{"id":24458,"date":"2013-09-08T14:00:21","date_gmt":"2013-09-08T19:00:21","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/whisnews21.com\/?p=24458"},"modified":"2013-09-08T14:00:21","modified_gmt":"2013-09-08T19:00:21","slug":"ballade-of-big-john-trimble-on-whisnews21","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/whisnews21.com\/index.php\/2013\/09\/08\/ballade-of-big-john-trimble-on-whisnews21\/","title":{"rendered":"The Ballade Of Big John Trimble On WHISNews21"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"bigjohntrimble01\"<\/a><\/strong><\/h2>\n

After Six Decades the Voice of the Road Big John Trimble Keeps on Trucking<\/strong><\/h3>\n

.
\n\"bigjohntrimble04\"<\/a>From coast to coast, from the Deep South to the high north country of Canada, generations of radio listeners at home \u2013 and many, many more truckers driving big rigs \u2013 knew him simply as \u201cBig John.\u201d
\nHe is still Big John.
\nAnd more importantly, at the age of 75, Big John Trimble is still broadcasting.
\nToday his broadcast emanates from a studio in Varina, conveniently situated in his backyard. Few of his neighbors know that a bona-fide member of the Country Music DJ Hall of Fame lives among them, much less anchors his broadcasts out of their neighborhood.
\n\u201cWe\u2019re going to do this song for Lois in Richmond, Virginia, who wanted to hear anything by Tammy, Tammy Wynette,\u201d Trimble booms, his deep voice still beautifully intact.
\nBig John, who is 6 feet 2 inches tall and once weighed over 220, picked up his name when he worked at a station where several of the DJs were named \u201cJohn.\u201d
\nTo distinguish them, they picked up nicknames. Because he was bigger than the other Johns, he became \u201cBig John.\u201d
\nThat means his moniker didn\u2019t come from the classic country song, though lots of people think otherwise. Even the late, great country singer Jimmy Dean, who also formerly lived in Varina, thought it did, and he took the song to No. 1 on the Billboard chart. (This was 1961, pre-sausage.)
\nNope.
\n\u201cSorry to pop his bubble,\u201d Trimble says with a laugh.
\nBig John once held sway at some of some of the country\u2019s most powerful radio stations including Richmond\u2019s 50,000-watt giant WRVA-AM in its heyday.
\nHe also broadcast from some of the nation\u2019s biggest truck stops, including Jarrell\u2019s at Doswell in Hanover County, when it had the reputation of being the busiest truck stop in America.
\nHe became a national celebrity at Jarrell\u2019s, broadcasting to truckers on his overnight show for 18 years. The Washington Post, People magazine and The New York Times did stories on him, as did countless other publications.
\nBig John says he had his television moment when he was featured on a segment of \u201cCBS This Morning,\u201d the network\u2019s early-morning show.
\nOver the years, the honors have piled up. Country Music DJ Hall of Fame in Nashville. Richmond Broadcasters Hall of Fame and a lifetime award. Country Radio Personality Award by none other than the governor of Washington. Golden Voice Award in Nashville.
\nThings are less glamorous these days. The Big John Trimble show today is strictly a mom-and-pop operation. Trimble and his wife Jean sell the advertising, lease airtime and set their own programming. He says there no big money in it, and some months they operate at a deficit.
\nBut Trimble is still deeply committed to delivering a high-quality, personality-driven radio show.
\nLocal listeners can hear him from 6 a.m. till 9 a.m., Monday through Friday on WCLM, 1450-AM. But many of his listeners follow him on the Internet at bigjohntrimble.com, which broadcasts current and archived shows, 24 hours a day.
\nCorey from Louisiana, a former truck driver, called in recently to one of Big John\u2019s broadcasts to reminisce about Trimble\u2019s days at KWKH, a 50-000-watt station in Shreveport, La., on the Texas border.
\nDuring a short segment of that same program, calls came in from Madison, Wis., and from West Virginia.
\nThat\u2019s not unusual. Callers connect from every part of the nation nearly every day.
\n\u201cI could never do this without the Internet,\u201d Trimble says. He notes that one of his children has a computer technology degree and keeps the electronics humming.
\nLocal musicians also continue to drop in at Big John\u2019s studio to pitch songs, or talk about their careers.
\nBut it\u2019s nothing like it was at Jarrell\u2019s.
\n\u201cOne night I showed up at the truck stop to find Willie Nelson and Leon Russell waiting for me,\u201d Trimble says.
\n\u201cWillie said, \u2018We only have a few minutes, hoss, but we wanted to say hello.\u2019 They enjoyed sitting around, talking with truckers. We took calls from listeners who were calling in from all across the country. They stayed for the whole show.\u201d
\n\"bigjohntrimble02\"<\/a>Big John hosted his first radio show in 1955, at the age of 14, in his native Paintsville, Ky. He played rock \u2018n\u2019 roll and rockabilly, including music from black artists such as Chuck Berry, Little Richard and the Platters.
\nSome people didn\u2019t like the fact that Trimble was playing black artists, but he\u2019s always believed that people are people no matter their color or creed, or their taste in music.
\n\u201cI was always taught to respect every human being, not try to put people in boxes or bags. Unfortunately, that\u2019s what society does so much,\u201d Trimble says.
\nJenny Jusell, a former longtime traffic and news reporter in Richmond, became acquainted with Big John after he left WRVA in the period when it became all-talk radio.
\nHe was broadcasting at WXGI-AM, a former country station (it later switched to sports radio), when Jusell became his occasional comic sidekick as she delivered traffic reports.
\n\u201cI always respected and enjoyed John, and I think he felt the same way about me,\u201d Jusell says. \u201cYou have to have the right chemistry or it doesn\u2019t work.\u201d
\nLee Harris, who writes country songs with his band Country Sunshine and plays them as part-time DJ at Richmond-based independent station WRIR, 97.3 FM, says he has listened to Big John for as long as he can remember.
\n\u201cHe\u2019s from a lost era of iconic country DJs,\u201d Harris says. \u201cEverybody seemed more human, less polished then. They became friends with their listeners. [Big John] has a loyal following.\u201d
\nTrimble says radio, like many mediums, has changed dramatically, in its business model and in its programming.
\n\u201cRadio today,\u201d he says, \u201cis one of three things: talk-show hosts and listeners yelling at each other, preachers trying to get into your pocket, or computers playing music. Personality radio, like real country music, is gone.\u201d
\nOn the other hand, few people can say they love their work.
\n\u201cI\u2019m happy,\u201d Trimble says. \u201cI could do this forever.\u201d
\nThen his phone lights up with another caller.
\nBy Gary Robertson | Photos by Amber-Lynn Taber<\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

After Six Decades the Voice of the Road Big John Trimble Keeps on Trucking . From coast to coast, from the Deep South to the high north country of Canada, generations of radio listeners at home \u2013 and many, many more truckers driving big rigs \u2013 knew him simply as \u201cBig John.\u201d He is still Big John. And more importantly, at the age of 75, Big John Trimble is still broadcasting. Today his broadcast emanates from a studio in Varina, conveniently situated in his backyard. Few of his neighbors know<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":24459,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/whisnews21.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/24458"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/whisnews21.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/whisnews21.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/whisnews21.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/whisnews21.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=24458"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/whisnews21.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/24458\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/whisnews21.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/24459"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/whisnews21.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=24458"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/whisnews21.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=24458"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/whisnews21.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=24458"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}