Useless Perry Trivia

I've actually worked here at I-95 four or five different times over the last 28 years. In the current incarnation, I've been following Jeff Zephyr (who I have known and been friends with the entire time) on the air every Sunday afternoon for a little more than three of those years. Every week in his final break, Jeff announces that "Smooth John Perry" is up next. He's the only person on staff that refers to me this way.

So where does this "smoothness" come from? Well, it starts way back in '94-'95 when I worked in Washington DC. Seemingly out of nowhere, the Classic Rock station where I was doing the midday shift flipped formats to Smooth Jazz. For some reason, management kept all the Classic Rock jocks for the new format, and suddenly there I was playing stuff like Kenny G, Larry Carlton and Anita Baker every day.

One day while telling Jeff the story of the DC format change I offhandedly referred to myself as "Smooth Johnny," which for some reason totally cracked him up, and for 20 years now that's what he's been calling me. In fact, I'm pretty sure his four boys don't know me by any other name. Maybe "Mr. Smooth," now that I think about it.

So next time you happen to catch Jeff's last break on a Sunday afternoon, you'll know what the "smoothness" is all about. How about that for some useless trivia?