I have to admit with Fall Official tomorrow (9-22-22), I do not feel like it is football season.  It's not because of the implosion that happened last Sunday either.   To me it is still baseball season especially when the Guardian's Magic Number is 9... 

The Browns are in a short week, and a Rivalry Week!  So the news of Clowney out already and Bitonio, Conklin and Garrett up in the air (but expected to play) the squad maybe missing some key players.  The Steelers Offensive woes have continued from last year and with their loss of Watt.  I think they will struggle to get in the endzone and maybe defend it.  It seemed like Nick Chubb had more touchdowns last week than the Steelers do on offense this year...

If the Browns need some spiritual help they might have made a call to the Ghostbusters...   It looks like their new dogs that they will apparently have the players run onto the field really look like The Gatekeeper and The Keymaster...  I think this game will "GOZAR" the Browns way but after last Sunday, I am not putting a prediction down...   Who you gonna call??   In the game of course...

New addition to #Browns GameDay… the players will be running out next to these pups. (I’m not sure they have names yet…) pic.twitter.com/WxlLKFfUiv

— Aditi Kinkhabwala (@AKinkhabwala) September 18, 2022

I'll try to keep this as short as possible. This week marks my 9th anniversary here at WQMX's parent company Rubber City Radio Group! I've known this is what I wanted to do since I was 10 years old - 25 years ago!! (YIKES). I was lucky enough to have an internship class at Stow High School that got me an internship with the Akron Public Schools' station, as well as with a radio reading station for the blind community owned by Goodwill Industries.

In college I had people at my internship try to talk me out of a career in broadcasting. I knew that if I didn't at least try it, I would kick myself for the rest of my life! About 18 months after graduating from The Ohio Center for Broadcasting (now Ohio Media School), I was hired at our sister station WAKR to work sports and talk shows. Next, out of the blue, I got an opportunity to work a weekend here at WQMX and haven't looked back! That was four years ago. About three years ago, I achieved my dream job and get to play the best country music for you five days a week. I love my job and can't imagine doing anything else!!

The Akron Marathon is this weekend!  Along with the Half Marathon and the Team Relay on Saturday.  If you are participating we wish you the best of luck.  You can find out all you need to know for the marathon by Clicking Here.

For those not running the race(s) you maybe impacted by the road closures...

For Road Closures: 

Friday:

South High - From East Mill to East Market at 6:30pm

South Main - Bowery to Buetchel at 9am

Saturday has an array of closings some at certain times which you can find by Clicking Here.

Again good luck, enjoy our great city and everyone be safe.

Blake Shelton was a guest today on The Kelly Clarkson Show and Kelly harmonized with him on his first big hit "Austin". Check it out below! 

Box Office Results - The Woman King  -   (19 Million)

New This Week - Avatar -  (Back in theaters)  -  Don't Worry Darling

New NEXT Week - Smile / Bros / Hocus Pocus 2 (Disney Plus)

Reminder - October 14 — Halloween Ends with Jamie Lee Curtis

This Weekend – Check out my Country Music Memory Lane  (link)   Dwight Yoakam

When it was brought up that the WQMX Crew would be rolling into Progressive Field for a Team Building Night.  
I imagined "Trust Falls", "Puns" and "Dad Jokes"... lotsa Dad Jokes!   There was a lot of that, minus the "trust falls".   The Guardian's Games are so much fun.  They are playing each game at such a high level and hopefully continue the winning into and thru the playoffs. 

Here at 94.9 WQMX we have such a great team.  It was a fun night at cheering on another great team at the ballpark.  We have the best fans in the world, YOU!   It was great to see another group of fans cheering on their team as well!   Almost got 2 whole games in one on Saturday Night...

GO GUARDS!!!!

  Last week I featured Randy Travis and how his impact was immense on the future of Country Music in 1986, essentially saving the genre. Dwight Yoakam was right there with him.  And from my seat when these two showed up, everything changed for country.  Dwight Yoakam had a bevy of really great songs, but who he was, was just as important.  Dwight Yoakam was good for us in so many ways, the music was just one of them.

His Break Through Song!

As Urban Cowboy was running out of gas, we were at a pivotal point in our genre. Do we continue to record, release, market, and play the same stuff that was stagnant, vanilla and not really loved by fans, or do we go in a very different direction?  Travis' Storms of Life  album shifted the direction of the format for years to come, as did Yoakam's Guitars And Cadillacs.  Musically the two were entirely different, and in style and image as well.  But the one thing they totally had in common was they were new, young, and here to make an incredible difference.  They arrived at about the same time, the right time, they just took very different paths. 

This Was A Very Popular Song!

