Radio Visions

Wake Up, America--you're tuned to Women on the Air, the rock-'n'-roll/country-and-western/classical program that rocks the Rockies, strums the South and classifies the cutest disc jocks on the dial. We know you've fallen in love with Trish Talk on the radio, gone to one of her promotional gigs and found out she could pass for a Hulkster. We hate for you to be disappointed. That's why we've dialed up 17 women with faces and figures to match their sexy voices and your best imaginings. So forget about Garrison Keillor for the moment and join us in the studio. This is the golden age of radio. What's it like being the disembodied female voice (text concluded on page 148)Radio Visions(continued from page 123) tickling the eardrums of multitudes of men? To Frankie Hutchison--an audiovisual package that belongs on MTV if any ever did--"It's great, but it's strange. A lot of listeners who haven't seen me think I'm blonde. Is that a compliment?" The misconception was rectified when Kansas City's KYYS distributed nearly 200,000 posters of Frankie, a brunette. "The posters weren't sexy, though," she says. "In my Playboy picture, you can see through the top of my swimsuit. Our station is number one with men 18 to 49, and they're going to freak out!" An aside to Frankie's listeners: She says most of the guys who listen to KY-102 are "really nice-looking." And she doesn't have a boyfriend.

"I love being on the air," says Beverly Cleveland, who got her feet wet in Texas radio when a water moccasin came out of the staff toilet. "I feel at peace all alone in the sound studio--it's just me and the world." When she's not spinning steel-guitar sounds as Kelly Forest for Waco's KNFO--the top-rated country station in the nation--Beverly sings with a band called Uncle Dickie's Shameless Quickies, frolics with a pit bull named Gripper, which has saved her skin three times (once from a burglar, once from a fire and once from a discriminating cottonmouth that slid into bed with her), and breeds goldbreasted African finches.

Nancy Gettle takes nighttime requests on Fort Lauderdale/Miami's WSHE ("SHE's only rock 'n' roll"). A descendant of trail blazer Meriwether Lewis, Nancy blazed a trail west of touristy Florida to "the real Florida," where she lives by a lake near the Everglades. "There's a lot going on in Florida radio," says she, peeling out in the SHE van, "and I enjoy living where I live. I get up in the morning and there's a big white bird fishing in the lake." Will SHE promote Nancy's Playboy appearance as a tourist attraction? "Excessively!"

Then there's the star of our show, Lucy Johnson, Boston's noted stripper/sex advisor. As Princess Cheyenne, she does visuals during the week at The Naked i Cabaret. Sunday nights, she hosts a sextalk show called Ask Princess Cheyenne, which by all accounts is far juicier than Dr. Ruth's. "Perfect," said Lucy when we called to ask a few questions. "I just got out of the shower and I'm nude." You've seen Lucy/P.C. on Donahue, read about her in People. She's the Social-Register Stripper--born to wealth, she traded in her silver spoon for stripping, Seventies rock star Cat Stevens and sex radio. "I get mostly male callers," she says. "A lot of them have already seen me at The Naked i or make a point of coming in--they can't see me on the radio."

Poor fellows. But what's this about Cat Stevens?

"We met when I was 16 and again when I was 20," says Lucy. "He was a Moslem by then. I was obsessed with him. We became engaged and I moved to London. I stopped dancing and put on a veil, went to the mosque every day. This went on for about four months, until I realized the fantasy was over. I left--it was ironic that I ended up hurting him after years of being obsessed with him. He called me his hardheaded woman. I guess I was too hardheaded."

And that's only one Lucy Johnson story. Want more? You'll have to ask Princess Cheyenne--Sunday nights on the Hub's WBCN.

We've only scratched the surface--spun the dial--but we hope we've made the point that sometimes, the woman behind the fantasy voice on your radio is every bit as fantastic as you could have imagined.

" 'Perfect,' said Lucy when we called. 'I just got out of the shower and I'm nude." '