The Quiet Storm with Skeeter SandersWednesdays
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Perfectly timed for the early evening, "The Quiet Storm" is a relaxing melange of Smooth Jazz (Bob Baldwin, Pat Metheny, Richard Elliot, Joyce Cooling, Norman Brown, etc.) and Cool R&B (Boyz II Men, Ty Causey, Angela Bofill, Luther Vandross, Brian McKnight, etc.) with occasional dashes of soft Adult Contemporary and New Age.
"The Quiet Storm" includes two highlight features: "The Smooth Jazz Featured Artist of the Week" -- which, as its name implies, is a set of three songs by a featured Smooth Jazz artist -- and "The Way-Back Machine," a set of three classic "old-school" Soul, Funk and R&B tunes from the 1960s to the 1980s.
While the show is a relatively recent addition to the FBRN schedule, debuting in September 2011, It's been a fixture on the local radio airwaves in north-entral Vermont -- on Plainfield's WGDR-FM and its sister station, Hardwick's WGDH-FM-- since 1998.
About the Host
Skeeter Sanders loves rainbows. The multi-colored arc has long been a symbol of diversity. And Sanders is a living, breathing celebration of diversity. Born to an African American mother and Native American father in 1953, Sanders is about as multicultural as one can get. Aside from his mixed heritage, He's a Pagan who follows Wiccan and Native traditions. While he long ago stopped wearing flowers in his shoulder-length, dreadlocked hair, Sanders has had a love affair with nearly all things hippie for more than 40 years (A longtime fan of The Grateful Dead, he still vacations at Rainbow Gatherings whenever he can).
His musical tastes run the gamut from the Smooth Jazz and Cool R&B he plays on his "Quiet Storm" program to rock-and-roll, pop, '70s disco and funk, folk, classic soul, techno, you name it.
A native of New York City, Sanders grew up listening to then-Top 40 powerhouses WABC and WMCA and Urban FM pioneer WBLS. It was the late Chuck Leonard, the first African American DJ to break into mainstream radio at WABC, who inspired him in 1967 -- while on a visit to the then-14-year-old Sanders' junior high school -- to go into broadcasting.
But nearly 30 years would pass before Sanders would put his teenaged dream into practice, hosting a short-lived classic-soul program on the University of Vermont's WRUV-FM in 1996. He moved to WGDR two years later to launch "The Quiet Storm," an homage to two stations he listened to while living in the San Francisco Bay Area inthe 1980s and early 1990s: Smooth R&B KBLX (WBLS' sister station) and its now-defunct Smooth Jazz arch-rival, KKSF. He's called Vermont home since the summer of 1994.
Sanders is excited about the recent move of "The Quiet Storm" on the FBRN schedule to Wednesday evenings, back-to-back with Tim Garrison's similarly-formatted show, "Chill Out Jazz," creating a four-hour Smooth Jazz/R&B block. "What better way to 'getr over the hump' of the work week than groove to Smooth Jazz and Cool R&B for four hours?" he said.
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