Red Rooster Party on Hiatus Until Further Notice

Hi Folks.

Red Rooster Party hit the airwaves at WHUS as an early morning (3-6am) replacement show for the fall semester in 2005.  By the spring of 2006 the show began a three-year run on Sunday afternoons 2-4pm, just in front of the Bluegrass Cafe which Jim also hosted on alternate weeks.  At the three-year point Red Rooster Party was taking too much time to prepare along with Jim's duties on Bluegrass Cafe, so we ended it with the expectation to bring it back some time in the future if conditions were right.

The summer of 2013 brought about the right conditions which included the enthusiastic desire of both Jim & Marti to do the show, and Jim dropping out of Bluegrass Cafe for the summer to focus on Red Rooster Party.  The stars aligned, and that has been the status for the summer -- Red Rooster Party occupying the same time slot as it had for its three-year run.

Our original intention was to make Red Rooster Party just a summer event with Jim returning to the rotation on Bluegrass Cafe in the fall, but a funny thing happened during the summer.  Marti found a renewed joy in producing Red Rooster Party and stated her desire to continue the show in the fall.  Jim's only condition would be that Marti do most of the production work since split duties were too much to handle if Jim was doing two shows (we both have real jobs in addition to our volunteer work with WHUS.)   Marti agreed to the condition, and we submitted our applications for Red Rooster Party as well as the alternating spot on Bluegrass Cafe.

The new WHUS fall schedule was announced to staff members this evening, 9/2, and the plan didn't work out exactly as expected.  There were 110 applications for show spots at WHUS for the fall semester, and all who applied got shows.  This created two new shows between noon and 2pm on Sunday and moved DJ Tom's folk show into the 2-4pm slot formerly occupied by Red Rooster Party.  The result was a shared time slot 4-7pm for Bluegrass Cafe and Red Rooster Party.

Anyone who has been around during the 30+ year history of bluegrass music on WHUS knows such a division would not be viable.  Bluegrass Cafe is one of the important bluegrass outlets in New England, and reports to the two major industry charting organizations.  The show is important to the industry and should not be diluted.

Therefore, Marti and Jim have decided to put Red Rooster Party on hiatus again with the possibility of bringing it back in a future semester, and maintaining Bluegrass Cafe full-strength at its usual time slot of 4-7pm Sundays.

We hope to have you listening when Red Rooster Party returns the next time, but until then Jim will be alternating Sundays with Amy on Bluegrass Cafe, and Marti might make an occasional appearance.  We hope you tune in.

Marti & Jim