MTSU Radio To Embrace Americana Roots

WMOT-FM, Middle Tennessee State University’s public radio station, is dramatically expanding its reach and range of music to launch a new format dedicated to Americana music and a new home on the dial for its current jazz format.

With the format change on Sept. 2, the 100,000-watt station, known going forward as WMOT-FM/Roots Radio 89.5, will become the region’s only channel devoted to the unique amalgam of bluegrass, folk, gospel, soul, country and blues music defined in the music industry as Americana. The station boasts the clearest and strongest radio signal in greater Nashville.

This innovative partnership combines the reach and scholarship of a major university with the expertise and experience of radio and music industry professionals. A special public kickoff celebration will be held at 11 a.m. Friday, Sept. 2, at the Country Music Hall of Fame and Museum in Nashville, featuring live music and the beginning of DJ programming. Video of the event will be streamed through musiccityroots.com.

“Imagine, in our neck of the woods, a radio station with real people playing music they actually care about, even love,” said revered artist Rodney Crowell, recipient of the Americana Music Association Lifetime Achievement Award for Songwriting. “WMOT is bringing Middle Tennessee real music when we need it most. Miracles happen.”

WMOT-FM will continue to serve as a training ground for MTSU students who are integrating audio editing and narration skills into their multimedia portfolios, which include television, social media, print and website management.

“This will give our students the opportunity to work and learn in a vibrant professional environment and provide greater interaction with the music industry,” said Ken Paulson, dean of the College of Media and Entertainment, which operates the station.

The station has partnered with the creative team behind Music City Roots — including its executive producers Todd Mayo and John Walker — to develop a unique, Nashville-centric take on the Americana musical genre. WMOT will also become the flagship station for Music City Roots, a weekly variety show that airs nationally on American Public Television, with its fourth season premiering Oct. 28.

Bluegrass Underground, an Emmy-award winning PBS program and radio show recorded live 333 feet below ground in Cumberland Caverns in McMinnville, Tennessee, also will find a home on WMOT.

“Among Nashville artists charting with Americana albums in recent months have been Sturgill Simpson, the Mavericks, Elizabeth Cook, Darrell Scott, Emmylou Harris and Rodney Crowell and many more,” Paulson noted. “Nashville is Americana’s hometown.”

The station will remain the flagship for Blue Raider Athletics and will continue to air “MTSU On the Record,” a 30-minute public affairs interview program highlighting the university community, as well as regular area news updates.

WMOT, which first went on the air in April 1969, reaches as far north as Bowling Green, Kentucky, to as far south as the Alabama border.

It has aired mostly classical music, with jazz on the weekends and evenings, since 2009, when it moved from its all-jazz format.

In a nod to its tradition of jazz programming, the university will also launch on Sept. 2 the MTSU Jazz Network on WMOT’s HD channel as well as its FM signals 104.9 in Brentwood and 92.3 in Murfreesboro.

“As much as Nashville has cried out for a true Americana station that represents the roots revolution taking place here, we also see jazz as a pure American art form that deserves its own focus,” said Walker, who will oversee the development of new programs for WMOT.

“We couldn’t imagine a Music City radio landscape without it.”