| Leo's "Bluesland" THURSDAYS 8-10 PM on KCSB 91.9 |
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Leo Schumacher and Pandora founder Tim Westergren.
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Profiles in KCSBage
DJ Leo Schumacher's Bluesland
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"Sadness. Happiness. Bad women. Bad men." Asked about his personal
approach to set-building, KCSB DJ Leo Schumacher said he has returned to
these themes, well-worn concepts that are the narrative pillars of the blues,
time and time again since his program Bluesland began exploring and
promoting the genre in 1996.
"I keep it to three or four songs a set, so people can remember which song
was which," Schumacher said, readying one of the many thematically rubber-
banded bundles of CDs he brings to the studio every week. He then returned
to the mic to back-announce the previous, climatically-themed double bill:
the Muddy Waters Tribute Band with Clouds of My Heart followed by Lee
Michaels with Stormy Monday.
When I joined Schumacher, whose show has become a KCSB institution, in
the control room one Thursday night, any questions I had about Bluesland's
fan base were immediately put to rest by the backlog of requests
Schumacher had received via the internet ("Facebook, Myspace—I do it all")
even before opening the evening's broadcast. I'd often barely be able to
finish asking a question before the studio phone would ring yet again:
Another listener had a question, joke, or desire to hear one particular
number. This audience participation prompts improvisation: "Sometimes I
have a set and think, no, I'll play something else instead," Schumacher said,
"or I'll build a whole set around a request."
To log more than 1300 on-air hours spinning the blues requires total
devotion to the form, and Schumacher's sprouted early. As an eight year old
growing up in Oxnard, he spent a day shining shoes with a cousin and
needed something to buy with his earnings. Visiting the local Fedco, he
browsed the record bins and happened upon Johnny "Guitar" Watson's
Gangster of Love. The chance he took on that 12-cent 45-rpm single paid off.
"From that point on," as Schumacher tells it, "it was the blues for me."
Schumacher's relationship with KCSB began when he became a fan of Matt
Cohen's program Jumpin' the Blues. He called in regularly to talk to Cohen
about the blues. "I bugged him," Schumacher admitted, "and eventually he
just said, 'Quit calling me and get your own show!'" Beginning Bluesland in
the days when the studio featured both a mixing board with big, old-style
circular knobs and a reel-to-reel machine on the wall, he prepared for his
very first 4 a.m. broadcast by hanging a framed picture of his blues hero
Muddy Waters on the wall and beginning with a dedication: "This is for you,
Muddy."
"One thing I love about the blues is that it's about stories," Schumacher said.
"It's about life." Inside and outside of Bluesland, Schumacher's love of the
music has enriched his own life. He told me about meeting his wife while
browsing the Oxnard public library's blues offerings. "I ask her, 'What kind of
music do you like?' She says, 'The blues.' So I'm in my favorite place looking
for my favorite music, and here's this beautiful woman who loves it too!"
Though he once nearly quit the show due to a relative's serious illness, he
expressed gratitude for having been was talked out of it by KCSB staff
advisor Elizabeth Robinson. "She told me, 'You can't quit, Leo,'" Schumacher
remembered. "'You need this,' she said 'This is therapy for you.'"
Whatever the blues has given him, he's given plenty back in his tireless
quest to advance its local availability and appreciation. Bluesland
represents just one front of this effort; Schumacher also sits on the board of
the Santa Barbara Blues Society, heading its merchandise operations, its
annual Battle of the Blues Bands, and its Blues for Youth program. Especially
proud of the latter, Schumacher told me all about the program’s mission to
get musicians to play in schools and thus keep enthusiasm for the blues
alive. "Sometimes I go to shows, and the audience is all grayhairs!" he
observed. "If we don't do something about that, what we have will die."
Rarely taking no for an answer, Schumacher has successfully pursued such
causes as getting Santa Barbara mayor Marty Blum to institute a Week of
the Blues in the city.
"I say, always go for the best, then see what you can get," he advised. "Most
people never even ask." Schumacher's willingness to just ask has resulted
in an impressive array of guests on Bluesland. He's interviewed players like
Billy Gibbons of ZZ Top ("He loves blues, guitars, and women—I let him talk
about the women"), B.B. King, and George Thorogood, and he's also talked to
record producers, luthiers, biographers, and scholars of the blues. Thus far,
his only "No" came from Eric Clapton's personal assistant. "Eric doesn't do
college radio," the assistant explained, nevertheless impressed at how
close Schumacher had come.
He's also chatted on the air with many of the great radio DJs, including
current KLOS and former KMET icon Jim Ladd as well as Bill Wax, host of
Sirius XM's Bluesville, who returned to help pitch during KCSB's annual fund
drive.
KCSB offers Schumacher one of the few remaining fora in which it's still
possible to be a real DJ, with all the personality, autonomy, and capacity for
self-expression that title bears. Substituting for a month on a major local
rock station, he came up against innumerable prescriptions: "You will play
this song, you will play that song, you will play these commercials." The
same obstacles even popped up during a stint at a nearby public radio
station: "I asked if I could do the show live. Nope. I asked if I could do
interviews. Nope. I asked if I could do Blues Society announcements. Nope.
You have a great listenership there, but dang, it's no fun!"
Even in his early days at KCSB, Schumacher knew he'd found a station
where anything was possible. "I came in to [KCSB training station] KJUC and
saw a guy playing three turntables at once," he recalled. "I asked him what
was going on, and he just said, 'Wait.' Sure enough, a minute later, all three
records came together. And I realized that's what we're doing here: making
music in our own way."
Thanks to Colin Marshall for coming into "Bluesland" Thursday
Dec. 17 talking about KCSB and why we were there.
Dec. 17 talking about KCSB and why we were there.