Columbus Music Man: Delyn Christian Interview

Delyn Christian has been playing music in Columbus, Ohio since the early nineteen-seventies. He has played solo and with countless central Ohio bands including King Barbecue, McGuffey Lane and, for the last twenty years, The Fret Shop Band. He has opened up for countless national acts and has played just about every bar, restaurant and music venue in Central, Ohio over the    past forty years. He also spent many years on the Columbus radio scene playing everything from John Coltrane to Metallica. Delyn moved to Tennessee a few years ago but he still plays regularly in Columbus

I first met Delyn back in the early nineties. I had just gotten my first radio job at WNKO-FM in Newark, Ohio.  Fresh out of The American School Of Broadcasting in Columbus, I was told by the program director that I would be trained for my first shift by someone named, "D'Lynn".

As I waited nervously in the station lobby for "D'Lynn" to arrive, I wondered who this woman was? Hopefully, she was a kind and patient person who would help calm my fast rising terror of going on the radio for the first time.

About a minute before the start of the shift, a big bearded long

haired guy wearing a cowboy hat burst through the door and said, 'Hi, I'm Delyn Christian.'

If you happened to be anywhere in the Newark area on that fateful day long ago and were lucky (or unlucky) enough to be tuned to 101.7FM, you would have been treated to one of the worst air shifts in radio history. Dead air, lots of dead air. Songs played that had never been heard on that station before. The same tune played back to back.  Two songs playing simultaneously.  The disc jockey stumbling over every third word in a shaky unaturally high voice.

It was the longest six hours of my life. Meanwhile, Delyn sat in the next room, occasionally coming over to the studio and calmly saying, 'Dead air, man' or 'Same song, man' or 'Two songs playing, man'. My favorite piece of advice came after I mistakenly identified the station as being located in Columbus instead of Newark. A moment after turning the microphone off, a shaggy head popped in the doorway and said. 'First rule of radio, man, always know what town you're in.'

I survived that first shift and would go on to work three years or so at WNKO. I was doing overnights while Delyn was the mid-day jock, so our paths only crossed once  or twice a month. Every time I ran into him though, he always had an amusing story to tell about his radio or music career. We both eventually moved on but I would hear him on CD 101 or see he was playing at some bar or club in the area.  I saw him play live a few times. (Anyone remember, Fear Of Toast?)

We would work together again, almost fifteen years after my first shift in Newark, at QFM 96 in Columbus. I had lost my previous radio job and Delyn put in a good word for me at Q, helping me to get hired. Proving, once again, that Delyn Christian is not only a really talented guy but a really good guy, as well.

 Casey Redmond:  Tell me about your early days.

Delyn Christian: I grew up on the north side of Columbus around the Sawmill Road/Godown Road area. We moved to Columbus, I think, in '68. I was born in Rome, Georgia and we moved to Columbus from Louisville, Kentucky.

CR:  Do you have a lot of memories of Kentucky?

Stingray

DC:  Oh, absolutely. I've got songs about it. There is a song on one of the records, "Kentucky Stingray".  It's all about my Stingray bicycle when I was eight. When I moved into that neighborhood, it was all eight year old kids. That's the first time I ever saw a Gibson guitar.  There were these brothers, the Shield brothers, that lived in what my parents called, the hippie house. They wanted us to stay away from that because they had leather jackets and motorcycles and had a band that used to practice in the basement.  Me and my one buddy would always get on our Stingrays and ride over. We'd hear the band cranked up and we'd go up to the basement window, look in there and watch them do their thing. That was the beginning of the end, I guess.

CR: Do you remember the first record you ever bought?

DC:  It was probably Joe Cocker's Mad Dogs & Englishmen.  I had

other records like my dad and mom's. My parents had Duke Ellington records, Boots Randolph, Buck Owens, that kind of stuff. So, I had all that. But as far as going out and walking to the record store, it was probably Mad Dogs.

CR: When did you start playing guitar?

DC: I had a friend named Kelly Shoemaker. His mom played guitar, taught us both how to play G, C and D. Once I found a capo, I had a job.

CR: What was your first guitar?

DC: My first guitar was a Fender six string my dad bought me when I was eight. I still have it. It hangs on my wall and it's still in tune. I played a lot of gigs on it. The first one I ever purchased, I guess, was an old Epiphone twelve string. It's gone, somewhere now. I used to take six strings off so I would have a six string because I couldn't afford both.

CR:  When did you start playing in public?

Bernie's Bagels

DC:  I was thirteen or fourteen, '73, around there. I would always walk down on High Street and play on the corner by Bernie's Bagels.  Artie Kegler was the manager of Bernie's, before The Distillery and all that, and he would always walk by and drop two or five dollars in my guitar case. That is still huge today, when somebody gives you a five dollar tip. He finally said, 'Why don't you come in here and play Friday night.' So, I'd go down and play and I'd make twenty-five dollars and a peanut butter bagel. I was happy.

