'Talking to the wall' : A peak at the creative voice behind KUBA in Yuba City

Nov. 30—It's Alabama in the late 1960s, a young boy fiddles with his hand-built 5-watt AM transmitter before rushing off to his parents' car. He smiles for a brief moment as he tunes in to hear his station playing clearly over the speakers, then it's off to his room again to do a quick break before the record ends.

This was how Willie B spent his childhood, "talking to the walls," engrossed in the magic of radio broadcasting. Some might take it for granted now, but for the past 100 years, radio has been both a comforting ritual and vital source of communication. Even amidst the rise of streaming devices and individualized entertainment algorithms, something about radio brings an elevated sense of community and connection.

"We had moved from an itty-bitty town when I was 10 to the big city of Montgomery Alabama, and I could pick up the stations a lot better," said Willie B. "I didn't know anybody yet in school, but with the radio I felt like I knew these guys. You could turn on the radio and it was like a whole other world. They're playing the Beatles, they're playing the Rolling Stones, all of this great music and they're making the jokes and sounding like the life of the party and it was like, 'wow I want to be that guy.'"

Chances are, avid radio listeners living in Memphis, San Diego, Los Angeles, Boston, Baltimore, Sacramento, or Yuba City, have probably heard the voice of Willie B. His tone is almost cartoonish in nature, reminiscent of Disney's Tigger or a young vaudevillian. But the secret to Willie B's distinctive sound comes from years of self-regulated vocal therapy.

"For me, a southern accent is shorthand for being stupid," said Willie B. "You look at any show on TV and the dumb guy is always the 'Gomer guy.' I wanted to get away from that. So I got a tape recorder by the age of nine or 10 for Christmas, it was the only thing I could have, and I'd practice. I would record a top of the hour CBS network newscast and transcribe it down and re-read it on the recorder and compare it to the announcer's voice and try to get rid of the accent."

Willie B believes it was his missing accent that led to an unexpected win in a statewide high school speech contest. He admits putting little to no effort into his patriotic spiel, yet the vocal recording sent him on a nationwide tour and face to face with President Richard Nixon.

"I learned something then that it's not so much what you say, but it's how you say it," added Willie B.

He describes his love for radio as a genetic curse, something embedded into his DNA. Willie B managed to break into his dream career at the age of 12, scrubbing toilets at a local station. By age 15, he was doing his first top 40 gig at the number one station in Montgomery and at 18 he was the host of San Diego's "Afternoon Drive" on B100.

"I was so intimidated. I actually got sick my first day and couldn't go on the air. I was that petrified," said Willie B. "I still have a bit of that nervous energy, but if it makes any sense, that's kind of what I feed off of."

His career would continue to bounce him all over the country, working at prominent stations such as Ten-Q Los Angeles, 107.2 KIIS FM, WRKO Boston, and B104 Baltimore, often starting work as early as 1 a.m. just to get a few precious hours of air time. Despite the irregular shifts, unpredictable sleep schedules and competing against his own best ratings, Willie B managed to build both a successful career and family. Both of his daughters now work in radio and his son is a local server.

For confidential purposes, Willie B is choosing to keep his legal name secret, and after nearly 50 years he tends to identify more with his radio persona anyway.

"That's one of the weird idiosyncrasies I have about radio," said Willie B. "People can know who you are, but they don't know you. You're famous without being recognized."

For the past seven years now, Willie B has been serving as both the program director and morning host of KUBA 98.1 FM in Yuba City. Listeners can catch him broadcasting live from 5-9 a.m. throughout the week with a focus on hyper-local features. These segments include "The 5-3-0 Life," airing out the dirty laundry of commenters on prominent social media pages, along with general Yuba-Sutter news, weather, traffic, sports, and of course, favorite classic hits.

"I've lived in many places, but I always wanted to come back to California," said Willie B. "And Yuba-Sutter, my only complaint here is we are our own worst enemy. There's lots of worse places. I don't think people give us enough credit."

Before coming to Yuba City, Willie B had been working in Memphis and was also debating a slot with CBS in Chicago. California ultimately won out and, ironically enough, his introduction to Sutter County started with the Oroville Dam spillway crisis of 2017. While 180,000 residents attempted to evacuate the area, Willie B was camped out on the control room floor waiting to give updates and keep listeners informed on traffic.

"I sat here for three days and three nights, and whether you're in Montgomery, Alabama, and talking to maybe nobody, or whether you're in Los Angeles with an audience of over a million people, you're still sitting in a room by yourself talking to the wall," explained Willie B. "To this very day, I'll reference that incident and people will say, 'yes, I was listening to you.' So again, that's part of the magic of radio. Other mediums can try, but I think can never do what we manage to in terms of live, local, immediate coverage right there in the trenches with everyone else."

For more information about WIllie B and KUBA, visit kubaradio.com.