The History of Rock n’ Roll with Local Radio Personality Cerphe

If you ask any rock and roll music fan who's been in our area for any length of time if they know who Cerphe is, the answer would be yes.  If you asked Bruce Springsteen, Mick Jagger, Paul McCartney or Pete Townsend who Cerphe is, they'll say they know him too.

Here's a fun bit about the history of rock n' roll in Washington:

• Spelled C-E-R-P-H-E and pronounced “surf,” Cerphe has been on rock radio in Washington since the early 1970’s.
  
  
• He currently hosts The Progressive Show on Music Planet Radio and the Vinyl Vault on cerphe.com.
  
  
• Cerphe has been at many legendary DC rock stations, including WHFS, WAVA, DC101, WJFK and ClassicRock 94.7.
  
  
• Throughout his long career, he’s shared conversations with rock n’ roll elite, including member of The Beatles, The Rolling Stones, Bruce Springsteen and many more.
  
  
• He began his professional career in the early ‘70s at WHFS.  HFS took a lot of chances with the music they played—they were cutting edge.  There were just a handful of stations dedicated to underground progressive radio at that time; it was fun and very different.
  
  
• Having a radio show on HFS introduced Cerphe to the world of music.  He met bands he loved, up close and personal.  The concert and club scene in DC was amazing.  Beautiful girls.  Fistfights in bathrooms. High maintenance musicians.  This is what rock and roll radio was and continues to be.
  
  
• HFS allowed him easy access to the great majority of artists because they were the only game in town with eclectic tastes. Commercial, corporate rock radio wasn’t what HFS wanted to focus on—they wanted to do things differently. 
  
  
• Even today there’s a lot of great music out there, but the radio doesn’t play a lot of it.  Based in his home studio in Leesburg, VA, he is making music exciting again for the adult audience with his music-oriented podcast.  Loudoun County residents consistently vote for his show in popularity polls.
  
  
• He plays a lot of classic rock at Music Planet Radio, but not the same 125 songs that classic rock statin play all the time.  He goes deeper.  And he also plays a lot of the artists who reside in and around Loudoun County.  Loudoun County has a very strong music scene that Cerphe actively supports.
  
  
• He also wrote an autobiography that details the story of his life and takes a look at what Washington radio was.  He not only looks at radio in DC but gives a sort of overview of radio, clubs and music in the area.
  
  
• He got to hang with George Harrison at the Madison Hotel in downtown DC in November of 1976, who—in a wild moment—even offered to get Cerphe a cup of tea!
  
  
• He met and interviewed Bruce Springsteen at the very beginning of his career, when he was a new, unknown artist driving around town in an old beat-up van.
  
  
• Jerry Garcia was on his show three times—Cerphe was lucky enough to interview him once in the ‘70s, again in the ‘80s and one last time in the ‘90s.
  
  
• Little Feat, Linda Ronstadt, Frank Zappa—there are lots of good stories and the book has gone into a second printing.  Eventually he will be doing book signings again in the Washington metro area.
  
  
• To find Cerphe today, visit musicplanetradio.com.  He is based out of Loudoun County, where he is proud to live, work and play.  He values the wonderful community, strong economy and great people of the area.