Yoakam for the most part grew up in Columbus, Ohio where he went to school and eventually enrolled in Ohio State, but that didn't last long.  He was heavily influenced by the music he grew up listening to on Columbus country radio, and what he saw on TV.  Elvis, and others to be exact.  He moved to Nashville in the early 80's and was told he was too honky-tonk, too bluegrass, too rockabilly, in short, he was just too much - period.  You see, country was very safe in those days. My first number of years in country radio there were safe pop sounding songs from mostly established older artists and no one new was finding us, listening to us, and most of all enjoying us.  We were officially "non-fun"  and "non risk taking" overall and we all were concerned. We were treading water.

A Former Elvis Hit One Of His Heroes - Big For DW

Yoakam moved to California where he embraced the Bakersfield sound, and eventually found the ear of Reprise Records and recorded an "EP" at that time with some songs Yoakam had written and a couple of covers. It would become the iconic, Guitars and Cadillacs, and it was a huge success.  I emceed a live show with Yoakam right at his beginning, as Honky Tonk Man was just finding its way to the charts.  It was at some big club in Columbus, and I was doing mornings at WRMZ FM-100 Country there, we were the sister station to WMNI, the station Yoakam had grown up with as a kid.  We had done shows there a few times with a local legendary group called, McGuffey Lane, all great guys.  (They were sort of the Michael Stanley of Columbus, in how much they were loved)  The place was mobbed, I mean jammed, with people seemingly hanging from the rafters to see Yoakam play.   He was different, and you could feel and see it.

With One Of His Idols - Legendary Buck Owens  #1   (This Song Was A Big Moment In His Run) 

Yoakam was this new avant garde hybrid with his look and way.  He was a new deal with a low riding hat, tighter than tight jeans that had holes in them, pointed boots, un-tucked shirt, jean waist jacket with some kind of rhinestones, and other stones lining the seams of his clothes with leather straps hanging off his sleeves, and some strange handmade belt worn low.  All of that unheard of at the time, common place later.  He had some Elvis type moves, a rockabilly singing delivery, and was just - cool.  That's the best way I can describe it.  The music was a bit loud, with a band that looked nothing like any country backup band I had ever seen.  The music was also respectful of his heroes well before him, and we knew that was his passion, and loved him for it.  We believed him, and that's a BIG DEAL for any country singer. He was on to something, it was new and really fun. It was a new day.

Huge Hit  - Grammy Award Winner

Gone were the freshly pressed leisure suits of the day with badly died hair, capped teeth, long necklaces with wide open collars, and boots with no hat or anything else that was up to date. And also gone were the perceived "fake cowboys" of country where the big belt buckle and occasional hat wasn't fooling anyone anymore.  This was a new kind of country star.  And to me, along with the incredible music, that is the real gift Yoakam brought us. 

A Real Yoakam Favorite

As where musically Randy Travis was politely asking Urban Cowboy to kindly step aside so others could play too, Yoakam seemed to give them the old heave-ho by the seat of their polyester pants, and Jordache jeans.  Yoakam's music in many ways was a throwback to an era gone by, but it had a thump, it was traditional, loud, brash and more in your face, all being delivered by a guy in a very cool and new kind of get up and approach. He really helped begin the change of the stage show for country, another great gift.  We were not just standing at the mic anymore.

Great Song  - Cool Video

DW would enjoy a number of years of really good success in country.  There are those who had more number one songs, and so on, but he was loved. His music was as distinct as he was.  You knew it was him on the radio and I always feel that is the mark of a really great artist, the one that can cut through.  His look which was  -  and is -  distinctly his.  It directly led to others in the years straight ahead to be more as daring, different and new.  Yoakam made us far more adventurous.  And at the beginning, we could have played him and Travis about 10 times an hour and no one would have minded. 

Big Concert Song For Him

Yoakam opened up the minds of those reluctant to do so, while easing the minds of those longing for a new traditional country sound, and he brought us new listeners who decided to give us a try after seeing and hearing him.  He was right there with Randy Travis closing out the Urban Cowboy pop country era for the newer traditionalists that were on the way.  He is a Grammy winner, a CMA and ACM winner going on to sell close to 30 million albums which was unheard of then.  He also was the very first country artist to EVER to have videos played on MTV.  He was that cool and different.  Acting was ahead as you know and he became re-famous in Hollywood doing great work there.

Later Yoakam - Different But Still Really Cool -

Dwight Yoakam to me is a very important player in the evolution of a far more modern country music landscape.  He broke down a bunch of barriers and was daring enough musically and style wise to help change the direction of country music and its future entertainers.  In the last few decades, he is one of the most respected artists we have had.  He was accepted by artists from many genres as a real innovative artist.  In a different way, he was as pivotal as Travis  - and for us he was right on time.

Dwight Yoakam - A true trailblazer.

