LOTSA A CAPPELLA
COHOSTS

A Brief History of Lotsa A Cappella on KDHX

Lotsa A Cappella hit the KDHX airwaves for the first time at 3 AM on a hot Monday in August 1994. I was filling in for a programmer who was on vacation (later I found out that this person would not return to KDHX). The very first song that I played was the Persuasions' Good Old A Cappella followed by Scream Dream by Ted Nugent (a suggestion from my brother John), which was not in the least a cappella! This first show featured plenty of a cappella music, though probably only about half the songs really fit that description. After one of the first few songs I played, I forgot to turn off the CD player on the board as I started the next song, so that two songs were playing simultaneously, and I didn't notice until both songs were finished! By 6 AM (a three-hour time slot) I was exhausted.

For four months I got up early every Monday morning to make it to the station for the Lotsa A Cappella show. In December 1994, the program committee offered me a time slot on Sunday mornings, where Lotsa A Cappella stayed until August 10, 2008.

After a year and a half on early Saturday mornings, Lotsa A Cappella returned to Sundays in an hour-long format, from 7 AM to 8 AM starting March 14, 2010, where you can hear it on 88.1 FM, KDHX St. Louis MO (or on the web at kdhx.org).

Rick Yakimo was a volunteer at KDHX long before I even knew about the station. He was the Airwaves Magazine editor, answered phones at pledge drives, and helped organize festivals and other activities, as well as holding down a full time job as a nurse. He started as a cohost and programmer on the Lotsa A Cappella show in December of 1994, when the program was on from 3 AM to 6 AM Monday mornings.

Lotsa A Cappella then moved to a new time slot, Sunday mornings from 8 AM to 10 AM. Rick showed up faithfully every other Sunday morning (his real job required him to work alternate weekends) for many years, carrying several large cases full of CDs from his personal collection.

Rick was tireless in researching sources for more a cappella music to play on the show. He had a large collection of a cappella CDs, both because he genuinely liked to listen to the music, and to add variety and depth to the Lotsa A Cappella show that was slowly building an audience.

Long before KDHX had its own website where programmers could enter playlists, and before the e-waves / ewaves Yahoo group existed, Lotsa A Cappella's playlists could be found on the world wide web because Rick was posting them on the newsgroup rec.music.a-cappella. Rick was also a great help to me in many other ways, on and off the radio, and a lot of what you hear on Lotsa A Cappella to this day, is due to his influence.

Rick earned his PhD in Nursing in 2003 from Saint Louis University. Dr. Rick Yakimo is currently a professor at SIUE School of Nursing (Southern Illinois University, Edwardsville).

Angela Pancella had been a KDHX programmer and DJ, doing a show aptly named "The Eclectic Mix." When she left that show, she wasn't around the St. Louis area for awhile, but later came back to KDHX as a volunteer producing calendar and announcement spots. Many times, she'd work on these spots on Sunday mornings at the KDHX studios, so we'd see each other briefly every week. I knew that Angela liked a cappella music and was a huge fan of The Nylons; in fact, she wrote a book on founding Nylons member Marc Connors. She told me that she had submitted a proposal to the program committee to do another show on KDHX, but a time slot hadn't opened up yet. Then one morning she asked me if I needed or wanted help on the Lotsa A Cappella show. I told Angela to come on down and help me out. She was really smooth at running the board, and added a slightly different slant on the music.

Angela helped out during the Spring Pledge drive, and started as regular cohost of Lotsa A Cappella on Easter Sunday, March 27, 2005. Her last show was January 29, 2006. Angela has moved to another state, but you can find out what she's been doing by checking out her blog.