 CR:  I didn't realize you started that young.

DC:  I was taking guitar lessons at Chuck Bailey's Guitar Center in Graceland. You can talk to any musician my age in town and they probably bought their first guitar from Chuck. He's still around.  Saturday afternoons he would get all his students together and they would set up equipment on the sidewalk at Graceland and you could jam, you could play.  Whether you were good or not, it didn't matter. That's how I met a couple of the first people I started a band with. They're still lifetime friends.  You'd work a day job at Kentucky Fried Chicken or Ponderosa, make enough to get gas money to get down to a gig and make no money.

CR: What was your first band?

DC:  Wow, I must have been in Junior High School. We were called, Exodus II., which had no real religious meaning. I'm not sure how all that came about. We played pool parties at Sycamore Hills or Indian Hills, these neighborhoods in the area. The high school dances, those kind of things.

CR: Do you remember what was on your setlist?

DC:  Even then we did originals. I was even writing back then.  We

would do like, Johnny B. Goode, Creedence, Alice Cooper.  I was a huge Alice Cooper fan. We would do as much of that stuff as we could. At least we thought we did. You know kids, listen to the record and try to figure it out and make some kind of noise. And then when I was in high school, our band would play at WMNI's Country Cavalcade on Saturday nights.  It was a radio show, kind of like their Grand Old Opry.  Ron Barlow was the host of that and that kind of got me interested in radio.  But we were kind of the house band. My high school buddy Tom Marshall, he played guitar for me for a long time, his dad was a fire chief in Columbus. He was the singing fire chief. We would back him up and then if somebody's band didn't show up, we were the band.  We'd play with, like, Charlie Rich, Loretta Lynn, whoever was coming through.

CR: You guys must have been a pretty good high school band.

DC:  Well, we thought we were good.  We worked. A lot of that was three chord stuff. Country music back then you could follow.  It meant something.

CR:  What was Columbus radio like when you were growing up?

DC:  Columbus radio was very cool.  It was right at the beginning of the FM craze and kind of underground radio.  WCOL-FM was my favorite radio station.  It was religious from six am until midnight and then it was album oriented rock. AOR, that's what they called it.  And it was, playing side 2 of Tommy, you know.  You could listen to the djs and they had something to say.  They could pick their own stuff.  People like Michael Perkins and Terry Wilson. Radio was the thing.  I still have my transistor radio that I would lay in bed and listen to.  I'd think, 'This guy's making a living talking about records.' I thought it was the coolest thing ever.  Until you realize what the money is.

CR:  Yeah, we all know about that sad tale.

DC:  You could go downtown and Spook Beckman of WCOL would be in the window.  The studio was in the window. So you could watch these guys and stuff.

CR:  How did you get into radio?

DC:  I tried to do college for a year or so and it just wasn't for me.  So I went to The American School Of Broadcasting. That was cool. You'd take maybe six months and you'd learn how to be on the television or the radio.  So, I got through that and got a gig at 3WJ (WWWJ) in Johnstown. Did country radio. I'd be doing gigs until two or three o'clock in the morning and have to be in Johnstown at six to do the top one hundred countdown at Denny Datsun-Chevrolet.  That was definitely a learning experience.  You did everything. You wrote commercials. Voiced commercials.  That was kind of the beginning of automation. At night we were automated but it was all reel to reel, no computers.  It was all big tape machines.  Someone would have to come in at three o'clock in the morning and change the tapes so it would make it to six am.

CR:  What station did you go to after WWWJ?

DC:  From there I got on at WBBY with Terry Wilson and that whole crew which was a wonderful place to be.  Real jazz.  Thelonius Monk and Miles Davis. I did midnight to six there forever and loved that.

 CR:  Did you have any choice in what you played?

DC:  Yeah, you did.  But at the end there, when it kinda got smooth jazz, it was pretty well formatted.  As a matter of fact, I still have a lot of my albums from those days that have the actual grid that the djs would make and tape on the album cover that would say, 'I played cut two at three o'clock in the afternoon on Wednesday.' So, you would know not to play that song for however long. Whatever the rotation was.

CR: So, you were doing radio and playing gigs.

DC:  Yeah and I also had a day job. I did everything.  I would play five nights a week, doing radio, whatever shift that might be. Eventually, I had to get out of it, raise my son and get a regular job. That's how I ended up at CD 101.  Andyman was one of my students at The American School Of Broadcasting, I ended up teaching there. He got the CD 101 gig and was running that and said, 'Why don't you come and do my weekends.' Andyman always called my radio syle, the drug induced seventies delivery that only I could provide. So, I got back into that which eventually led to working at QFM96.

