?
I raised my hand and confessed, “It was me.”
“That!” he said, pointing at me. “That is exactly what I want!”
We spent the rest of that night spinning records that hadn’t been heard on the radio ever before, mixed with classics from familiar favorites like Willie Nelson and Waylon Jennings. In time, we discovered and exposed listeners to artists like Pat Green, Cross Canadian Ragweed, Randy Rogers Band, and Jack Ingram. Our clever music brand was to blend the best of Texas Country and Nashville’s mainstream hits from Tim McGraw, Kenny Chesney, and even Shania Twain.
At first, not everyone was as enthused about what we were presenting to our listeners. The Dallas Morning News wrote a scathing review of the relaunch, calling it a terrible mistake. Poor Brian was distraught. There are those who have a tough time embracing change, even when the status quo sucks. But soon people started to get it. The whole experience reminds me of the quote from Elon Musk, “Good ideas are always crazy until they’re not.” People don’t always know what they want until you show them what they need.
Brian hired Paul Williams, again our mutual friend from Orlando, to help with the marketing. In another stroke of pure genius, Brian hired the Emmy Award–winning actor Barry Corbin as our station’s voice. Barry was a true Texan who lived on a working ranch just outside of Dallas. Best known for his roles in the miniseries Lonesome Dove and the television show Northern Exposure, Barry had a deep, rich voice and a Texan drawl that put you in a place. When he said something, you believed it. We gave him these one-liners in between songs like, “I’d rather be a fence post in Texas than the king of Tennessee,” and “This. Is. Texas Country!”
In one of our promos. he read “The Creedo of The Wolf” to a background of haunting music and howling wolves with dramatic flair:
Respect the elders
Teach the young
Cooperate with the pack
Play when you can
Hunt when you must
Rest in between
Share your affections
Voice your feelings
Leave your mark
The new 99.5 . . . The Wolf.
Barry was describing the way a happy wolf pack functions, and that’s exactly what we were. While Brian had kept me, Smokey Rivers, and Chris Sommer from the old guard, he’d assembled a mostly brand-new team of the best radio people from across the country: Top 40 veteran Bobby Mitchell, Texas spitfire talent Tara and Jon “Mr. Leonard” Rio on our morning show, “Kitten Boy” Paul Koffey, and, finally, Amy B., one of the most entertaining phone jocks ever on the radio. Of course, there was the occasional mild sibling rivalry, but The Wolf was first and foremost a family.
Barry also did riffs for every on-air event, “Howl-a’ween” specials, “Wolfathon” twelve-in-a-row music blocks, and our annual St. Jude Children’s Hospital “Hunt for a Cure” for which we raised more than one million dollars in two days, every year. We were no longer just musical wallpaper to our Dallas listeners, something that just played in the background for office workers. The Wolf imagery, along with Barry’s voice, was catching. Our listeners could visualize what we were all about: that proud Texan vibe. We ruffled some feathers, bashing the Nashville sound to get some attention, even though we of course played many Nashville songs. But we were all about that rebellious Texas spirit.
Another new Wolf hire was Brett “Dingo” O’Brien, a twenty-year-old radio nerd with a wicked smart marketing mind, who’d moved to Texas from Australia when he was fifteen; hence the nickname. Dingo was originally hired to help produce the morning show and he fit into The Wolf culture right away. For his twenty-first birthday, someone ran down to the nearest gas station to buy him his first six-pack of beer, which the morning crew made him drink on the air.
Dingo and I quickly discovered we were kindred spirits. We liked the same music, shared a similar sense of humor, and had the same marketing and branding background, so we knew how to package and sell what we loved. On the side, we produced a show I created, “The Country Now Countdown,” an independent syndicated program. Once a week Dingo would come in and help me record the show. I’d order dinner, and we’d edit the show and burn it on CDs that we’d send out to various stations. It never made much money, so I paid Dingo what I could with a personal check. The real reward was hanging out together and building a lifelong friendship.
Blake Shelton remembers our countdown attempt. His song “Austin” once hit its top spot. To this day, whenever we chat, Blake brings up his gratitude for that first number one in Texas, and how our fledgling show gave his music credibility before the Nashville charts ever did.
Dingo was also a second pair of ears at The Wolf as I discovered new music, one of my greatest joys. We were one of the few remaining radio stations that were permitted to find and make our own hits. Each week, the record labels would send us a pile of CDs. But I didn’t want some label’s A&R guy curating records for me. These companies had their own agendas and weren’t necessarily putting listeners first. They made calculations about what was commercial in the past, which often left no room for what was new, fresh, edgy, or worthy of The Wolf’s high standards, which I termed “Wolf-a-licious.”
A great Wolf song was generally a rollicking, guitar-heavy Texas sound, loud and proud and fun. We took risks on songs that were completely overlooked by the other stations, like “Horse to Mexico” by Trini Triggs and “Barlight” by Charlie Robison. We played songs by young artists who were often completely disdained by other purveyors of country music, like “I’m Diggin’ It” by Alecia Elliott, who was just seventeen in 2000, the year we put it into rotation. We also made hits happen nationally for other non-Texans, like Mark McGuinn’s ear candy song “Mrs. Steven Rudy.” Texan artists were often at the front of the line, but not always.
One day I dug a CD out of the pile. It was by a band called The Ranch, and it was as Wolf-a-licious as anything I’d ever heard. I played it for Brian.
