East Texas online radio show is 'World Wild West'

It's 7 p.m. when Ralph Hampton dons a headset and starts the show. "We're coming to you live from sparkling San Augustine, Texas, from the second floor of the Hightop Feed and Seed," the 53-year-old says into a small microphone. This is "Ralph's Backporch," a connection from a small, East Texas town to Western and cowboy culture lovers the world over. Every Monday, Wednesday and Friday night, Hampton and Tamara Boatright, 42, host two hours of conversation, Western-style music and cowboy poetry broadcast by way of Internet radio. The Backporch has hit the Internet every week since October 2007, reaching a few thousand listeners throughout the nation and in Britain, New Zealand, Brazil and about 20 other nations. They began playing Western music that one of their advertisers mailed them. Playing the music led to interviews with the songwriters, several of whom were working cowboys. Then, cowboy poets started calling in to tell stories and read poems. Their guests have included songwriters Michael Martin Murphey and Don Edwards and National Public Radio contributor and cowboy poet Baxter Black. In November, they won the Western Music Association's Best Radio Station award. Ralph's Backporch plays the music that commercial radio stations won't touch, Boatright said. Since a few corporations now own almost every commercial radio station in the nation, she said, most mainstream country music stations play the same small list of songs. "It's music of the heartland," Hampton said. "Whether you are a farmer, a working cowboy — or some guy who grew up going to the movies and seeing Gene Autry and Roy Rogers, and now you wear a suit and tie and get stuck on the freeway every day — it's something they can listen to and relate to."...read more