Musicians from across the country travel to Tennessee to appear on Blue Plate Special.

From Fashion to Frets
A Knoxville native, Red spent 15 years designing women’s clothes before taking to the airways. “I studied fashion in London and Atlanta, where I got a job working for a lingerie manufacturer,” she says. “I’d grown up loving American roots music such as folk, bluegrass, and old-time country. Every weekend my friends and I would go out trying to find it, the kind of music you usually didn’t hear on the radio.”

Red suddenly started hearing her kind of music after a new radio station went on the air in 1997. “Whenever I drove home to Knoxville, I’d tune it in as soon as I got in range,” she remembers. “When I moved back here a few years ago one of the first things I did was volunteer at WDVX.”

She was volunteering when program director Tony Lawson asked her to emcee a new classic country program called Hillbilly Fever. “I’d never done radio before, so I was pretty nervous,” Red says. “But that’s the wonderful thing about everybody at WDVX, we all love the music so.”

A Talented Twosome
That love comes through at noon every Monday through Friday when Red and Matt step on the stage tucked into a corner of the visitors center.

A talented banjo player who toured China with his band last fall, Matt entertains audiences with his precise picking and his encyclopedic knowledge of bluegrass, country, and international music.

“Matt knows so much about music, and I’m still learning, so I think that’s why we make such a great team,” Red says. “That’s one secret to the show’s success—none of us are professional announcers, so we don’t sound canned. We just try to have as much fun as possible and make everybody feel special on the Special.” •

Blue Plate Special broadcasts noon to 1 p.m. Monday through Friday, from the Knoxville Visitors Center, 301 South Gay Street. Tune to 89.9 or 102.9 FM, or visit www.wdvx.com to hear the show or for more information.

Live From Downtown
Blue Plate Special continues a tradition that started in the 1930s with Mid-Day Merry-Go-Round. That show was broadcast live from downtown Knoxville for more than 20 years. Hoping to re-create that experience, WDVX started doing Special in a camper near its broadcasting tower. “We were kind of limited,” says Red Hickey, cohost of Blue Plate Special. “Things got a lot better when we moved into these studios.”