Next week I’ll be 32. I’m not so sure I truly qualify to say I grew up listening to Donnie.. then again… I can. Unfortunately, I can’t recall when I first heard or at least noticed his smooth velvet voice on the radio. I do know when Black Entertainment Television (BET) was about substance, there was a show I wouldn’t fail to miss after school. Video Soul. It was the 90s version of 106 & Park but without the studio audience fan fare. It was just Donnie introducing the latest and newest in music vids, with special guests and I believe the occasional live performance. When Video Soul ended, it was back to the radio for Donnie.
People outside of the DC area use to always wonder what happened to him. He had become such a household name thanks to Video Soul. I would always chime in (and was proud to) when I made it known that he was still around, and that WE (DC) have him on lock, every morning. Then, two years ago, Donnie said farewell to the airwaves. His faithful listeners crushed. Yet, all that loved him and what he stood for rallied around him and sent him off with tears, heartfelt words and gestures. During my in-house stay with the Washington City Paper, I wrote up a blurb about it for the 2010 Best Of issue.
Today on Facebook, Donnie took to his page to express his feelings about the industry and his absence since his departure. All I can say is, he’s definitely on point and I appreciate him even more for saying this…..
“I signed off the air 2 years ago yesterday. Can you believe it’s been that long? It was a day I will never forget. I had been on the radio since I was 15 years old and for 40 years it had been all the fun I could stand, but that 41st year was hell. I so hated the place I was at and couldn’t wait for the show to end that morning. I had been in misery for a year, but my deliverance was just hours away. I chose January 29th for two reasons. First of all, I wanted to get to the year 2010. I started in 1969, so that would mean I worked in 6 decades. That’s pretty cool. Secondly, my birthday was on the 30th and I refused to take that hell into another year of my life. Thus, the 29th. I remember so vividly all of the TV cameras, reporters, and well wishers there to share what they kept calling this historic moment. I was surprised by all of the attention, but it seems that they all viewed this as the end of an era. Because of that, The Washington Post even placed my departure on the front page, above the fold. I couldn’t believe that. Does this mean all of that? The end of an era? Wow! While that’s quite flattering, it was very sad to me. When I look at radio now, I understand what they were saying. It seems that personality is suppressed, they play the same 10 songs over and over, and no one has the freedom to express themselves musically. Some of the highlights of my career involved not just finding good music, but stepping outside the box with the freedom to play it. I broke Elton John’s “Bennie and The Jets” and watched it become his biggest selling single ever. I came back from a trip to London one year, armed with a new group I’d heard in a taxi on the way to Wimbledon with Sugar Ray Leonard, called Swing Out Sister. I dropped the needle on it and watched them shoot up the charts here in America. To this day, E.U. credits me with breaking their biggest song ever, “Da Butt”. It went all the way to #1 in the country and is the last GO-Go song to do so. That’s sad really. Please don’t read this as me tooting my own horn, because that’s not what this is about. The horn I toot is a fog horn to warn radio that it’s in dangerous waters. You can’t do radio without ears. You have to let your stars shine. There are young people out there right now who know and Love music, but have to work with their hands tied and their ears closed because management ‘knows’ their listeners tastes better than them. It reminds me of a conversation I had with my boy Howard Stern some years ago. We were both expressing amazement at how they can pay you all this money to do this and then want to tell you how to do it. I want to thank all of the people who tell me daily “We miss you” and “You need to come back.” You have no idea how much that means to me. I miss you too, but I’m not so sure I’ll be back now. On my last show I was so careful to say this is not a retirement, just a break and you will hear from me again. Two years and several offers later, I cannot say with conviction that it’s still just a break, but I can say with conviction that I can only come back it if it’s fun again. I’m just not sure it would be. I was so blessed to have a job I Loved for so many years. My whole career, I couldn’t wait for Monday morning at 6. The last year, I couldn’t wait for Friday morning at 10. Now I know that a lot of people suffer thru jobs they hate for many years, but having fun was my job. I can’t have fun with a lot of BS going on around me. Toxic environments just don’t work for me, so I bounced. Out of all the coverage of my departure I saw on TV two years ago, the the most poignant comment came from my boy Jim Vance at 11:30 that night on NBC4. He was talking about managements demand that I do it their way and Jim said “Donnie wouldn’t do that, because he couldn’t do that.” My Man. That was so on point. I can’t do someone else’s version of Donnie Simpson. I can only do me. That sounded like masturbation didn’t it. “I can only do me.” That’s funny. I better end this, I’m starting to sound like Howard. I miss you and I Love you, but Thank God Almighty, I’m Free At Last!” – Donnie Simpson
Mahoganie: Musings East of the Anacostia River 
Posted on January 30, 2012
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