CR: You've spent some time playing with McGuffey Lane who you met at Zachariah's Red Eye Saloon. How did that come about?

DC:  Well it's funny because, next week, I'm leaving to play on a

McGuffey Lane

cruise with them and I still do the Zachariah's Red Eye Reunion Show with them every year.  When I was thirteen or fourteen years old, I was playing up on High Street. When they would play on Friday nights, I would always be in front of Zachariah's with my guitar and those guys would always put money in my guitar case.  Bobby Gene and John and Terry Efaw.  We lost Tebes, of course, and Bobby Gene. Tebes was a big influence on me playing harmonica.  I would wait until they were ready to play and I'd go around the back of the building with my guitar case and pound on the back door until the bouncer would open it. I'd say I had the guitars for the band. I'd get in the back door that way so I could watch the band.  At the end of the show, I'd get my guitar and walk back home.  If it was during the week, I would sneak out of my house.  I'd go to bed at nine o'clock and climb out my window.  Then I would hitchhike down High Street, I wasn't driving yet.  I'd play then I'd go in and see the band. Get back home by two o'clock.  Shimmy back up the pole to my bedroom and get up and go to school in the morning.

CR: Did you ever get caught?

DC:  I did get caught, once.  My dad kind of caught my foot as was climbing down asking where I was going. I said I was going to work.  They ended up taking me to the gigs, so that was cool.

CR:  Who else did you see at Zachariah's?

DC:  There was a band called Urban Sprawl that was great.  All the national acts would come through. Poco would come there. I remember, one night, Dickey Betts was sitting their playing with McGuffey Lane. That was thrilling.

CR: You've opened for some big acts, I think you told me once you opened up for Donovan.

DC:  I did. It was, like, '77.  I was young.  It was very cool.  I've been lucky enough to open for Heart, Arlo Guthrie, Tanya Tucker...there's a long list.  The Agora was great for that.  You can be an opening act, make a little money and see a great show.  Dan Folgerberg was a great show.  Dan was very nice.  I always loved his music.  It was cool to be able to hang out with him.  I remember, when I was opening for Heart, the roadies came up to me and said, 'Stay out of their way.'  I think all of the dressing rooms were closed, so I was standing in the corner trying to stay out of the way.  They were saying how mean the girls were and not to talk to them, not to look at them. So, I'm standing in the corner trying to disappear and Nancy Wilson comes out and says, 'Come in here and have a sandwhich.' Musicians are musicians. Some of them got that break.  They were selling the right thing on the right day.  But everyone's a couple of bar gigs away from hunger, you know.

CR: You told me about your first guitar, what do you play now?

DC:  I have a 1959 Gibson J-45 and a 1990 Gibson J-200 which is what I usually play on stage.  I'm a Gibson player.  I love Gibsons.

CR:  Tell me about Rick Waters, you guys have played together a long time.

DC:  Almost forty years.  He was playing with The International Balloon Band and The Vectors.  This is like the early eighties when we met.  Then we started doing a duo together.  We've just been side by side ever since.  It's a great relationship to have. I do all my records at his studio. I always say, 'I come in with three chords and a story and he turns it into music.'

CR:  How long have you been playing with The Fret Shop Band?

DC:  I don't know how long it's been. Twenty years, at least. I would say this band started in the late nineties.

CR: Who's in the band?

DC:  Rick Waters on guitar, Phil Maneri on bass, John Bellas is usually my drummer. Pete Carey sometimes plays guitar.  John Pollick of Street Players on saxophone. It's a good family of people.

CR: How many albums do you have out?

DC:  Three or four. There was King Barbecue and then three with this band.  Getting ready to start a new one.  I've got the tunes just haven't recorded them yet.  Next month I hope we'll get started on stuff

CR: Where can people get your CDs?

DC: Any of my gigs or they can send me twenty bucks. E-mail me
delyn@delyn.com.  I'll send stuff out.

CR:  You moved to Murfeesbo, Tennessee a few years ago. What prompted the move?

DC:  Well, I'm not a young pup anymore.  My wife got a job at at

the V.A in Murfreesboro and my parents live in Murfreesboro, they're in their mid-eighties. My son lives in Nashville and our grandkids are in Florida, that's an eight hour trip instead of a eighteen hour trip. We bought a little five acre farm out and about.  Just kind of trying to disappear. It's beautiful.

CR You are playing regularly in Tennessee but you also still perform in Columbus.

DC:  Yeah, once a month.  I've got about four or five clubs that book me once a month.  On Thursdays, when I'm in town, I do Victoria 's Restaurant in Powell.  I do The Blarney Stone on Linworth Road, DeArinis Tavern & Grill, Roop Brothers out in Delaware. I'll be at The Bogey Inn this summer. And The Creekside Blues Festival.

Written by Casey Redmond

Casey's Website