Tell me how you got to WOL [WOL Radio, Washington, D.C.]. What, what happened, now you're at ZUM [WZUM Radio, Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania], you're twenty years old. What happens?$$Well they had a program director by the name of Bill Sherard, and Bill Sherard, his mother and father lived somewhere in Pennsylvania. And I'm not sure, it was northern Pennsylvania. But he heard me, he was on his way home 4th of July for the 4th of July holiday and he heard me on the air on a Saturday afternoon. So soon as he got back to D.C. [Washington, D.C.] that Tuesday, 'cause I think the holiday was Monday. He got back on Tuesday, he called me up and I had heard, I had been to Dc and I had heard WOL and I said oh may I would love to work there, them guys are smoking. Well at, WZUM we had people that were really good, I mean we had two guys that left there and went to New York [New York], but, and I had an opportunity to go New York. But I'm saying well if Al's going to New York, this guy that started me in radio, Al Gee he went to New York and Jeff Troy who's another one and Frankie Crocker. Frankie went to New York also. So I said well I'm going to D.C., so anyway make, get back to the original. He heard me on the air, he called me said would I be interested in coming to D.C., "Are you kidding," (laughter), "yeah definitely." Said, "Well I might have an opening in a couple of months to do the a- the overnight show." Now overnight was midnight 'til five in the morning, I didn't wanna do overnights, but I'm a kid. I'm just starting in this business and I'll do whatever you want. So I go on the air and I said okay, and I didn't expect to hear from again, him again, I thought it was you know possibly a joke or what. He called me two weeks later, said, "All right, I'm ready, come on down." So me and my brother, Gary [Gary Payne], Gary was about ten years old I think, twelve years old, we get in the car and go down to D.C. And, and he told me what they were gonna pay me and I almost died, I almost, I fainted.$$How much more was it than?$$Well it was I was making seventy dollars a week, and I went from seventy-five to 250 [dollars], so you do the math, that's about 175 difference.$$Just for playing records (laughter)?$$Just for playing records (laughter).$$That's what your father [Marshall Payne, Jr.] said.$$And my show was sponsored by Ben's Chili Bowl [Washington, D.C.].$$The famous Ben's Chili Bowl?$$The famous Jim- well wasn't fam- it wasn't that famous then.$$Okay.$$They were sponsored, they sponsored the first two hours, so they would, every night they would call me and see what I'm, how many hot dogs or half smokes I wanted. And they would bring them up to the station, and I was so full, I mean that was my diet for about six months I guess. And I got the job, and in D.C. and I was doing overnights and it was, it was a great experience. So then I got drafted, Vietnam [Vietnam War] was smoking by then.$$So how, how long were you there before you were drafted?$$What six months, eight months.$Okay so I thought I'd ask you about it before we moved on to XM radio. This is, so XM's in 2001, right, you go to XM is that?$$No we went in 2000.$$Two thousand [2000]?$$Yeah we didn't go on the air 'til 2001.$$Okay all right, all right.$$Yeah.$$So well XM now this is satellite ra- radio?$$Right.$$And well, well tell us about how, how you got the opportunity and what you were trying to do.$$Well I was doing the show on, on PFW [WPFW Radio, Washington, D.C.], and Hugh Panero who became the general manager of XM Satellite Radio [XM Satellite Radio, Inc.; Sirius XM Radio, Inc.], Hugh used to listen to us every Saturday he would listen. 'Cause he'd be off and, he would le- he loved hearing the old R and B music and so forth. And I got a call one day, I'd just put a book out what was it, 501 Ways the R- to Listen to R and B Radio [sic. 'The Ultimate Soul Music Trivia Book: 501 Questions and Answers About Motown, Rhythm and Blues and More,' Bobby Bennett and Sarah Smith]. I'd just put, but he bought the book (laughter) and then he read, he went through the book and he cal- I had, they had me down for an interview. So I came in, at that point they had hired like three people, and I spoke to Lee Abrams, Lee was the guy that in charge of programming period, all 100 stations. And I convinced him that I knew more about R and B radio and R and B records than anybody else. So they, they said okay and you know this is what we want, this, "Now you're gonna have to be with this radio station until it, it," you know, "you're going have to build it from scratch," which is what I did. I, at that time I hired two other, two other jocks and what we would do would record, we do one show live, and then we would record another show. Say like you would be on twenty-four hours well twelve of them would be live, and twelve would be recorded. So that's what we did, did that for ten years, had a ball. It was, it was tough because this came along in two- in the year 2000 and all of the new technology was just coming about at this point. And I mean you're talking about me, I was a fifty year old jock, you know at that time, and you're trying to teach me new ti- all this new technology. And I'm like oh wow, so I remember one day riding down New Hampshire Avenue which I had to come on, do New Hampshire Avenue to get to work. And I'm like I'm quitting today 'cause I can't do this, I just can't do this, this is crazy. Something happened that day, I don't know what happened, and I still don't know what happened. All of a sudden all of this information that we had been de- being taught for the last four months, all of a sudden it all came together. And (laughter) all of a sudden I became the guy doing all this new technology, it was really, really wild. But after I got it, you know, I finally had it by now, and after I got it and build my station and the whole nine yards, then I really had a good time. Until the end at the end, they started hiring people that were really not ra- radio people, they were people, they were money people. And it, it didn't make no difference how you sounded as long as your station was making money. And as long, mean they would, they would play the same records like you know five times a day you know it was just crazy. So I remember Charlie Logan, Charlie Logan saying back in 2000, you know, "Those of us who build these radio stations won't be here ten years from now." And he was absolutely right, but it's funny how things happen. The, we had a new general manager 'cause our old guy he had left and his name was Jim Davis [ph.] and he came aboard and he said, "I'm a take care of all the people that helped to build this, this whole network." So what he did all of us are program directors, they offered us a year's salary, we got a year you know for not being there (laughter) that was great. Plus another year of here's a, another year, boom. So you know nobody was mad, we walked out, we said okay that's fine, they hired all new guys, they're out of New York [New York] now basically doing most of the shows out of New York. At that time they were doing everything in D.C. [Washington, D.C.], but it worked out very well and you know we were happy, and that's. That was ten years of my life that you know I really had a good time, and it was, it was fun to see something that had, didn't have legs before, all of a sudden it does now. That was fun; it was your baby it was you know. For the first year that this, this happened in two, two o-elev- '11 [2011] I believe. And I couldn't listen for the first year, I couldn't listen to my station, you know I just didn't wanna hear it. I didn't wanna hear what somebody else was doing with my station.$$I know they changed the name of the show from 'Soul Street' to 'Soul Town' (simultaneous)?$$(Simultaneous) Yeah it became 'Soul Town,' well 'Soul Town' that was the name of, what they you know when I left, they just changed it around. Instead of the street 'cause we had a patent on the street, 'Soul Street,' they changed it to soul, 'Soul Town' so they wouldn't be sued (laughter), so.