“I don’t know, Cody,” Brian said. “It rocks like Texas, and the guitar sound is intriguing, but it’s kinda out of left field.”
“I think they’re going to be huge,” I told him. “Let’s play it!”
The Ranch was Keith Urban’s band, long before anyone had heard of Keith Urban, and certainly not the Keith Urban now married to Nicole Kidman. But we put one of The Ranch’s songs on, called “Walkin’ the Country,” and once again it was on-air magic.
Another radio rule we broke was not limiting ourselves to light rotations if we liked something. We played the bejesus out of our favorites: every hour and a half until they caught on. They were the songs that we could not get enough of, and they ultimately defined us. It also happened to be what our Texas listeners were hungry for at that moment.
Of course, not all the records I picked were loud bar songs for cowboys to stomp to. Again, I sifted through another record label batch and found this sweet ballad. It was about a mother’s wish for her daughter to live her life to the fullest, by an artist who was critically acclaimed but still lacked that breakthrough song. Again, I played it for Brian, who cocked his head in confusion.
“Yeah, Cody, the melody is beautiful, I love her voice, and the artist is from Texas, but it sounds like a wedding song. Is this us? Is it Wolf-a-licious?”
“Brian, it’s going to be song of the year,” I told him. One of the things that I think Brian liked about me is I always told him how I felt, even if he disagreed. Luckily, if I feel strongly enough that I’m right, I feel confident speaking up, even if it means putting my neck on the line.
Of course, the song was Lee Ann Womack’s “I Hope You Dance.” The chorus just soared, and the lyrics pierced the heart. It resonated with me especially as a new Girl Dad. I could imagine a time when I would have that same conversation with my own daughter or stepdaughter, only Lee Ann said it better than I ever could.
A year later, Lee Ann Womack would go on to win the 2001 Country Music Association (CMA), Academy of Country Music (ACM), Nashville Songwriters Association International (NSAI), ASCAP, and Broadcast Music Incorporated (BMI) awards for Song of the Year.
I spent a decade at The Wolf, which is a long time in radio years, much like dog years, I think. What kept me there for so long, besides my love for Texas and the roots I put down in Dallas, was the fact that I was able to take on multiple roles. In addition to being an afternoon jock, Brian asked me to be a music director and programmer. I’ll never forget the conversation about taking The Wolf’s musical reins, since it was my birthday, November 13. He had no idea of the serendipity of that moment. (The same birthday coincidence would happen years later at CMT on another November 13, when Brian asked me if I would host the soon-to-be-rebranded Top 20 video countdown show.)
There were so many memorable career milestones, including the first time I felt like a celebrity. I’d always been the guy who, before I met my wife, did my show, put it in a box on the shelf, then went home to a dinky apartment. But all of a sudden, at the Smirnoff Music Center during one of our Amphitheater concerts, I couldn’t even walk through the crowd. I was constantly being stopped by people asking for my autograph or to pose for pictures with me or meet the rest of their family. One or two people would spot me, and soon there’d be a line of people. The closest I had come to that level of attention was representing a station at some sort of auto dealership prize wheel spin. All of the on-air personalities at The Wolf were getting recognized; we were that successful in the Dallas–Fort Worth market. It was fun and flattering, although the rush of people at our events could be a little daunting at times.
In 2005, I even got to do mornings again, which turned out much better because it was on the number one station that was even outpacing local Top 40 radio. Professionally, the experience taught me that when you have the courage not to play anyone else’s game but your own, you will excel. Again, it was the road less traveled. A few people got upset with the station, and me, because we didn’t play by the rules. But they also admired us. We weren’t trying to be different for its own sake. We just wanted to be authentic, so we took calculated risks and followed our gut. We were total mavericks, and that put us on a winning streak.
In 2007, I left on a high note. I was growing restless and decided it was time for a new challenge, running my own station as a program director in Salt Lake City, Utah. The payoffs from listening to my inner voice and taking a chance had built up my confidence to the point where I was ready to take that next huge leap.
by Brian Philips
WHEN I FIRST ARRIVED IN Dallas, my initial reaction was to just get rid of everybody and start over. When you’re coming in from the outside to turn around a radio station, it’s just easier that way. The old staff are gone before you walk in the door so that you don’t form attachments. It enables you to do what’s got to be done without feeling rotten about it and risking the makeover. In a mercenary way I was hungry for fast change and growth. But after spending some time in the building, I was glad we were doing it the hard way, because it gave me a chance to listen to Cody.
He was a natural talent. Our goal was to build a more vibrant and youthful product, and Cody fit that bill. Beyond that, I loved the way he talked to listeners on the phone, which is a rare and prized radio skill. He was also a master of offbeat, comedic timing. He displayed a humility, humor, and curiosity about others that made his callers the stars. We had a red phone hotline inside the studio so that, as program director, I could call in even while Cody was on air. I kept calling in to say, “Do more of that!” Cody understood the country music audience at an intuitive level, and still does. Between his repartee with listeners, his gregarious personality, and his innate understanding of the spirit of Texas Country, he defined what I was trying to do at The Wolf. He became the standard bearer.
I knew he could re-create the same level of magic when I hired him at CMT years later. Although I admit, I had no idea he would end up being a great TV host too! But Cody is and has always been a conscientious and hard worker, a consummate showman, and a gifted broadcaster who understands the many aspects of the business.