I am so sorry to learn of the passing of my friend and colleague, Bliss Michelson. You may recall my mentioning it was Bliss who trained me when I started at WWFM – The Classical Network, preparing me for my long weekend morning run that spanned 19 years, beginning in 1995.
At the time, I had had nine years’ experience in community radio, but Bliss taught me the new board, how to fill out the logs, how to rewind the reel-to-reel machines without snapping the tape, and how to record our broadcast concerts off of satellite. Most important, he taught me how to turn on the transmitter at 4:50 a.m., in the years before the station went 24 hours.
Bliss was the most natural radio man I have ever known. In an average hour on a weekday morning, he would share a playlist of five pieces, impeccably curated for maximum variety and interest, work done swiftly at his desk the preceding afternoon. He was also the most-disciplined, accomplishing much of his production work in an adjacent studio, in real time, during his live air shift, laying down voice tracks during a Vivaldi concerto and editing audio in the span of a Joonas Kokkonen symphony.
He also had the uncanny ability to instant cat-nap. Not infrequently, he would perform evening gigs as a freelance double-bassist. With pack-up and transportation, these could run quite late for a man accustomed to rising in the middle of the night. Even keeping normal hours, by the standards of the rest of humanity, he often didn’t wind up getting very much sleep. After a time, he started asking me if I could fill in for him on mornings following rehearsals. Then he’d saunter in around 6:45 to start on his day.
On weekends, when I seldom saw other full-time staff, it was not unusual for Bliss to show up early on a Saturday or a Sunday, to check his email and put some finishing touches on a produced show, before heading out for an afternoon of tending the sheep. Literally. He kept sheep. He also loved cats, of which, I gather, he had several.
Later, we also worked together at WRTI in Philadelphia. We were both on-call classical music hosts, but I also did a regular overnight jazz shift, so occasionally our paths would cross on a Saturday morning. Earlier in his career, Bliss hosted shows on Trinity University’s KRTU and KPAC in San Antonio and, prior to WWFM, WNED in Buffalo.
Bliss was passionate about Nordic music (he was proud of his Swedish heritage) and also historic recordings of the great conductors. As a double-bassist with the San Antonio Symphony, he played with many of the greats. He shared anecdotes about performing with Aaron Copland, Los Romeros, and a phenomenal roster of guest maestros.
In front of a microphone, there was nothing he couldn’t do. I’ve been in the studio when he was on the air and he’d just been handed a script, and he’d invariably deliver it with ease and grace, as if he’d already committed it to memory.
My training amounted to sitting in with him for two air shifts. During the final hour of the second, he turned it over to me. As I sat in the chair, moments away from my WWFM debut, my throat was dry and my hands were shaking. Intuiting my nerves, Bliss offered the following words of advice: “Remember… it’s just you and the microphone.”
For me, it will always be Bliss and the microphone. Perfect together. Rest easy, my friend. I will think of you whenever I play the Sibelius Fourth.
