Mennonite Weekly Review

HARRISONBURG, Va. — They are three men on a mission: presenting eclectic music that might otherwise not hit radio airwaves.

Jim Bishop plays 1950s music on Friday Night Jukebox and co-hosts a monthly Warped Records Show. — Photo provided by EMU

John L. Horst, Ted Grimsrud and Jim Bishop produce and host weekly programs on public radio station WEMC, 91.7 FM, as volunteers.

Horst, a retired physics professor at Eastern Mennonite University, hosts Mostly Mennonite, Mostly A Cappella from 8 to 9:30 a.m. Sundays. He plays blocks of mostly unaccompanied sacred choral music by local and nationally known artists and groups.

Horst draws from years of musical experience, which included singing with the former Mennonite Hour radio broadcast’s chorus and male quartet from the mid-1950s to the mid-1960s as well as composing. Music from the 15 CD reissues of Classic Mennonite Hour singing often appears on the program.

Listeners on a given Sunday morning might hear groups such as the Eastern Mennonite High School Touring Choir, the EMU Chamber Singers, the Shenandoah Valley Men’s Chorus, the Shenandoah Valley Children’s Choir and local composers Jim Clemens and Brad Lehman.

A sampling of contrasting music outside the Mennonite tradition is usually part of each program.

Bishop, EMU’s public informatinon officer, who dubs himself a “hopeless nostalgic,” dishes up an hour of dusty discs from the 1950s with the Friday Night Jukebox from 8 to 9 p.m. The show features straight-ahead rock and roll, street-corner doo-wop harmonies, top 10 instrumentals, off-the-wall novelties and sock hop specials with artists as diverse as Chuck Berry, Perry Como, the McQuire Sisters, Marty Robbins, Duane Eddy and Little Richard, who shared the charts during this era. Requests and dedications are welcomed by calling 540-432-4211.

Bishop also teams up with WSVA radio personality Jim Britt for the monthly Warped Records Show from 10 a.m. to noon, usually on a Thursday, a two-hour montage of weird, wacky tunes that were once staples of radio but today don’t fit any station genre.

“I’m not aware of any commercial radio station anywhere doing a program like this one,” Bishop said. “Even WSVA doesn’t know what to make of the avid listener response.”

Grimsrud, professor of Bible and religion, is host of Wavelength from 3 to 6 p.m. Saturdays. He describes the program as “music from the intersection of country, folk, rock and roll, blues and gospel.”

On any given week, one might hear Waylon and Willie, Ray Charles, Bob Dylan and the Beatles, followed by the Everly Brothers, Bruce Cockburn, Nina Simone and Los Lobos.

Grimsrud also writes about Wavelength on a blog.

WEMC, Virginia’s oldest public radio station, founded in 1955, is owned by EMU and managed by the staff of James Madison University’s public radio station, WMRA.