MTSU‘s WMOT-FM Roots Radio 89.5 is basking in its recognition from the Nashville Scene’s annual “Best of Nashville” issue, earning the alt-weekly writers’ acclaim as the “Best Roots Radio Station” with the “Best Blues and Americana Radio Host,” WMOT morning host Whit Hubner.
So are MTSU College of Liberal Arts faculty members David Wilkerson and Sisavanh Phouthavong-Houghton, who also earned “Best of Nashville” shout-outs for their creative Nashville projects this year.
Scene writer Ron Wynn, a Grammy-nominated veteran music critic and author, praised WMOT, Middle Tennessee’s only 100,000-watt Americana radio station, for providing important music with a home, saying it “has evolved into something that’s both vital and needed.”
Of longtime radio host Hubner, who’s also a two-time MTSU alumnus and president of the Nashville Blues and Roots Alliance, Wynn says his experience and deep knowledge of the music genres “instantly separates (Hubner’s show) from morning drive-time programs.”
Wynn wrote that WMOT is making a difference by focusing on “contemporary and vintage acoustic music, much of it deemed a commercial liability by the corporate types who rule mainstream radio. The station has proven a home for a wide range of styles and artists who otherwise would get little to no airplay.”
Hubner, Wynn wrote, is great at his 6-10 a.m. weekday shift because he remains “an active, vital part of Nashville’s blues and Americana scene.”
“Thankfully, ‘WMOT Mornings with Whit Hubner’ is more about showcasing selections from every idiomatic area covered by Americana than it is personalities, contests and everything else,” the author added.
WMOT, a charter member of National Public Radio and a part of MTSU’s College of Media and Entertainment, celebrated its 50th anniversary in 2019.
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The Leading Edge 