No-talk radio
Scott Johnston suppresses his gift for gab on his own station

By HEIDI GAISER
The Daily Inter Lake

After a few years of leaving his Creston home at 4 a.m. for work as a disc jockey at a Polson radio station, Scott Johnston is thrilled with his current commute.

A walk through his 1916 farmhouse, and Johnston is in the studio.
Johnston, 53, now sets his own hours on his own radio station, KXZI 101.9 FM, also known as the Montana Radio Cafe.

He started the low-power, 100-watt nonprofit station a year ago in March. The station's official home is his converted front porch; the transmitter stands in his front yard along Montana 35.

Since going on the air, the station has garnered a long list of local sponsors and generated a record of Internet listeners from Australia, Israel, Brazil, Canada and just about every European country. Listeners range from teenagers to seniors in their 80s.

Though Johnston said he's almost always made his living talking, he emphasizes now that his station is "all about the music."
"It's kind of insulting," he joked. "People say to me, 'you don't really talk much. I really like that.'"

During stints as a disc jockey on three local stations — KGEZ and KOFI in Kalispell and KERR in Polson — interacting with the news personnel and the listeners were always the best part of the job for Johnston.

"Any money I've ever made in my life, has been by talking. I don't know what that says about me."

The music, whether it was country, pop or oldies, was always chosen from such a limited list that Johnston said it was difficult to stay enthused.

Now there's no limit to what he can play. With a 12,000-song catalog, Johnston offers blues, jazz, bluegrass, folk old-time country — genres usually ignored by commercial stations.

Johnston will interrupt the music every once in a while to talk with visiting musicians. His first guest, pianist and guitarist George Winston, dropped by the studio when he was in the valley last spring for an O'Shaughnessy Center performance.

Since then, Johnston has been host to live performances by other nationally known musicians — blues guitarists Phillip Walker, Larry Garner and Roy Rogers, blues harmonica player Norton Buffalo and trumpeter Byron Stripling, recently in town for a Glacier Symphony concert.

Local musicians have also found a welcome place to promote their music. The Montana Beargrass Band, Electric Mud, Blue Onion, Andre Floyd and John Dunnigan have all been KXZI guests.

There is one condition to their appearances, Johnston said. Before they go on the air, "they have to play a tune with me."

Johnston began playing guitar as a performer himself in the 1970s. He said he wouldn't mind having taking the stage again during some local open-microphone nights, but he said his wife, Marie, isn't so wild about him "starting up another career."

His mother gave Johnston his first introduction to live music. She took him to clubs to hear Dixieland jazz, where he said he paid little attention to the adult atmosphere. Even at a young age, it was the music that captivated him.

On the wall of the Montana Radio Cafe studio is a black-and-white picture of Johnston at age 13, posing with Louis Armstrong. Johnston's stepfather was a promotional photographer for KOA radio in Denver when Armstrong came though town in 1964, and Johnston was able to spend time with the legendary trumpet player and singer. It was one of the highlights of his youth.

Johnston was born in Houston, but raised mostly in Colorado, west of Denver in the mountain town of Evergreen. His musical aspirations were interrupted for a few years by other pursuits — he flew on combat missions as an airborne ranger in Vietnam in 1969-70 and worked as a drug counselor at a mental health center in Fayetteville, N.C. for a year after that.

He still hoped for a future in music, though, and played guitar, mostly bluegrass, up and down the East Coast and later in Colorado. In 1975, he decided Colorado was becoming too crowded and brought his music to the Flathead Valley. He played blues and bluegrass for rowdy audiences in places that no longer exist — the Mountain Lake Tavern in Bigfork, the Hellroaring Saloon that used to be located at the bottom of the Big Mountain.

His life changed in 1977, when he met Marie Bird on Valentine's Day. They were married by September of the same year.

The Johnstons had six children in seven and a half years. During that time, they moved to North Dakota where Johnston attended college, lived in Seeley Lake for a while and then came back to the valley.

They settled into their current house and the east-valley community in 1986. At times, Johnston had up to three jobs, driving a bus for Cayuse Prairie School and working at the Woody's convenience store among them.

Then in 1988, Johnston was asked by a friend from his church if he would like to work part-time for KGEZ radio. His first shift was on Thanksgiving day.
"You always have to start off taking the bad shifts," he said.
When he left KERR, he was in the prime morning slot, but after dodging deer on Montana 35 every morning, he was ready for a change.

Though most of his on-air commentary consists of sponsor identifications, weather reports and artist lists, Johnston is still getting plenty of opportunity for talk in his new life. Fans stop by the station regularly with their favorite CDs, acquainting Johnston with a multitude of new artists. He visits each of his sponsors personally.
And currently he's working on a new venture, the Montana Radio Cafe Music Series. The concerts will fill the void left by the departure of music-store owner Pat Bailey, whose Mountain Aire series used to bring performers to Kalispell's downtown KM Theatre.
Along with local photographer and musician Marshall Noice, Johnston is helping produce upcoming shows by Lucy Kaplansky, Erica Wheeler, Wayne Hancock and the Cigar Store Indians. Folk singer Kaplansky leads off on May 14.

Johnston also gets out of the radio studio as a senior black belt kung fu instructor at a local martial arts studio, teaching classes twice a week.

Watercolor painting is another hobby. Johnston has a few pieces of his work on display in his studio and on the Montana Radio Cafe Web site.

And many of Johnston's large family are still around to help keep him busy. His oldest son, Jesse, is a horseshoer and lives in a small house on the Johnston property. Michone is set to graduate from the University of Montana, Vanessa is in school in California, and Charis works at a local cabinet shop.

Only his two youngest, Issac and Graham, took their father's musical path. Isaac, a carpenter, is a bass player with the local Christian rock band Three Minutes From Home, and Graham, now serving in Indonesia with Youth With a Mission, is a drummer.
Neither of his musician sons share his musical preferences, which doesn't disappoint him.
"The only thing that does bother me is when they put down music outside their taste," he said. "They need to be humble enough to realize they're standing on the shoulders of those musicians that went before them."

Johnston's taste is obviously appealing to plenty of others, though.
"It's been incredible," he said. "People love this station and they love the music."