We caught up with the brilliant and insightful Scott Stout a few weeks ago and have shared our conversation below.

Scott, thanks for taking the time to share your stories with us today We’d love to hear about a project that you’ve worked on that’s meant a lot to you.

Primarily it’s The Gumbo YaYa Radio Show. Launched in January 2013, GYYRS was created to support NEW & INDEPENDENT artists and help them get the airplay they deserve and recognition by top producers in the industry. Our goal is to provide a platform for Musicians, Singers & Song Writers to achieve THEIR goals of being signed to a label or agency or having their music aired, recorded, published and/or performed.

Within that one of the most meaningful projects we do is our weekly “Salute to Service” where we honor our Military & First Responder through a musical tribute, thanking Past, Present and Future Heroes of the military, law enforcement, fire & EMS who serve our country and communities, protecting our families and freedom.

Awesome – so before we get into the rest of our questions, can you briefly introduce yourself to our readers.

I don’t know where to start I guess it all begins with my love of music, every time I would hear a really talented artist I would spread the word about them. I ran across a college FM station in the New York Metro area with a variety of programming including Gospel, Blues, Country, Bluegrass, Jazz & more. I would call the station request or suggest artists for them and chat with the DJs. Even though I was against it at the time I gave in and got on Facebook where I began updating artist on the airplay I was getting them, artists Like Beth McKee, Jamey Garner, Tre Michaels, Rod Black, Craig Gerdes, Dallas Moore and a few others. Funny story, I found an old email I sent telling them about a kid nobody had heard on the radio yet who was big down south that I thought they should play named Brantley Gilbert… they elected not to play him back then LOL!

I started getting email, posts and phone calls from artists all over the world asking me to help them get played on the radio. I got a message from a band North Carolina called “Slammin Dixie” asking for help they sent me a few tunes I asked the DJ to give it a play and next thing ya know Ben Rush the lead singer is in NY LIVE IN STUDIO! Ben launched a solo career after that, was heard on the show by producers Jim Vest & Buddy Hyatt who invited him to Nashville where he signed with AMC Records & recorded his debut album and a few music videos.

I was making so many request the manager of the station told me although they enjoyed finding new talent they had to play popular & charting artist to stay competitive with the commercial stations he jokingly said “If we played every artist you sent us you would need your own show”
That’s when I figured why not! I found an AM station that leased airtime and started The Gumbo YaYa Radio Show! on WRCR 1300AM

We debuted on January 9th 2013 with an all star line up featuring… Beth McKee, Ashley Shannon, Tony Young, Leslie Gold a.k.a. Radio Chick, Collin Quinn. I am proud to say we were doing so well we were received by artists all over the worlds Spain, Argentina, the Philippines, England and more in a few months we were featuring Rod Black, Brett Kingswell & Scott MacLeod out of Canada, The Band Ruckus out of Australia and several US favorites like Billy Don Burns, Ronnie Fauss, Ridge Runner and YES Dallas Moore even agreed to join us. We spoke with producers and label CEOs like Brian DeBruler of Sol Records, Hall of famer Jim Vest and legend Jimmy Snyder.

The show was so popular with the artists we had given them a voice in NY now they wanted to come play and the fans wanted them here so we began promoting tours we sponsored an all star jam that had several of the areas to performers Erin Elkins, N.a.s.H & Dirt Simple Band paired with Nashville recording artist Jimmy C. Williams. We sponsored a concert tour featuring Slammin’ Dixie and Ashley Shannon and began filming our events and broadcasting on public access.
We created a campaign to launch the career of a female duo of cousins out of Indiana who called themselves StraightDavis they had no professional recordings, less than 100 followers at the time, never played for a large audience, never been interviewed on air and never been out of Indiana. Long story short they were the headliners of the grand opening of “southern Exposure” a music venue in New York and played a mini tour here in NY/NJ we recorded a professional debut album for them while they were here and sent them home where they are now the #1 act in their area with a few thousand new followers.

