The Right Song at the Right Time – CHIRP Radio’s Shawn Campbell Still Believes in ‘Radio Fate’
By Shawna O’Hara, Editor, Chicago Music Guide
Before there was CHIRP, before years of lobbying Congress for low-power FM access, before hundreds of volunteers and thousands of listeners, Shawn Campbell was a teenager driving around northern Illinois with her friends, convinced certain songs could determine the course of a day.
“I remember “Put A Little Love in Your Heart” by Annie Lennox and Al Green, from Scrooged, was an incredible good luck song. When that song came on, you knew immediately something good was going to happen.”
She calls this phenomenon ‘radio fate’.
Growing up, she recalls there was always music coloring her days at home. “I’ve never not known The Beatles,” she says fondly. “I grew up in a house where my mom played music all the time and had a radio on all the time.” This had a profound impact on her. She realized at a very young age that working in radio was her ultimate goal. For Campbell, radio wasn’t just a career choice. It was an inevitable certainty.
She began her career in high school as an announcer for girls’ basketball and Mendota little league baseball, where she spent summers saying things like, “Please return the foul ball! Thank you!” She jokes that she’s never had a job without a microphone. Once she entered college, her gift behind a microphone expanded. A lifelong baseball fan, she began calling baseball games and deejayed for North Central College’s radio station. She has fond memories of auditioning to read the top song on DeKalb’s WDEK’s Top Nine at Nine once a month.
“I still have cassettes of me announcing the number one song. I would go to school the next day and ask, ‘Did you hear who announced the number one song on WDEK?”
From 1993-1999, she worked in commercial radio, was a music director and DJ at an alternative rock station in Indiana. She also was a news anchor and reporter at WFXW-AM, overnight host at WCBR, writer and editor at WBBM Newsradio and a producer on Sound Opinions when it was live on WXRT.
From there, Campbell took on the task of building up Loyola Chicago’s radio station, WLUW. There, she built up a strong volunteer culture and nurtured the university’s relationship within the Rogers Park community, which, up until that point, had been in need of repair. In ten years, she’d found her rhythm, built a strong and passionate audience, and secured nearly 100 volunteers. Then, it happened.
The day before she was set to take on the record fair the station ran each year at the Pitchfork Music Festival, she and a colleague learned that they would be losing their jobs.
Devastated, she and her volunteers showed up to the festival regardless, using the money they earned as seed money for what was to become CHIRP Radio. Having gained a loyal listenership and volunteer base, Campbell found the community she built that bolstered her new endeavor, which she began in July of 2007.
“We’d built this community at WLUW- volunteers and listeners- so we were lucky with CHIRP that we weren’t starting completely from scratch. A lot of these volunteers and supporters came along with us.”
CHIRP, or Chicago Independent Radio Project, began as a streaming station in January of 2010, launching nearly three years after Shawn and her growing team of volunteers began working on getting the station off the ground. She credits much of CHIRP’s success to them. “The idea of wanting to find like-minded people has always brought people to CHIRP. People who moved here five months ago, who want to find people to go to shows with and talk music with,” Campbell said. But the organization was committed to securing a spot on the FM dial as well.
“At the time, there was no way for us to get a broadcast license in Chicago. There was a law set back in 2000 to create the Low Power FM service. It was so strictly written by Congress that there was no room for any new LPFM stations in 49 of the top 50 largest U.S. markets.”
With these restrictions in mind, Campbell became a founding member of the coalition behind the Local Community Radio Act. She and CHIRP vice president Jenny Kizak traveled to Washington, D.C., twice to advocate for changes that would make low-power FM stations possible in densely populated urban areas. The legislation reduced the spacing requirements between stations, opening opportunities for community broadcasters like CHIRP to find room on the FM dial.
During the second trip, less than 24 hours’ notice, when she and Lizak were unexpectedly asked to lead a large group meeting with President Obama’s technology transition team. Just months later, the bill was signed into law. Campbell described the legislation as “truly bipartisan,” noting that advocates from across the political spectrum united around a shared goal: ensuring that voices often absent from mainstream media had a place on the airwaves.
To Campbell, this was an important next step.
“Radio is an intimate medium. We invite it into our cars, our showers, our mornings. Done well, it has the capacity to surprise and delight you.”
Campbell has long been at the heart of Chicago’s music community. One thing she admires? Those deeply embedded in the music scene here don’t step into pretension.
“They don’t try to be people they’re not,” she says. “(At CHIRP), for example, they are a group of people who really like music and are curious crate diggers. They’re creative and bring their own impulses and styles to the station.”
Of the Chicago music scene today, she notes a movement that has captivated her, including Friko, Horsegirl, Lifeguard, and, enthusiastically, Sharp Pins.
“I love Sharp Pins so much,” she gushes. “and the whole ‘Hallo Gallo’ scene seems like they’re a community of creative people who really like each other as well. I like the fact that they’re young. The scene started when a lot of them were in high school, bringing this rich curiosity about older music and melding that with being of Gen Z in this era. I love the fact that you can hear past influences in their music.”
Importantly, she notes, Chicago has a really supportive music culture. “Artists tend to support one another and their successes. There may be some healthy competition, maybe occasionally some unhealthy competition, but I think artists tend to support one another.”
Campbell points to Jeff Tweedy, who regularly shares stages with his children and their friends, helping shepherd another generation of Chicago musicians.
As for what’s next for CHIRP, the station just completed a 17-month project to launch their new website and apps for iOS and Android this past May. The station also remains on the hunt for original music that grabs its attention. Campbell notes that for those looking to be featured, it’s important to be true to your sound and not so derivative that the music gets lost in the shuffle. “Don’t try to be anything you’re not,” she says, matter of factly.
Her future dream is for the station to eventually have its own building, complete with a performance studio, additional staff, and a broader audience. More than anything, Campbell still believes in the power of hearing exactly the right song at exactly the right moment.
For Campbell, radio fate has never simply been about luck. It’s about believing the right song can find the right person at exactly the right moment. Through CHIRP, she’s spent nearly two decades making sure those moments continue to happen.
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Biography:
Shawn Campbell is the founder and General Manager of CHIRP Radio. She is a radio true believer with more than three decades of broadcast experience in a wide array of roles, including program director, news writer and anchor, producer, and DJ. Prior to becoming CHIRP’s first employee in 2012, Campbell served as President of the Board of Directors for nearly five years. During that time, she led a White House meeting on the low-power FM broadcast issue with President Obama’s technology team. She hosts a CHIRP show on Saturdays from 12-2pm.
About CHIRP Radio:
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Great Music. No commercials. Real DJs.
CHIRP is a radio station that is all about its community. CHIRP Radio – 107.1FM is a volunteer-driven, community radio station that focuses on music, arts, and culture. We are live and local every day of the year from 6am-midnight from our studios in Chicago’s North Center neighborhood, and the city we live in is a key part of everything we do.
CHIRP plays a wide mix of local, independent, lesser-heard music, and just generally good music from a variety of genres and eras. CHIRP DJs are true music fans who love to share their discoveries, new and old, with listeners. CHIRP DJs broadcast live from our studios in Chicago’s North Center neighborhood, curating their own shows and interacting with listeners. CHIRP emphasizes local and independent music and embraces radio’s traditional strength of creating meaningful connections with listeners. CHIRP also features conversations with artists, activists, and other people doing interesting work, and our award-winning features department produce pieces highlighting Chicago’s diverse voices and stories.
Links:
Official: https://chirpradio.org/
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