Terri Hemmert Knows Music Can Save Your Life – Chicagomag.com

Friday marks 50 years that beloved radio host and DJ Terri Hemmert will have been on WXRT. On that day, the station will play memories of Hemmert from listeners during a 12-hour tribute to her. Ann Sather will give free cinnamon rolls to its first 93 customers. Piece Pizzeria will debut its “All You Need is Love” pizza in honor of her. And music store Laurie’s Planet of Sound will offer “Terri’s 20 essential albums to add to your collection.”

Although a native of Piqua, Ohio, Hemmert has become a Chicago treasure over the last half-century, and one of the best-loved DJs on a station that has many personalities that have been on the air for decades — a rarity in commercial radio. 

Hemmert, 75, was inducted into the Radio Hall of Fame in 2010, but is much more than just a radio DJ: She’s a friendly fount of knowledge about music and a trusted voice that listeners have turned to for years. She’s brought them cheer and insight about music and life, as well as comfort in times of need, often the first to inform them about tragic events.

She’s also taught at Columbia College for 48 years, teaching a class on called “Rock and Soul on the Radio: Roots,” which remains one of the hardest classes to get into. It’s fitting that she’s an instructor, as Hemmert has played the role of teacher to her radio audience for years. She’s introduced us to new bands as well as introducing old bands — most famously The Beatles — to new generations of listeners. In appropriate timing, the surviving members of the Beatles released a “new” song on Thursday with the help of AI.

Hemmert took a break from her busy schedule this week to talk to Chicago about her career and reflect on her 50 years at WXRT.

Congratulations on 50 years at WXRT. I know you imagined being on the radio when you were a girl growing up in Ohio, but did you ever think you’d be on the air at one of the best stations in the country for 50 years?

I never thought that would happen. I didn’t even think about it…  No, I didn’t.

How did you first get to XRT?

I knew the three guys that were starting it: John Platt and Seth Mason and Bob Schuman. We all worked together at WGLD in Oak Park. They were disc jockeys and my first job there with my Bachelor’s of Arts degree was answering the request line. I thought, okay, this is the foot in the door. I was there for a couple years and then got a job on the air finally out in Rochester, New York, for WCMF. I did that for a couple of years and then came back and worked with the three of them [at WXRT]. That’s when we were on at 10 o’clock at night for the overnight shift.

Does the 50 year mark a finish line or just another accolade among many in your career?

I’ve been close to the finish line for a while now. I don’t think I’ll finish until I drop dead. I’ve been busy, I still teach at Columbia College, I still do my Classic Encounters at Symphony Center…

Being on the radio, especially a station like XRT, I was there when 9/11 happened, I was there the morning after John Lennon was shot, I had to tell people that Stevie Ray Vaughn was the one that was on that helicopter that went down at Alpine Valley. To figure out what to say at a time like that, you can’t learn that in a book or at school. You just have to grow with the job. 

The thing that I’ve always liked about radio is that it’s so intimate, it’s you and the listener. Even when I was on the all-night show, I can just picture these kids in bed under the sheets with their transistor radio up to their ear so parents wouldn’t make them turn it off and go to sleep because I did the same thing myself and I remember how close I felt to the music and to the people presenting it… If it ended tomorrow for me I’d look back and say, Wow, what a ride.

You also broke the news when Lin Brehmer died in January —

It was right after “Breakfast with The Beatles.” That was really hard because that was family.

Was it the station’s call to have you announce it?

Yeah. Then we stayed all day, several of us, pulling out his favorite music to play over the next couple of days. The next day was like a wake. We knew that people felt like they really knew him — and they did. He was their best friend in the whole world, he wasn’t kidding. And one of the greatest guys I’ve ever met in my life.

Then in May, you were at a restaurant in New Orleans where your friend was shot. How have you dealt with the aftermath of that?

I was thinking, I can’t die right now because if Lin and I go within a four-month period, people are just going to go nuts. I know how that is because I felt that way about people on the radio, the ones that I really connected with. I felt like they were part of the family.

Was there ever a point that you didn’t think you’d make it to your 50th anniversary? 

Then (in New Orleans) I did, but I didn’t think about the 50th anniversary right then. Plus, it was my birthday party and I had 22 friends that came down and that was so frightening, seeing everyone hitting the floor and one of my friends got shot in the back and she was right next to me.

(Hemmert’s friend has recovered but still has the bullet in her back.)

It’s amazing that not only have you been on the air for 50 years, but it was at one station for that long. If you look at someone like Dick Biondi who was notoriously fired a million times —

Bless his heart. I loved him though. He was such a nice guy and I was always a youngster to him. Same with Studs Terkel. My nickname was “Hope of the Future.” I was always one of the kids to him, no matter how old I got. They were both incredible men.

