Welcome to a special edition of Southern Songs and Stories, where we pay respects to Jeff Eason by sharing some of his work on air at WNCW, where I am program director. Back in 2007, I was the morning music host on WNCW, mixing the tunes from 6 to 10 AM weekdays. I came up with the idea to make a daily music talk segment, with myself as host, joined by guest panelists conversing about everything from record reviews, to moments in history, to editorials and think pieces. If you’re like me, you can talk about music for hours without really even trying, and that sort of spontaneous water cooler talk about artists, songs and such was already a real boost to my workday. So, I gave it a platform, called the show What It Is, and brought in fellow music heads Jeff Eason, who was then a newspaper editor at the Mountain Times in Boone, NC, and Fred Mills, who was then the managing editor for Harp magazine.
(L to R) Jeff Eason and Fred Mills in studio to record What It Is on 2-24-12. This was the last time Jeff, Fred and Joe Kendrick were on the show together.
Here is a wonderful tribute to Jeff from the Watauga Democrat.
We miss you very much, Jeff. You can find more of Jeff's work on What Is Is (244 episodes to be exact, which isn’t all of them, but is still a lot), here: https://www.southernsongsandstories.com/whatitis/