Chuck
Dauphin:
Much-admired
Country
Broadcaster
& Writer
Breaking
New Ground in 2009
By PHIL
SWEETLAND
Music+Radio
contributor
Like
Crowe, the writer/director of Jerry
Maguire and of the autobiographical Almost
Famous about Cameron’s days as a teen-aged star
reporter at Rolling Stone, Dauphin
began his own
career in music journalism at a very young age, and by age 17 was
already a
professional.
But
Cameron was a Southern Californian whose passion was Rock. Chuck was
and
remains a small-town Tennesseean who lives and breathes Country.
Here’s
a perfect example: When he was in just the ninth grade, Dauphin sent
RCA
Remarkably,
Dauphin had started on that path when he was even younger.
“I
used to badger the DJs at WSM-AM when I was about 10 or 11 years
old,” Dauphin
says. “Keith Bilbrey (the longtime WSM air personality)
probably still has
nightmares of me calling up and winning albums and concert
tickets.”
At
that young age, Chuck was already recording tapes of himself doing
imaginary
Radio broadcasts. As a professional, he’s not only living
that dream but also
showing a natural talent for multi-tasking that in these days of
reduced staffs
makes Chuck a hugely valuable asset.
He
not only does morning drive at Country WDKN-AM in Dickson, but also is
both a popular
WDKN sportscaster and sportswriter for The
Dickson Herald. And that’s just the beginning.
Each July, WDKN does The
Farm Tour in conjunction with the local agricultural community. Four
school
buses take folks to visit
Textbooks
never did much for Dauphin, but liner notes on Country albums
– still very much
a presence in those 1980s days – captivated him. He read the
notes on every
album, and scoured every book about Country he could find in the
library. The
result was an almost encyclopedic knowledge of the music’s
artists and heroes.
Ironically,
it was Dauphin’s other passion – Sports –
which got him his first broadcasting
break. WDKN did play-by-play of the
WDKN
is also a Country station, and it didn’t take long for
station management to
recognize that this young staffer was incredibly well-versed in
Country, and
also possessed what Radio folks call great pipes – a terrific
voice - to go
along with a natural warmth and ease on-air.
So
on
While
he loved broadcasting both music and Sports, another talent soon began
to
emerge – writing. By the middle of the first decade of this
century, Dauphin
had become one of the most admired writers on Country in the business.
“I
never really thought of myself as a writer early on, aside from writing
copy
for Radio commercials,” he says. “But I became
associated with New Music Weekly in
2001, and that
ballooned into working for MusicNewsNashville.com and
MusicCityNews.com.”
This
new business enabled Chuck to develop his skills in what may be his
favorite
activity – interviewing. Soon, Dauphin was talking to George
Jones, Loretta
Lynn, and the creator of the legendary TV show Hee
Haw, Sam Lovullo.
Here’s
how Chuck began his MusicCityNews.com piece on the show, which many
consider
some of the finest work ever written about the Country classic:
“It was 1969 .
. . when man was about to take the first steps on the moon. There were
two
professional football leagues at the time. Richard Nixon had just taken
over
the presidency. And one night in mid-June, viewers watching the
`Tiffany
Network’ (CBS) might have been in somewhat of a shock when
they saw the
premiere of a new television series that would prove to be one of the
best
friends Country Music has ever had – Hee
Haw.”
Chuck
Dauphin has been another of Country’s best friends for a long
time. And now
he’s expanding his career footprint beyond Radio, into the
exciting new vistas
of both cable and network TV, feature and book writing, and long-form
programming.
Television
production and book writing require incredibly specialized knowledge,
along
with that gift for multi-tasking which Dauphin has in spades. So
don’t be
surprised if the next chapter of Chuck’s own life shows him
rising from a
regional star to a breakout one on the national media stage.
-30-
Updated