SUNRISE ON THE RADIO written by C. Clarke

SUNRISE ON THE RADIO written by C. Clarke
Her music is like a sunrise on the radio or at least that’s the way I hear it.
That idea originated in my life a long time ago when Steve DeGroodt and I made the westward trek from Tennessee to California in the dead of night. It was in the summer of 1972.
I was working at a pizza parlor in Nashville as the night manager and lived in a rooming house on Skid Row. I was promoted to manager because Danny Thomas is my godfather but that’s a story for another time.
My buddy, Steve, had winged his way up from Florida and we were making plans to visit friends in Santa Barbara. He had a VW bug, a Gretsch guitar, and a Fender Deluxe amp; I had cash, a Telecaster, and my entire life in a suitcase.
I gave two weeks notice and told my boss, Mickey C., that I was planning to go to California. He blew like Vesuvius, screaming at the top of his lungs. He ended his screed by telling me that I was “a fly who couldn’t find a piece of shit to land on…”
I was nineteen and butt hurt over that comment so instead of cleaning the place up and going home, I took my pay out of the register, left the mess, and lit out with Stevie for points west at eleven that night.
By the next morning we were hightailing across Arkansas and that’s when the moment happened. The sun was rising, Steve was sleeping, and I was driving with the radio on, a warm summer morning breeze blasted through the window vent. There was no one else on the road.
I randomly looked in the rearview and saw the biggest, reddest sun rising up through the back window. There was a country song on the radio and I bookmarked that moment indelibly into my young mind, never to forget. All of the good things in life were telling me I’d made a great decision and my whole life, my new life, like that new day, was in front of me.
That ended up being true.
I never saw Kate Wolf perform as an audience member. I was always in the band or listening from the wings. Our band, the Drifters, was involved in coining new sounds and spending them wildly at our shows. We weren’t happy unless the place rocked.
Kate’s approach was so different. She spent her time telling stories with her rich amber voice. Then she’d weave those stories and characters she knew into songs. As it turned out, she had a lot to say and when she sang her songs, the venues we played would be as silent as the rising sun. And there we were, listening to sunrise on her radio.
Kate sometimes lacked confidence tuning her guitar before shows. I think she was concentrating so much on her upcoming conversations that the guitar was a worrisome prop which needed an adjustment she wasn’t prepared to make. You could see it on her face when she’d ask somebody to tune her guitar (this is the era prior to battery powered tuners).
It’s kindly annoying to watch someone trying to tune a guitar in the middle of a show so that probably worried her a bit.
Apparently tuning up was also annoying to the guys in my band because nobody would readily help her out. But Kate knew a soft touch when she saw one and I got the job of tuning her guitar before shows. It was a job I loved; it gave us a chance to chat a little before hitting the stage.
This is a special moment in the clock of a performer. One is completely vulnerable to the world. You are about to go out in a public setting, in front of an audience, and bare some serious soul. It’s slightly scary, giddy, and odd. I’d ask her if she was nervous and always got the big smile for an answer.
We’d have funny little conversations at those times. Once we talked about how beautiful her guitar was and how much we both loved the sound of spanish guitars, particularly under starlight. I recall another night at the Freight And Salvage when we talked about the voices of children and how special they were and how they should always be heard.
I wish the world could’ve been with us in those moments. Kate’s face was flush with beautiful expectations. She was with friends and the world around us was about to be a better place.
Best of all, the guitar was tuned.
Kate’s soul is an ever rising sun accompanied by a beautiful voice and songs; a sunrise on the radio.
At least that’s the way I heard it.
Santa Barbara County, 2024
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