Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: WEDNESDAY, December 8, 1993 TAG: 9312070170
SECTION: EXTRA PAGE: 1 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: By MIKE HUDSON STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: LENGTH: Long
Amid this eclectic heap of tunes - punk, jazz, a bit of bluegrass, even a video of "Kiss Meets the Phantom of the Park" - there's space set aside for his newest music obsession. The blues.
"Very few things are purely America. Blues and jazz and country - I'm talking about real country, not Garth Brooks - are real, pure music that were created in America. And I just wish more people would pay attention to them."
And he's doing something about it. During the past nine months he's set aside some room for the blues in his hectic schedule as music director and night-time DJ on Roanoke's WROV-FM.
Each week, Petruziello puts together a Sunday night blues show that is head-bobbin' hip and full of historical facts and artifacts.
The show airs from 8 p.m. to 10 p.m. each Sunday. But Howie starts work early in the week, reading blues publications and going through his private collection and the station's holdings. The time he spends putting together the show is his favorite part of his work week. "I do this when I should be eating dinner and relaxing."
He knows he has to do his homework, because you can't put anything past blues fans.
"At some stations," Petruziello says, "they just have a stack of blues of records and they'll say to the schmoe who's working Sunday night, `Here put these on.' "
But if you're just winging it, real blues fans "are gonna know. They can smell a rat: `This guy has played five Robert Cray tunes in a row. He's lazy. He doesn't know what he's doing.'"
During the show, he mixes new releases from emerging artists and recordings that go back 60 years or more to the birth of the blues: from Fredrickburg's Saphire: Uppity Blues Women to Charlie Patton's 1934 recording, "High Sheriff's Blues."
He sprinkles the two hours with information about nearby gigs and local artists. He does a "Blues News" segment that updates fans on awards and other doings in the blues world.
He thought the blues show would do well, but he's been surprised by the response. He says he gets lots of calls from blues fans around the station's signal area.
"I pretty much get calls all the time. I figured it would do well, but I was talking a bigger game than I really knew."
Some loyal listeners have become informal consultants to the show, suggesting songs to play and lending him their albums. "They'll come up here with a stack of stuff and leave it for a month."
Tray Eppes, a blues musician who lives in Prince Edward County, tapes the show just about every Sunday, and talks with Petruziello frequently on the phone.
"It's nice to have somebody who's so knowledgeable - with an 800 number," Eppes said. "I don't know how he knows all he knows."
Petruziello tries to treat his audience to a sense of the diversity of the blues.
"When you say blues, it's kinda like saying rock 'n' roll. There's so many subgenres in there" - acoustic Delta blues, electric Texas style, folk blues, Chicago blues, country-flavored blues.
He loves blues because - like punk and jazz - it's an emotionally intense music.
He says blues is very similar to rap music, because both express an inner rage. In fact, today's rap is probably no harsher and rebellious, for its time, than blues was back in the 1920s and 1930s.
Petruziello says one of great things about the blues is that many of the originators are still alive - or their children and companions are. So fans can hear first- or second-hand accounts of its creation and growth.
He's taped interviews with KoKo Taylor and Son Seals when they were appearing in Western Virginia.
He also tries to give a boost to lesser known regional acts. He's played some of Eppes' songs on the radio.
Petruziello, 24, moved with his family from Cleveland to Pulaski County when he was in the fourth grade. He says he grew up listening to WUVT, Virginia Tech's student radio station. He heard college radio's typically crazy mix of underground rocks, blues, jazz and who-knows-what-else. "That's what corrupted me, for better or worse."
After high school, he headed for Tech, worked at WUTV for a while and then got a paying job at the New River Valley's WVVV (104.9 FM) before graduation.
A little over a year ago, when he interviewed for the music director's job at WROV-FM, he said he wanted to do a blues show. They thought it was a good idea.
In February, he went on the air with the blues show. He also does an alternative rock show from 10:30 to midnight Monday nights.
The reality of commercial radio is that what gets played generally has much more to do with listener surveys and record sales than with a disk jockey's individual preferences.
"It's not as easy as `Hey, we like this. Let's play it.'"
As music director, he spends hours and hours in front of a computer screen, and spends Wednesday and Thursday afternoons listening to pitches from record-company representatives.
But there's much more room for his own tastes with his blues and alternative-music shows. "Two days a week I can say, `Gosh, what records do I really, really want to play?' and just load up my arms as I leave my house."
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