Help Launch Community Blues Radio in Clarksdale, Mississippi

Are you passionate about the Blues? Do you believe in preserving and promoting American Musical History and Black Musical Art Forms? Are you a listener of community radio run by and for the people? Does free genre-less music programming add value and a sense of place to your life? Do you get tired of driving through America hearing corporate radio wash away the distinct regional sound of this country?

If you answered yes to any of the above, we invite you to join us in our mission to launch a non-commercial community radio station in Clarksdale, Mississippi – the birthplace of the Blues.

Clarksdale is an essential city in American Musical history. This town of just 15,000 is where legendary Blues artists like Muddy Waters, Howlin' Wolf, and John Lee Hooker were born and lived and where the iconic Crossroads, the location where Robert Johnson allegedly sold his soul to the devil, still lies in pavement as a monument to the rich cultural heritage of the region.

Yet, despite its historical significance, Clarksdale currently lacks a dedicated town radio station. We aim to change that. Founded in 2007, Open Sky Radio (OSR) is a 501c3 not-for-profit corporation that builds community FM radio stations in the rural West with the driving idea that certain places, even a dusty desert town like Gerlach, Nevada, deserve a radio station that serves the community around it. And if anywhere deserves to have a station broadcast a sense of place...it's Clarksdale, Mississippi.

In Summer of '22, OSR was granted a rare FCC Construction Permit for a 'non-commercial educational' FM Broadcast license covering Clarksdale. With your support, we will build a 'terrestrial' radio station that will be as rich as the soil it sits on. WAIT 88.1FM will be the blues-centric Jiveradio music platform that celebrates virtually all music genres, providing a space for both classic recordings from the deep vault and new, up-and-coming artists to be heard.

WAIT FM is NOT going to be an 'all-Blues, all-the-time' radio station. Those are out there. However, as our old Music Director Lazlo Bleen says..."We don't play hardly no music that's not got much Blues in it." Our goal is to not only entertain but also to educate listeners about the rich history and cultural impact of the music born from this significant place.

It is going to be the Clarksdale version of Jiveradio, because we KNOW there are music lovers in Clarksdale who love all types of music and this is for them, for free.

Your contribution will go towards:

* Engineering necessary to obtain license.

* Acquiring & installing the antenna, transmitter and Emergency Alert System components.

By supporting our campaign, you're not just helping to launch a radio station – you're helping to preserve a vital piece of American musical heritage. Together, we can keep the Blues alive and be an outlet to serve the art form and inspire a whole new generation of musicians and community members.