Insanely awful loss yesterday.  Simply unacceptable. I have said all summer long this team has a lot of question marks and problems.  Today local and national media should be fun to listen to.  The locals think we are the greatest team of all time, and the nationals don't.  Social media has been fun all summer long with many saying we will be 14-3 and others saying we will win 6 games.  Who knows?  Vegas says about 8, may be about right.

Maybe the Browns and media should quit talking about how great things will be after week 11. Or how great it's going to be when Myles Garrett breaks the team sacks record, or gets Defensive Player of the Year. (Good lord  - who cares?)  Or how great many of these average players they extended in the off season really are.  

Fact is, I am NOT down on the Browns, but I am willing to look at them honestly and admit, we are not in the upper crust of the NFL - Not yet anyway, but it's a long season.  And I DO know this team has issues.  We all know what they do well, and who does it well, this team has some great players, a few are the NFL's best at what they do.  But today we will look at what we DON'T have.  (No order)

We don't have a coach that is outwardly demanding of players.  You need to adjust coach, your clock is ticking.

We don't have a coach that is emotional and the team reflects it.  You can be too laid back.

We don't have an owner that makes the organization as a whole want to be better.

We don't have a lot of real NFL experience at many vital position groups.

We don't have the ability to not overpay some players that numerous other teams won't.

We don't have many big draft picks in the next few years.

We don't have an experienced backup QB right now if this thing goes wrong.

We don't have access to a QB they paid a quarter of a billion dollars to for good long while.

We don't have a real leader on defense. The guy who WON'T let you lose.  It's starting to show.

We don't have a star defender who makes game changing plays when you need a big play made at games end.

We don't have good special teams - period.

We don't really have the ability to make massive comebacks if needed with the current QB situation.

We don't have receivers that make really big plays after the catch.

We don't have a star tight end either, we have expensive ones.

We don't have a killer instinct.

We don't have a real home field advantage like some teams - Try beating the Chiefs at Arrowhead.

We don't know how to handle good fortune.

I have been worried about these things all off season.  The truth is the Browns spent much of the off season focusing, out of a necessity of their own making, on many things except the football challenge at hand.  The thought was a star QB would solve problems, but he won't. Yes, he will solve a few issues on offense, more than likely in 2023.

These are some of the issues the Browns need to somehow address right now as Sunday was pathetic. And we won opening week on a wing and prayer.  If this team is really as good as many say, both should have been slam dunks, as so far we have faced teams that are not very good.  Steelers this week, then the schedule gets tougher.  

Time to wake up, face the issues and get to work.  

  Today is the start of National Dog Week.  I love dogs.  What I really love about dogs are the lessons we can learn from them if we pay enough attention.  They are incredible teachers.

My Husky Juneau is, and has been a great companion for me for 12 years.  She is the dog that many like me have always wanted.  She's a part of the family.  She is fun, she is very talkative, she is emotional and loves to be where the people are.  She is far closer to the end than the beginning now, and requires a bit more attention, work and few meds, but she's still a great friend.

Juneau

She lost her great friend, Kona  (another husky) a few years ago, but she recovered.  She made new friends when I met the beautiful Windy. She LOVES Windy, and the pugs, Luna and Midnight.  They friended each other up quick as you can see.  Juneau is much older than those two, and leads the pack.  The pugs are great dogs too, and I have become big fans, as I have never owned little dogs.  They are wonderful company for our family.  And it's very peaceful at the house when we see the three of them snoozing in the same room.

Luna -  Loves Her Stuffed Llama  (So fun)

What dogs do is amazing. My mom's dog Summer was great company for my mom until Summer died.  My mom was very old (92), and losing her health and memory, and Summer sensed a change and became even better company as her, and my moms days dwindled down to a precious few.  I am thankful to Summer for that.  Summer could be difficult at times, but she was razor sharp and smart, and was a good dog for my mom for many years.

Midnight -  Same

You see the dog/human thing goes back about 25,000 years as legend goes.  Legend says this - One day all those years ago a starving human and a hungry dog ran across each other in the woods.  They each thought about eating each other, until they came to an agreement. They would hunt and eat together.  And the rest is history as we have been best friends ever since.

Is that true?  Who cares?  It's a nice allegorical story if it's not, and fantastic if it is.

Love your dog, happy week to all!

There are new album releases today that you should know about! Mitchell Tenpenny released his third major label album This Is The Heavy and celebrated with a #1 single this week. The albums lead single "Truth About You" sat at the top of the chart this week!

Little Big Town also released their new album Mr. Sun today. They celebrated with a couple of TV appearances. They performed their song "Rich Man" on The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon on Thursday. 

They were also featured this morning on the TODAY Show's summer concert series again performing "Rich Man", "All Summer", and "Wine, Beer, Whiskey". They also talked about how their new album Mr. Sun is all about better days. 

America's Got Talent finalist Drake Milligan also released his debut album Dallas/Fort Worth yesterday! Click here to watch his finale performance!