Radio show with a worldwide listening audience

MARQUETTE — He’s one of country music’s biggest fans and advocates. For nearly 30 years, Elmer Aho has spent every Saturday night playing the country classics.

“I’ve always liked the traditional country music,” said Aho. “I like to stay with traditional country and evidently a lot of other people do because I have a whole lot of listeners all over the place.”

American Country Gold with Elmer Aho has been around for nearly 29 years. Elmer and programming director Eric Smith have spent the last 13 years on 103.3 FM, WFXD, bringing U.P. country music fans the five hour show they call ‘organized chaos.’

“I love working with Elmer every Saturday. It’s been such a joy,” said Scott. “There’s never been a bad Saturday. In fact I’m lost when Elmer’s not in on a Saturday night because I’m so used to doing it. It’s amazing when I don’t do the show, the hours seem to go by real slow. But when we do the show, they just fly by. Like Elmer likes to say: It takes about 10 seconds to play a three-minute song on Saturday night,” Scott added.

The power of the Internet allows country music fans to listen to American Country Gold around the country and around the world live every Saturday night. Aho says sometimes he’s surprised where people are listening to him.

“I’ll pick up the phone and it will be somebody from Texas and the next one from California,” said Aho. “It might come from the Philippines, it might come from somebody in the Virgin Islands or Ireland. That’s amazing. It still amazes me,” he said.

Elmer has plenty of fans in Finland too. His show is re–broadcasted throughout the country every Sunday, which allows his relatives to hear him do his thing.

“It airs on Sunday night at 9 o’clock Finland time. I have relatives listening all over, I get e-mails from them and letters and it’s all kind of amazing.”

The show has listeners of all ages. And sometimes, the requests come from animals.

“He has farm animals that listen to him,” said Scott. “He has cats, dogs, he had a parrot in Negaunee I believe is probably still listening too every Saturday night to the show.”

Elmer is more than just a fan of country music. He’s been a fan of the genre all of his life.

After retiring from teaching, he produced his own album, which sold quite well in these parts. He’s a songwriter, a producer and a historian of country music.

“Most people I believe listen to the show for Elmer, not the music,” said Scott. “They want to hear Elmer. He knows so much about country music and the classic country music that we play during the show. It’s just interesting hearing some of the stories because he is actually tied in with some of the songs that you hear.”

With such a big following comes a lot of requests. From records to cassettes and CD’s, Elmer has quite an extensive collection of music.

“On the albums alone, I think I have around 3,000 of them and in cassettes probably about 1,000 or more. My basement is kind of filling up,” said Aho with a smile and chuckle.

“Well I’ll tell you these records some of are kind noisy and scratches and whatnot. They like it. It’s authentic, it’s original, they know it’s a song that’s been played a lot. A few scratches and skips they don’t seem to mind it,” Aho added about his record collection and how it relates to his listening audience.
You can listen to American Country Gold with Elmer Aho every Saturday night from 7pm to midnight on 103.3 FM and by clicking HERE.