By December 2013 things were going great for us. In less than a year we were being heard in nearly 30 countries & 40 states, more than 20,000 replays of our archives we were getting recognition from our peers, Rod Black the front man for “Jet Black Stare” was introduced to Terry Jennings (son of Waylon) through GYYRS the two of them began working together and developed a friendship. Rod relocated from Canada to Nashville where he too launched a solo career and began recording and touring. Jill Kinsey, Mudbone, Daryl Wayne Dasher and even Dallas Moore have been on as guests and come to do shows in NY now.

We hosted shows at Southern Exposure by Billy Don Burns, Josh Morningstar, Ashley Shannon & N.a.s.H. We were home to the CD release party of NoraStone’s new album Sounds Through The Hour Glass, we had begun webcasting and streaming some shows.

By July 2014 our Youtube channel has a couple thousand views our archives approaching 50,000 replays we have a Reverbnation page that is already flooded with artists who are fans of the show and have moved us into a TOP RANKED position and endless request to be a part of the Gumbo YaYa radio Show.

10 Years later we have grown and so has WRCR now 1700AM. We have followers in more than 30 countries and 40 states and media replays in the millions. GYYRS is still going strong, doing our best to support independent artists. The music industry is a tough business and without a platform to be heard or an audience to hear, a musician no matter how great is just another voice in a choir. We try to provide a spotlight for them to be seen by fans and industry professionals.

We’d love to hear the story of how you built up your social media audience?

Social media to some can be a blessing or a curse. Without it we couldn’t reach the a majority of our audience who stream or follow the show via social media. It is certainly a necessary evil for what we do. The best advice we can give is FOLLOW, TAG, SHARE & COMMENT don’t just LIKE! We all have that follower (Dad!!!) who will LIKE everything! Usually within seconds of posting! It’s nice but annoying and depending on your followers notification setting you may be the only one who knows. If you are looking to SUPPORT an artist or ATTRACT a follower, First of all FOLLW them! After all social media is a numbers game the more followers the more recognition. TAG them in your post so that they along with your and their followers will see it. COMMENT on the post you like this will get others engaged by creating dialogue and bringing traffic to your page after all that is what you want. Lastly SHARE posts you like. Those who posted will appreciate it and likely return the favor. Sharing posts expands your network!

Artists are grateful for your LIKEs & COMMENTs but If you really are a fan then FOLLOW, TAG & SHARE! That’s the best compliment & exposure you can give them.

Let’s talk about resilience next – do you have a story you can share with us?

During our 10 year run we had a few struggles. Switching stations and time slots from AM in the pm to FM in the am then back to AM in the am, was difficult because listeners are creatures of habit and love consistency. Family illness, a serious accident and the Pandemic all back to back forced us to take a hiatus from terrestrial broadcasting to online only for a while. This was concerning because in the entertainment world it’s “Out of Sight, Out of Mind”! Fortunately for us the majority of our followers are the musicians themselves and music professionals like record labels, producers and PR firms looking for or sharing new talent so although we we not ONAIR we still had an audience and a format to for sharing music by independent artists.

Our resilience has paid off! Since surviving all that we have been profiled by a few impressive publications like yourself and THANK YOU! Redneck is now a VOTING MEMBER of the ACM and contributed nominations for the first time to the 2023 ACM Awards. GYYRS & WRCR 1700 is among the list of stations that The American Country Music Association tracks & charts airplay for independent artists and we have just received a nomination for a 2023 Josie Music Award for our media work. The Josies are the nations largest independent music award show!

In addition to all that our show has not only gained popularity with the independent artists but some Big Stars and Hall of Famers as well have joined us like Ian Flanigan long before his debut on THE VOICE he was on GYYRS as well as Pop Icon Tiffany, William Lee Golden of the Oak Ridge Boys, David Frizzell, Dukes of Hazzard’s very own John Schneider, Irlene Mandrell, Lacy J Dalton & Miss Deborah Allen to drop a few names!    

Contact Info:

• Website: gumboyayaradioshow.webs.com
• Instagram: www.instagram.com/gumboyayaradioshow/
• Facebook: www.facebook.com/RedNeckGumboYaYa/
• Linkedin: www.linkedin.com/in/gumbo-yaya-radio-show-2753b866/
• Twitter: twitter.com/GumboYaYaShow
• Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCkw81GOnviyi49I8ak8_n0Q
• Other: twitch.tv/gumboyayaradioshow