2008 Woodie Awards
Radios and records: The life of "T" Herring
Sonjiala Hotchkiss
Issue date: 4/8/08 Section: Features
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City Times
"The old joke is, I play records," Ted Herring answered with a laugh when asked whether he played an instrument. Herring is a jazz DJ at KSDS Jazz 88, the City College all-jazz radio station. Herring has been on the air at City since September 1978.
Herring said he learned Jazz working at KSDS. Well before which, he always loved the radio. He spoke of being a boy walking with his little transistor radio held close to his ear during the day and close under his pillow at night. Many years passed between the boy and the man now playing records at KSDS.
"I can be good enough," Herring said to himself once he made the decision to give radio a try. He met Damajale while looking to break into radio at a company that used to reside at 4th and Broadway. Damajale, who has become a pillar of the San Diego music scene, told him that the place to learn radio was City College.
Now it has become part of Herring's almost 30-year routine to head off to "Jazzland," the name by which he and his fellow disc jockeys refer to coming to work.
Herring, known as, "T," hosts sets on Saturday and Sunday evenings. Herring got his nickname from a little boy who couldn't pronounce, "Ted." Herring thought it sounded like a cool name for a jazz guy, adding that this was long before the show with Mr. T.
Herring got his Saturday night gig upon the departure of one of the station's founders, Doug Coffland. When Coffland left, so did his personal library of blues records.
Herring, left to make do with the station's less-than-stellar blues collection, decided to add in music from other blues-related genres such as jazz, gospel, and New Orleans zydeco, thus the set's title, "Every Shade of Blue," which airs from 7 p.m. to midnight.
Herring got off to a rough start at KSDS as a newsreader. It didn't take long for him to realize that news reporting had shades of blue he didn't want to cover.
"The PSA crash happened my first day on air," Herring said. He was the only one who showed up to work that day, so the whole day's news coverage fell to him. He quickly asked the instructor, Hope Shaw, if there were anything else he could do. At that time, there was a hard-to-fill 9am to noon slot waiting.
Like most of the DJs at KSDS, Herring has a second job. He performs weddings. Herring calls them truth-and-life weddings. He said that he enjoyed getting to know the couple and telling their love story during the ceremony. Herring's own love story began at Olive Grove Park when the sister of a friend's wife ran up to introduce herself.
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