A radio career spanning three decades and counting is one of the reasons longtime on-air host Homer Blow was honored recently by the Milwaukee Common Council. Another reason is the way Blow has used his position to serve and educate the community.
Blow worked 32 years at WNOV in Milwaukee and is best known for his talk show “Keepin’ It Real."
During a July Common Council meeting, Alderwoman Sharlen Moore presented Blow with a proclamation honoring him for his career in radio.
Moore touted Blow’s career, his decades of service to the community, his 35 years in radio, and the annual party for kids that he hosts on his birthday to give back to Milwaukee children.
Before reading the proclamation, Moore laughed, saying that she’d known Blow for a long time, but even still she didn’t know just how much work he was doing in the community.
"Homer Blow regularly gives back to the community over the years by donating his time to work with multiple charities and orgs, such as the Sickle Cell Anemia Foundation, Running Rebels, The Boys & Girls Club, Fathers Making Progress ... and many, many others." Moore said.
WUWM’s Race & Ethnicity Reporter Teran Powell talked to Blow about the honor from the city, and his career.
"When people recognize your work, then it's an amazing experience," Blow says. "I'm a very humble person, so whenever I'm acknowledged or recognized, I never take it for granted."
This conversation has been edited for length and clarity.
Teran Powell: How did you know you wanted to do radio?
Homer Blow: I didn't want to do radio. I was not interested in doing radio. Obviously I've been DJing longer than I have been in radio, if you add that time. And you're talking about 40-something years of just DJing, and I'm still DJing.
But I was hosting concerts, being invited to all of the parties that you would normally only get invitations for if you were in radio. And I was packing clubs and lounges for just decades.
Then the late Ernie G, who was a program director and music director at WNOV, he would come to some of the events and not necessarily knowing that I was going to be there, but he was looking at it in awe too ... and so he was like, "Man, you ever think about getting in radio?" I said, "nope." He said, "Man, why don't you send me a air check?" I was like, "OK, what's an air check?"
So, he ended up critiquing the air check, but he was like, "You sure you ain't been in radio?" And I said, "No, I've never ever been in radio."
And he said, "All right, well, I like what I'm hearing." He said, "There's a few things that I'll work with you on, but other than that, are you able to come in next week?" Which was June 11.
Then Juneteenth was coming up. So I got a crash course into learning how to work and operate the board. I had to fly solo because WNOV was in the parade, and we always had a booth down at Juneteenth.
So, I had to take the calls from the on-air personalities checking in while they're in the parade, and once they get down to Juneteenth calling in at certain times and talking about what's going on, interviewing people — and so that was my job. But June 11 I ended up entering into the world of radio and I've been in there ever since.
I had a question about how much longer you think you got in the game, but clearly you're going until you can't go.
Yeah, you know, and and I feel like this about it: if I was in the way, that would be one thing, but I'm not in the way. I crave to have new talent. The proof is in my career that I brought in people in radio that it was not their intention to be in radio, but I saw or heard something in them.
So, I've given a lot of people over the decades of my career opportunity to get into radio and to become radio personalities, DJs, voice-over talent, producers, board ops and all of that. So I'm not afraid of that.
And one of the things that will continue my legacy is when you own your own, right? So, blowradio.com, my online internet station, I own that. So, even if terrestrial radio said, "OK, Blow, alright, we can bring somebody else in and do this." OK, I got that knowledge and information to keep it fresh, keep people interested, not lock down to just one genre of music. I got a variety, and that's why my slogan for blowradio.com is, "We've got it all."
I want to know what working in radio has allowed you to do in the community or in life that maybe you might not have otherwise done.
Before radio, I had the ears of my community. I was, you know, heavily involved in my community. But once I ended up entering into the world of radio, it introduced me to thousands of other people who didn't know Homer Blow.
It opened me up to be able to share some of my viewpoints and opinions on different things. How to let people know where the resources were for different things that they felt like we need this, we need that, well, here, did you know that this was going on? Let me give you that information on the radio.
Just to really make people aware of the things that are out there, the things that can help our community. Just to be able to reach out to those people and for me, it's like, OK, that's just what I do, but for those people who listen to you, those people who have met you, it means more than you ever know.
That's a power that I don't take lightly.
_
