Ronan Collins Show

Haven't heard that "A call from Long Island" sketch in years. Still makes me laugh, think Alf McCarthy used play it on Late Date the odd time.

Ronan playing John Prine now. Hope he cleared that with Creedo ;)

Pot the reds then screw back,

For the yellow green brown blue pink and black!!

Don't care how many times i hear it, that intro to Trouble with a Capital T will never ever fail to blow me away. The whole album is fantastic and still underrated.

Thanks for that, one of the reasons i like Ronans show is he is one of the last genuine radio guys left on the national stations, things like this just drive that point home!

Anyway, i came across this playlist that has a ton of music that falls into that category of "i know it but i don't know why i know it"...recognise lots of the tracks as beds from various radio shows. https://open.spotify.com/playlist/3wTQnLE7k1NFGxjVSSwjPQ?si=AO5TDGSsQGOv7axqMMGlLQ&utm_source=copy-link

To me a genuine radio guy, or gal, presenting a music show...

Has a great knowledge of and enthusiasm for the music that they are playing.

Can make a connection with the audience apart from "text me what you are having for lunch". Yes we know you don't like the birthdays and anniversaries, but the fact that people make requests on Ronan's show year after year, and that he remembers listeners from previous interactions (not just birthdays and anniversaries), but remembers what music certain individual listeners like shows that he has some respect for his audience. His engagement with the audience goes further than the birthdays and requests anyway.

Does a bit of research and preparation.

Plans the show - You can easily tell that Ronan puts in a bit of effort beforehand, and plans his timings for the intro's and outro's to songs. His timing is often impeccable, giving the audience little tidbits of info about the band or song, the song will be cued up, properly, he will give his spiel and open the fader fully at just the right moment, this also shows knowledge of his equipment or in other words "can work the buttons". There was a great example of this when he was introducing Africa by Toto just before Christmas, it really stood out to me as something that you just don't hear on national daytime radio at all anymore.

Has the odd nod to pioneers of the past - such as using "Soul Coaxing" as a bed - The original Radio Caroline used this in the past, amongst others.

Edit: It wasn't Africa, it was Rosanna 🙂 From the 11 minute mark: https://www.rte.ie/radio/radio1/ronan-collins/programmes/2021/1223/1268419-ronan-collins-thursday-23-december-2021/

His entry to the Neil Diamond tune earlier in that show was top stuff too!

Shay in for Ronan this week he played an Irish gem about 12.15 today, The fat lady sings - Arclight

One from Lilian Smith or Fiachná or Nadine O'Regan (Her Late Date shows are surprisingly good.) would work well on the show.

he must be getting too much fresh air - he is twice as hyper between 5.30am and 7 am

I think Lillian Smith would be perfect in this role.

But Ronan has YEARS in him yet! 🤞