"They're not coloring too far outside the lines," Williams says. Like most Quiet Storm programs today, the music is overly familiar. Sweat's show, "The Keith Sweat Hotel," airs locally on WKSA (92.1 FM). Sure and Keith Sweat, whose ballads dominated Quiet Storm during the New Jack Swing era of the late '80s and early '90s, host popular radio shows that extend what Lindsey did 40 years ago.
Engaging personalities with seductive speaking voices are still a draw. Their focus is different."īut unlike the early days of Quiet Storm, it's unlikely that newer or marginal urban-soul artists will be heard on the format. They're not dealing with mortgages and day care. Young folks don't have a need for the Quiet Storm. "They're still bumping and grinding, the same thing we did when we were young. "The millennials, they're not down with the Quiet Storm," says Philadelphia-based radio veteran Williams. The difference, though, is that the audience is predominantly aging baby boomers, who were either in high school or college during the early years of Quiet Storm. On March 26, 1992, he died from complications of AIDS.ĭespite the fragmentation and corporate dominance of urban radio in the last two decades, the Quiet Storm format has remained more or less the same. But soon after he became something of a multimedia urban sensation in the early '90s, Lindsey's health declined. It was then that fans could finally put a face to the voice, and the camera loved Lindsey's matinee-idol looks. station, and later became one of the first personalities on BET. You have to put the right music together to give the programming a particular flow, and he did that better than anybody."Īfter nine years with WHUR, Lindsey took the format to WKYS (93.9 FM), another D.C. Your life is the life of the people who listen to you. "He talked about stuff people could relate to. "Melvin Lindsey came up with a style and way of doing things, and that was the catalyst that launched it," Lang says. Acts who blurred the lines between soul and jazz with a decidedly cosmopolitan touch – Phyllis Hyman, Randy Crawford, Angela Bofill, Roy Ayers, The Blackbyrds, and others – became mainstays on Quiet Storm. Between friendly on-air conversations with listeners, he played artists whose records weren't usually in regular rotation during the mornings and afternoons.
With his smooth, ingratiating voice and undeniable charm, Lindsey soon became a radio star.
The format took its name from "A Quiet Storm," the jazz-kissed title track of Smokey Robinson's classic 1975 album.
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