MONDAYS 8PM

Salwa Khan
I'm speaking today with Mark Lombardi, and his show is Mojo Monday, 8 to 10:00 PM on Mondays and he plays blues music. So I wanted to start by asking you, how did you first become interested in radio?

Mark Lombardi
Well, I became interested in radio back in college a little bit. I did a little bit of disc jockey work for a small radio station up in northwest Iowa. I went to pharmacy school, and then I also worked as a disc jockey at night. That part there was interesting. because you know, getting paid as a college student was always great. But it was during the disco phase, so I don't try to say that too much that I played a lot of disco music being a blues guy. That was back in the, uh, early or late seventies.

Salwa Khan
How did you come to KWVH and doing your show there?

Mark Lombardi
I heard Coach doing his morning show before, and he actually invited me on as a host one day. And so I went to the station and we did a show. It was a lot of fun. It was good times getting back and speaking into a microphone and doing all that again. At the time John Brown was program manager and they were looking for a blues guy to do a blues show. And so Coach said, I know the guy. Let's go over to his house. They went over to our house and I have a huge CD and album collection of blues, show tunes. So he wanted me to do a few shows, put 'em in the can and see how we did. And I've been doing them since. And that was I think around the early part of 2019 is when I started with K W V H doing the show.

Salwa Khan
And how did you come up with the show title?

Mark Lombardi
That was my own thinking. I've always liked Muddy Waters, being a blues aficionado, and Muddy Waters song that always got me going was Got My Mojo Working. And that's what I thought would be the perfect name would be Mojo Monday.

Salwa Khan
What's your process in getting your show ready and then getting it on the air?

Mark Lombardi
Oh, boy. You're talking pretty extensive here. When I first started the project, I was a full-time pharmacist working for HEB in San Marcos. I told coach, I just don't know how much I can do this as far as doing 40 hours of work, plus coming in for a two-hour job. So I would have to come into the studio and Brach Thomas and I would go in and do it. At the start, Coach helped me out too. We'd had all three of us doing it at the studio. Brach later told me how to do it at home, so I have been doing it at home primarily.

Salwa Khan
What is your process; how do you pick the music?

Mark Lombardi
Because it was a two hour show and I was working full time, I would basically do old blues tunes primarily. But later on, as the, as COVID hit, it gave me time to concentrate more on trying to fit a little more of the artist material into it. So with me picking out 28 songs, I would go in and look up each of these songs and find out a little history on them, where it charted, maybe, did it make the Blues Chart? Did it make the rock and roll chart, pop chart? What about the artist? Something interesting about the artist, maybe? Uh, something interesting about the song, what made that song interesting? So it would take me a good eight hours for preparation of 28 songs. And then after I get the songs, then I decide where I want to put them into the show. After that, it became a process of how do I get my show to the most ears out there? And that's where the internet and Facebook came into play, because I formed a Facebook group called Mojo Monday Listening Group with KWVH 94.3 FM Wimberley, Texas. And as of today, I think we have 362 listeners, 30 states and 10 foreign countries. So I'm pretty proud of that fact. I do a weekly update to our group about what we're playing this week. And it usually gets about maybe 60 to 70 likes. And then I probably get anywhere between 10 and 12 comments, and that's where I get a lot of my next week's show for what the audience wants to hear, for requests or if they have any dedication, somebody's birthday coming up.

Salwa Khan
What are the challenges and rewards of doing your show?

Mark Lombardi
Well, the challenge is trying to stay motivated enough to where you just gotta go in there and get behind the mic and do your recording, and do the manual stuff. Once I get into the manual part of the show of finding out all my material, then sitting down and like, I would tell Coach, it's kind of like flying a plane. You gotta start your show like you're taking off on an airplane, get it going, and once it's going, everything's fine. But then you also have to have the right landing at the end of the show. You know, I owe Coach a lot. He helps me so much at the station whenever there's anything going on. He's been my conduit and Brach Thomas too, I thank Brach Thomas for being a great teacher and knowing what's going on and just trying to make sure that I don’t feel isolated out here by doing it myself. I don't know if you remember your early days of listening to radio or to Casey Kasem, and his dedications, and his way of making the audience feel like they're right in there. That's kind of how I modeled my show. I do dedications and requests for almost all my songs. And if people put likes on my Facebook page, I try to do a dedication for them on my next show. And that's what I think has also helped grow that audience to be bigger and better. I do feel very fortunate that, I get the opportunity to do this show now. It got me through COVID in a time when everybody was at home, didn't know what to do, and I sent out my show and a lot of people said, Mark, this really was nice, listening to some music and getting our mind off of everything for a couple hours.