`Cr-cr-cr-crazy!”
Inside a radio studio rumbling with sound high above Michigan Avenue, 29-year-old Howard McGee stomped his feet, his face erupting in a mischievous grin.
Quickened by the blaring music of an afternoon dance mix, his head bobbed. His shoulders and pelvis rolled. And his voice intermittently rang out over the airwaves as he gyrated behind a lit-up control board.
“Woo-oo-oo-oo-oo!” McGee shrieked like a fired-up Pentecostal preacher, railing from the spirit. “Woo-oo-oo-oo!”
Better known as “Ca-ra-zy” Howard McGee, the latest rising star at top-rated WGCI-FM 107.5 is carving his own niche in the competitive world of music radio with a knack for raising listeners’ consciousness as well as their dancing feet.
That’s “crazy in a good way,” McGee, a native Chicagoan, is quick to point out, lest anyone be misled by the dubious handle given to him for his uncanny ability to tickle listeners’ funny bones even as he hits them with an often uncomfortable truth.
He seems to be the kind of guy who says what everyone is thinking but is afraid to say; the guy you want to have at the party; and the kind of guy you might even want on the other side of the confessional, judging from the listeners phoning up to air their laundry.
“I’m not trying to be Doug (Banks) and funny. I’m not trying to be Tom (Joyner),” McGee said, referring to the Gannett Inc.-owned station’s two star jocks. “Howard McGee is a caring individual who really gets off on people.
“I can’t help it if Howard’s nice,” McGee said matter-of-factly. “I can’t help it if Howard’s going to incorporate God. I can’t help it if I try to be positive every day. That’s me.”
Often witty. Sometimes serious. And almost always entertaining, it is the spirit of WGCI’s midday show from 11 a.m. to 2 p.m. on weekdays. “The Crazy Show” is hosted by the unseen mustachioed deejay whose innovations have included the Crazy Hall of Fame, into which he inducts each week a new group of “Crazies” for their good deeds; the Crazy Howard McGee job search file; a 30-day sexual abstinence club; and what amounts to a daily town hall meeting concerning issues in the African-American community.
Wait a minute-an abstinence club?
“People need to take responsibility,” said McGee. “And so I said, What better to do than to start a 30-day abstinence club. I thought it was something positive to pass on. That is, if you’re not going to be responsible, don’t have sex.”
Someone to talk to
That sort of earthy style has a way of drawing callers to divulge even their darkest, most intimate secrets on the air.
Not the least of which was from a somber woman who updated McGee on an earlier call in which she said she had gotten pregnant after having sex with a stripper at her bachelorette party. The child turned out to be the stripper’s, not her new husband’s, she said.
After a pause, McGee replied, “See, it doesn’t pay to mess around.”
“Yeah, Crazy, you’re right.”
“God bless,” he said, moving on.
Then there was the sniffling caller who was contemplating suicide because she was distressed over an unfaithful lover for whom she had taken a drug rap. McGee referred her to counseling. Weeks later, she phoned in to say he had saved her life.
Ann Landers he isn’t. But McGee, who became a regular on WGCI in February, is building a reputation as more than a populist shock jock.
“On the Crazy Show, he actually makes people think,” said Tonya Cohn, marketing manager for a local beer distributing company, which sponsored a recent dance party hosted by McGee. “He’s controversial. He makes people call in because he gets under their skin. He pulls listeners at their hearts.”
“He’s a positive brother,” listener Dennis Allen, 35, said at the party, held at a South Side club. “He’s always saying positive stuff in a light-hearted way.”
“And one of the most important things you can do is help young African-Americans get work,” Allen said, referring to McGee’s job search feature, in which he invites businesses to fax descriptions of job openings to the station.
He then reads the job descriptions over the air and when listeners land a job, they in turn phone in.
“It’s just a way of giving back,” McGee explained. “It’s all about trying to uplift.
“This is black radio. We owe it to our listeners to give them something. I want to talk about things of substance.”
A different approach
So while many afternoon jocks feature celebrity sit-ins to provoke listener interest in a time slot where they compete against television soap operas as well as other radio stations, McGee opts to field the scores of calls that fill his afternoons.
“It’s a grass-roots show. I don’t have celebrities on the show. I choose to go the other route.
“I like the people. People are crazy. They get you pumped. Even when you’re not feeling 100 percent. They pump you up. And every day it’s something different. You never know who’s going to call with what.
“I love it, man. I love it. Controversy. . . . That’s what it’s about.”
Coupling WGCI’s urban contemporary music format with a provocative blend of issues that frequently come to him while driving to work in a mythical jalopy, “Crazy” invites listeners to call in and speak their mind. And it’s no holds barred.
Premarital sex. Interracial dating. Promiscuity. Stalking. Being gay. Does a man have any rights concerning his unborn fetus? Anything to fan the flames and get the station’s phone lines buzzing.
McGee is at times instigator. At other times agitator. But most often he treads the middle ground somewhere between advocate and antagonist.
“Can you not get the same pleasure from a male that you’re getting from a female?” he asked a lesbian caller recently. “Why did you choose a female?”
“Because she’s more attentive,” the woman responded. “She’s more of the things I could not get from him.”
McGee fires back. “Maybe perhaps it wasn’t the right man. Maybe there’s another male out there that can give you what this female gives you. . . . You ever thought about that?”
“That could be possible. . . . I’m not knocking that either. I’m just saying right now this is where I am with my life. I feel no shame. I’m not afraid and I’m happy.”
“I will share this with my listeners,” McGee said.
“I love your show. Keep up the good work,” the woman said.
“And I love you. Some things I don’t understand. But I love you.
“I’ll pass it on,” McGee said, his signature phrase soon swallowed by music.
Success comes quickly
McGee’s start in radio goes back to his days at the South Side’s Corliss High School, where radio and television courses piqued his interest. The youngest of eight children, McGee attended Southern Illinois University in Carbondale, where he majored in broadcast communications.
At college, McGee worked at two local radio stations, but earned his “Crazy” sobriquet while spinning records for lunchtime crowds in the cafeteria, he said.
McGee joined WGCI part time in August 1993 after a station manager heard his voice on a radio commercial and invited him to audition. It wasn’t exactly love at first sound bite. In fact, it wasn’t until after five audition tapes and an unpaid 13-week trial period that McGee was hired.
Since going full time in February, McGee has taken the station’s midday show from the 7th most listened-to radio program in Chicago during that time slot to No. 1, according to Arbitron ratings.
“He has come a long way. He hasn’t been here long and he has made a difference,” said Elroy Smith, WGCI’s program director. “He has brought an element of radio that people tend to shy away from.
“Hits alone can become boring. But jocks can add spice. If you’re talking with substance, people want to hear it.”
That he has become an almost-overnight hit has come as much a surprise to McGee as anyone.
“I don’t take the credit,” he said. “I thank God.”
McGee is also grateful for his listeners as well as their growing affection, though a recent caller apparently wanted to share much more than her opinion.
“Can you meet me today?” asked the woman, who identified herself as Patricia. “At your house,” said the woman.
“What do you want to do at my house?” McGee asked, almost laughing.
Silence.
Even for Crazy, the woman’s request was a bit much.
