Obie Yadgar is Back on Milwaukee Radio

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Photos courtesy Obie Yadgar

Obie Yadgar

Obie Yadgar

From the ‘70s through the ‘90s. Obie Yadgar was one of Milwaukee’s most familiar radio personalities, thoughtful and devoted to the recordings he played. What Bob Reitman was to rock, and Ron Cuzner to jazz, Yadgar was to classical music. His knowledgeable, dependable voice, silent for many years, recently returned to the air with a show called “Obie’s Opus,” 8-9 a.m. Sundays on WMSE, 91.7 FM.

Tell me about your early life. You were born in Iran into a minority community?

I was born in Baghdad, Iraq, and when I was a year old, the family moved to Tehran, Iran. I lived there until my mid-teens, when I immigrated to America with my older brother. For many generations my family lived in Urmia, a region in northwest Iran, which at one time had a large Assyrian population. 

I am an Assyrian and we speak the Aramaic language, the language Jesus Christ spoke, and we’re all Christians. The Assyrian empire flourished in Mesopotamia, part of the present-day Iraq, until 612 B.C. when it was defeated by the joined forces of the Babylonians and the Medes, a Persian people, never to rise again. Assyrians have always held on to their identity and religion, even through years of genocide against them by Ottoman Turks and their proxies, the Kurds.

Describe how you came to America.

America was my mother’s dream. It was her paradise, where all of us would live happily ever after. She put us on the 1946 immigration quota, and we finally received our visas in 1957. That was 11 years of waiting. Sadly, she did not make it. My mother passed away a couple years before my brother and I came. She was 35. My father came some years later. My brother and I landed in New York City at 11 a.m. July 23, 1957. New York was beyond my expectation. Tall buildings. Crowded streets. Young girls in shorts—Remember, I had just arrived from an Islamic country. And what, you had to pay to use the toilet? The damn door would not open. I had to go. Finally, I noticed men putting coins into the slot on the door. I don’t remember if a gentleman gave me a 10-cent coin, or I figured it out myself. 

From New York we took the train to Chicago. We arrived with 10 cents left between us, and that we used to call my aunt, who had been here for some years. I did not know a word of English. In September I continued in high school. Although I learned English fast—by the end of high school I had decided to become a writer, I had done badly in school. Later, I became a college drop out. Sometimes in those years, I packed my bag and took off for San Francisco. There I tried college again, but I dropped out again. So what I know as a writer I learned on the streets of Chicago and San Francisco. And in Vietnam, where I served as a U.S. Army combat correspondent with the 4th Infantry Division.

How has being Assyrian—and being an immigrant—informed the course of your life?

First of all, I am proud of my heritage. Tradition, national pride and connection to the past as I look to the future make me who I am. I am also an American, a Vietnam veteran, and that puts the topping on who I am. Once upon a time, Assyria was a powerhouse among nations, and unmatched in science, arts, architecture. I am very much tied to my roots. 

How did you break into radio? Were you always hosting classical music programs?

I was back from Vietnam and floundering, not sure what I wanted to do. Of course, I wanted to continue to write, since I had written in Vietnam, but I also wanted to do more than just write. I had always loved music, all types of music, and I was told I had a good radio voice. Most of all, I enjoyed playing music for people, the music I liked. 

So, I put an audition tape together and started applying to radio stations around the country. KDIG, in San Diego, was a small jazz station and it had an opening for Sundays from 6 to midnight. I applied. They called me and asked me to come down—was living in San Francisco. I took a bus there. They picked me up and took me to the station. They put me behind the microphone and said “do it.” Well, I picked out three jazz LPs and read a few commercials and I was done. They were impressed. They gave me the 8 to midnight slot five nights a week. 

After a while I moved on because the pay was too low. Then I worked in a middle-of-the-road station in upstate New York. Back to San Francisco after that, and unemployment, until I was offered a job at the NPR station in St. Louis, working 6 to midnight on a classical music program. I also did a jazz show, and helped produce a big bands show. Three years later WFMR in Milwaukee came along.

When (and why) did you come to Milwaukee?

Three years after St. Louis I came to WFMR in Milwaukee. Morning drive at WFMR sounded awfully good. By then, I was hooked on classical music. I had listened to classical music when living in Iran. I remember tuning in radio Baku in Azerbaijan on shortwave radio and listening to their evening of classical music. They were heavy on Russian composers. Years later in America, I had learned quite a bit in St. Louis. I am a college dropout, and everything in writing and music and radio I know has come from the streets, so to speak.

During my stay in Milwaukee for a series of interviews with the folks at WFMR, I roamed around Downtown and liked what I saw. I called my wife and assured her that we were not coming to a little dump; rather, Milwaukee looked to be a sweet town and I knew we would be happy here. And yes, we both loved Milwaukee. It has been home. 

Share your best memories of WFMR.

My memories of WFMR are bittersweet. On the one hand, we had a lovely audience. They were wonderful. And I got to know many of them intimately. On the other hand, some of the people and companies that owned the station at one time or another were most unpleasant. Carpet baggers, really. But yes, I have a lot of good memories of the station. I remember—I think it was around 6:45 a.m.—I miscued a CD and what played was a deadly dirge of baroque recorder music. At that hour? Right then the phone flashed, and I answered. A calm voice on the other end said, “Of all the beautiful music in the world you have to play this shit.” Clink. He hung up. I could not stop laughing for days. In fact, I used the incident in my first novel, Will’s Music. Interviewing actor Vincent Price was, well, priceless. Such a gentleman. And he spoke the English language with such clarity and poise that it just made my mouth water. I interviewed scores of other arts celebrities, and many were of them were a sheer delight. There were times when the music flowed, like a gentle stream, and it was a good feeling. I had a lot of fun with my mystery quiz. It was a popular part of the show, and I got to know many of the callers. I remember doing on-air fundraisers for UPAF. I really enjoyed them. 

What did the fate of WFMR indicate about the direction of commercial radio?

For the time that I was at WFMR, the station was always at the mercy of owners who couldn’t tell their Beethoven from a bowl of spaghetti. Oh, what knuckle heads. They couldn’t care less about enriching the community with great classical music. It was all about profit. First, they tore the heart out of the station and then they killed it. How sad and tragic for a community to face such artistic barbarism. Of course, WFMR wasn’t the only station skidding on profit. It was obvious that all radio was going in that direction. Years later, I listen to WUWM and WMSE, but that’s about it. Classical music is gone from radio, like an era ending. Will the big bands ever come back? No, they will not. They are gone. Will classical music radio ever come back. Sadly, no, it will not. 

How do you like WMSE?

I love the station. I have always listened to it. I especially like its free form. What’s more, the management leaves you alone. It trusts you enough to let you do your show. These are good people. They care about the community. Some of the music I like and some flies past me. Then again, to each his own. 

Mine is the world of classical music, jazz and big bands, and WMSE offers that. I really enjoy myself programming and hosting the show. The music comes from my own humble library. It is ironic how I connected with the station. My wife Judy passed away a year ago and that just devastated my world. It just shattered everything around me. One day, when life looked bleak, when I couldn’t breathe, I phoned the station to see if they had any openings. My wife was always my number one fan and I think she made me do that. I’m sure of it.

So I call the station and who answers the phone? It’s Tom Crawford, the general manager. An awfully good person. He had been a listener of mine. So I was invited to the station, we talked, and came up with “Obie’s Opus.” The show is named after my second book Obie’s Opus. I am grateful to Tom and the station to allow me to do the show. I’m having fun. I am myself spending time with the audience.