That’s one of the perks of my job, the people I’ve met. I’ve always heard, “Don’t meet your heroes because you’ll be disappointed.” I beg to differ. The meetings I’ve had with Paul McCarthy and Ringo Starr are amazing, and not just fan amazing. They’re people that really don’t take for granted that they got to be in the greatest show on earth, they’re humble about it.

You’ve had so many highlights over your career, so many special guests on the air — were Paul and Ringo the ones that stand out the most?

Well yeah, because they are the reason that I got into radio, because I wanted to meet The Beatles. I didn’t think they’d come to me in a little town in Ohio so I had to go to them and then I thought, how do I meet them without chasing them down the street and screaming and grabbing their hair and all that? (Laughs)

How important was scaling back in 2019 after your 45th year? 

I’ve had a lot of health issues. I was very sickly as a kid and spent a lot of time in the hospital. I never feel good and everybody says, “Don’t push, slow down.” But if I didn’t push, I wouldn’t do anything. Getting out of bed is pushing, I have a lot of pain issues but I just keep rolling. I made it to 75 and the doctors told me I wouldn’t make it past 60, so this is gravy…I miss doing the show every day but it’s nice to do other things and nice to take a nap. Scaling back probably added a few years to my life.

I’m assuming the station and the industry in general has changed a lot since you started at XRT — can you touch on that?

Oh yeah. We always said that the second night we were on the air people were calling and saying, “You guys are going downhill.” Some of it is change — people don’t like change — and some of it is perception. But if I did a show and played exactly what I played on an all-night show in 1975, people would be running to their radios to shut it off. Somebody wrote on Facebook that we’re going downhill and I wrote back that we’ve been doing that for over 50 years so it must be a very steep hill.

Our audience is not only loyal, but really connected. One of the things I love is that I’ve been the public service director forever and part of that job is making people aware of what opportunities there are in the community to serve or to donate or volunteer or attend a benefit. I’ve heard back from so many people. In fact, there was this woman in the 1980s who said she heard me do a PSA for AIDS and said she was working in a cubicle and didn’t have any ambition to do anything and was kind of bored. She eventually became the executive director of an AIDS foundation. I love that part of it. And turning people on to new music. Or somebody’s father died and they’d call and ask me to play this song and I’d know that it was really going to mean a lot to them. That’s special. 

Do you think it’s harder for a DJ to stay in one place for decades the way things are now?

Oh yeah, it always was. DJs were notorious for keeping U-Haul in business. 

What makes XRT a place where so many have stayed for decades?

You have to really love the station. We’ve all turned down more money. Every time someone says we’ve sold out I want to show them our bank books. We could have made a whole lot more money somewhere else but we wouldn’t be happy and we probably would be out of a job by now because all those stations are gone. It really is the music and we’re all music lovers. To have the privilege to present music to an audience in a great city like Chicago is a privilege. And now that we have an app, people write from all over the world. That blows me away.

I think the difference is that there’s a lot of ego in radio but it didn’t go to our heads, it went to our hearts.

You’ve also introduced The Beatles to generations of fans who weren’t even born when they broke up with your “Breakfast with The Beatles” show. 

I know! I love it! I remember being in a book store one day and a girl in a Catholic school uniform was watching me intently. Her dad finally came over and said “She’s too shy to approach you but she listens to ‘Breakfast with The Beatles’ every Sunday and she loves them because of your show.” So, I said, get her over here, and we had a nice little chat. I love that.

And I’ve hosted BeatleFest for over 40 years and I’ve seen kids grow up and bring their own kids.

You’ve mentioned sexism on the radio. I know you’ve been cited as an influence for so many women who came after you. Do you feel that it’s gotten any better for women in radio?

Yes and no. I think the fact that I lasted 50 years at one station is pretty cool. Being a woman and not just getting a job but holding it and it’s not just a job, it’s a career and a vocation at times.

I’ve been on the receiving end of blatant sexism, so bad that it’s nauseating. But I’ve hung in there because when I was a kid I wanted to be a priest and was told, “You can’t do it, we don’t care if you do a good job.” And I got it in college from peers, from guys who were my friends. They said things like, “[Women] can’t read national and international news, women aren’t authoritative enough.” I heard stuff like that. And not many of the guys started out answering the request line for $90 a week. I’ve paid my dues and then some, but I’ve learned from every single experience. It made me more driven to be a mentor for other people coming up and it’s not just women — because look at the two guys I got in there: Marty [Lennartz] and John [Johnny Mars]. I don’t discriminate, either.

You’re much more than a DJ. You’re a teacher, an activist, and historian. If it was up to you, what would you want your legacy to be?

That’s a tough one, I hadn’t thought of that. But what means most to me is the intimacies that I talked about. If I hadn’t been a disc jockey, I really wanted to be a priest, but the church wouldn’t ordain me. It prepared me for the sexism in radio. My parents brought me up believing that service is important, that it isn’t just about yourself. My mother was a musician and an outstanding one and a teacher and she used to say that music can change your life. Then, a few years later after getting a few years under my belt as a DJ, I told her, music can save your life.