R&T:  Tamara was living in Florida and wanted to start an on-line business.  Lydia, my late wife, met her on-line and she began helping us market our horses on-line.  From there we started an on-line classified site and Tamara relocated to Texas.

 

With The Tumbling Tumbleweeds

 

Scout:  How did you go from classifieds to an Internet radio show featuring Western music?

R&T:  The on-line classified site was one where people list wheel barrows and '72 Ford trucks without a windshield for sale, and I (Ralph) was writing a little column in this site.  One day Tamara walks in the office and says "Hey, instead of writing that, you want to say it on the radio?"  She had found a radio platform for us and we launched a show where we actually sat and read classified ads which was boring as watching paint dry so I rummaged around and found some CD's Joe Baker of backfortybunkhouse.
com had sent us and we uploaded them and began playing Cowboy music. That was much less boring than watching paint dry! Why Internet? Because we have no bosses, we have NO limitations of any kind besides common decency and we have no one who can tell us what to play or when. Terrestrial radio can reach only so far and to so many people. The result was like eating cardboard...

you can do it but it doesn't taste too good!  We like subscription radio well enough but mostly it's the same old same old.  They aren't taking too many chances or expanding the musical or talk envelope over there.

When we can help people to understand that the computer enables me and Tamara to do a LOCAL, hometown radio show with local attitudes that just happens to reach thousands of people all over the planet!  In fact, The Backporch reaches listeners in all fifty states and twenty three foreign countries!  On-line radio is the future.  Look at Facebook and Twitter.  See how many folks text message?  Some of our fans send out regular 'text blasts' that reach more people in a flash of and eye than I can round up in days of hard work marketing our show!  The Internet radio thing is like saddles.  Saddles have been used since the dawn of time, but one day some old boy scratched his head and said "ya know, if we attached little wooden circles to the saddle...and stuck our feet in these circles and called them stirrups, we could ALL learn to ride good and stay on the horse!"  Radio is the saddle... on-line is the stirrups.  To not use the tools in our little radio bag of implements is not only a shame, it's a sin.  When there's so much good music and fascinating people out there to talk with and enjoy!