| While he loved Higher Ground in its current format, Overby could feel the winds of change blowing. "I decided I would prepare myself to either roll with what they were proposing or requiring or create something that was going to be palatable for me and what I thought would be the next step for the show," Overby said. It turns out that the new format evolved into something that Overby had wanted all along. Instead of the vaudeville-style of the old format, It would be Overby, the equipment, his tapes, and his CDs. His new format is about exploring the African roots of music. In essence, he has become a DJ of the African Diaspora. As Overby describes the show, I can almost imagine him sitting in his living room surrounded by hundreds of CDs and vinyl records and explaining to me in that rich baritone voice of his about the record we're about to listen to and who the artist is. He reminds me of a high school friend. I would go over to his house and they would play records and tell me why the artist wrote this song or that song and what was going on in their lives. And I expanded my musical horizons through that friendship. "On a Saturday night, people will hear music from Cuba and Brasil, the Caribbean and parts of Africa," Overby said. "And of course, all the genres are here: R&B, blues, jazz, and gospel. So all of these forms that I think are critical to bring together in one construct, to have it be constructed together, rather than segregated like so many shows do. You have the Afro-Pop show. You have the Caribbean show or the gospel show or the R&B show. I thought 'Why not bring them all together at the same dinner table and find out what happens when we go from entree to the next to see what we come up with." Overby feels that the international music scene is evolving quickly as musicians are freed from the strict confines of one genre. "I am amazed at the collaborations based on interest in music with African roots," Overby said. "Musicians from the Far East are getting together with African musicians and musicians who normally play, for example, a music style called zouk music. They are getting together with artists who are Spanish and merging these two styles of artistic forms and finding out what comes of it. You have American musicians going to different parts of the world and different parts of the world coming to this country. It says something about how music really brings people together. It also says something profound about their interest in what has been birthed from Africa and how those musical influences have impacted the entire world and a lot of people are interested in partnering and marrying their music with African music and creating new styles of music for generations. That's really powerful and really exciting to hear. Overby is developing a more personable and intimate relationship with his listeners. "I don't have to perform," Overby said. "The artists are doing that for me. All I have to do is sit back and celebrate and hope people are having a good time with what they are hearing while they are painting, in the garage or the kitchen or driving across the state. The nice thing about it is that this music belongs to all of us. It isn't just a musical form that only one ethnic group can claim. There's some authorship, but the ownership needs to be much broader than that because musical forms influence each other. When we want to talk about pure musical styles, that is becoming increasingly more difficult because people want to be unique and want to grab a little of this style of music and a little bit of that. So people go 'Oh, I'm hearing a little bit of Cajun in this or I'm hearing some East Indian influence in the music.' And I think that is the greatest thing to celebrate about humanity, how we impact each other." Higher Ground comes on at 7 p.m. every Saturday night on the Wisconsin Public Radio state wide network. In Madison, it is 88.7 FM. |
| Jonathan Overby and Higher Ground DJ of the African Diaspora By Jonathan Gramling |
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| We're in Jonathan Overby's Vilas Hall office talking about Higher Ground, his state wide public radio show that is on the air every Saturday night. Management had asked him what he thought about making changes to the program. |
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