A look behind the music with the artists themselves. Focusing on Texas, Red Dirt, and Americana music

I am a morning radio host based in Dallas Tx. I've been doing radio for over 36 years, but about 20 years ago, I developed a passion for Texas and Red Dirt music, and at that time I created the Official Texas Countdown radio show which is now syndicated internationally.

Most recently, I've decided to start using the full interviews that I do and use them to create the Red Dirt America podcast. The show takes listeners behind the scenes and let's them eavesdrop on conversations between me and some of the biggest and newest names in Texas, Red Dirt, and Americana Music. Past guest have included Steve Earle, Rodney Crowell, George Thorogood, The Wild Feathers and many others... Our listeners are people who love real music, not music that's formulaic or just created by the money machines in Nashville.
 

I stated the podcast because on my radio shows, I can only use a small portion of the interview I do with these artist because of time constraints and some really good stories were being left out because of that. I struggled with that for a long time...I thought about doing this podcast and bought the domain 5 or 6 years ago, but never pulled the trigger. It took me that long to believe that I had something that people wanted to hear. This past August some friends of mine kicked my butt and told me to get out there and get the podcast going so they could listen. I've only put out 7 episodes so far and I haven't started promoting it yet but I'm slowly getting there.
 

Wow. Great question. Doing a morning show, I'm up at 2:30 am and done by 1pm. Normally, that'd leave the rest of my days free and it'd be a breeze to do things, but I also have an internationally syndicated weekly show that I write and produce and I teach on Mon-Wed in the afternoons at a local college. (It's my way of giving back to beginning broadcasters) I record interviews both at the radio station and my home studio and the good thing is that I've been doing radio so long and have built up such a reputation that I have people asking me to interview them so I really don't have to seek out people to interview.

On the funding question since it's a new podcast, I am funding it myself, but I'm only really paying for the webhosting and that's like $5/month. Having been in broadcasting as long as I have, I'm my own editor.
 

I currently don't have any sponsors. Are you interested? Got any tips on how to get sponsors?
 

As I said earlier the guests pretty much come to me. I have a variety of microphones I use for my interviews. Since Covid, I've been using cleanfeed.net to record my interviews. I love that I can put myself and my guest on separate tracks and the quality of the audio is fantastic. After I download the interviews, I'll pull it up in Adobe Audition and clean it up, put it in my show template that I've built, mix it down and load it into Anchor for distribution.
 

So far I have only built a website and a facebook page for the show. It's still in it's infancy.
 

As someone new to the podcasting world I can only give you the best advice about interviews that I know as a broadcaster...have a conversation with your guest, ask your question and then shut up and listen...embrace the silence...you'll get some of your best interviews that way.
 

Check out Red Dirt America on Apple Podcasts, Audible, Amazon Music, Google, Spotify, or at reddirtamerica.com Pledge Allegiance to Real Country Music!