Marvin Gaye blasts over the airwaves, heating up another frigid Denver morning. A light snow falls. Roads are icy, temperatures subfreezing. In the offices of Sassy, KSYY 107.1-FM, Tom Fry sits in for the regular drive-time host, radio personality Gloria Neal.
He whips out a quick riff on happiness, how scientific studies show that happy people live longer and better. Then he cuts to a call from Neal, hard at work, gallivanting around Paris with a coterie of loyal listeners.
“Today we ate at the oldest restaurant in Paris,” says Neal, her honey-thick contralto oozing that aforementioned happiness. “Then we went to a store where all the wedding dresses were made of paper, and then we visited the tunnel where Princess Di died and where people still leave flowers.”
She teases listeners with her plans for the following day: a visit to the Moulin Rouge, and over to Radio France, to see if they’ve heard of Sassy 107.
“These French women are definitely sassy,” says Neal. “I am having a blast!”
Signing off a cheery bonjour, she turns the show back to Fry.
“I have serious perks envy,” he says. “It’s 8:12. We still have 16 degrees in Denver.”
Exactly one year ago, however, Neal didn’t even have a job, much less Parisian perks.
She calls it “D-Day.”
On Dec. 14, 2005, she and the rest of the radio staff at Jammin’, KDJM 92.5-FM, were abruptly fired when the station switched, overnight, from R&B to country.
Earlier that month, she’d heard rumors. She went to one of the station executives, seeking clarity.
“He looked me dead in my eye,” she says, “put his hand on my shoulder, and said, ‘Absolutely not. You are the most talented on staff. You’re not going anywhere. Those are just rumors.’ And he gave me a hug as I went on my merry little way.”
The local rumor mill trafficked in the exact same information.
“My mole says it’s going down,” read a post on DenverRadio.net. “There’s a 2 o’clock staff meeting scheduled this afternoon for the Jammin’ Air Staff. I’m hearing all fired except Gloria Neal.”
Reality, however, proved otherwise. If Neal is philosophical about the situation – that job allowed her to land this job – she’s still bothered about how it was handled.
They “could have said, ‘You know, we’ve got some choices we’re going to have to make, and we’re looking at everything,” she says. “Anything, but absolutely not, ‘You’re talented.’ Honey, you could have fried chicken on my forehead.”
About the same time, Tim Maranville was scouting on-air talent for the start-up station Sassy 107. He heard about Neal, arranged to meet her, and was instantly captivated.
“Her personality is dynamic, bubbling, and infectious,” he says. “Her knowledge of things, in particular women’s issues, was incredible, not just because she’s a woman, but because she knows things.”
Neal debuted her morning show on the new station on March 22, 2006. She’s the first African-American woman to host a solo show on FM radio during morning drive-time in the Denver market.
“She’s very positive internally,” says Steve Kenney, president and general manager of Denver Radio Co. LLC, which owns Sassy. “She really sets high standards for herself, and when people do that, it sort of makes everyone else exert more effort to live up to those standards.”
As a kid, Neal never dreamed she’d land a career like this. One of five children born to a military man and his wife, Neal had a peripatetic childhood, mostly in Germany. She was raised to excel, though not necessarily in the media.
“I never thought about radio other than to turn it on and play a great song,” she says.
But one day, at the mall, her life changed.
“I wasn’t supposed to be in the mall that day, but I forgot something I needed to buy,” says Neal, who then worked as a secretary for the Air Force Space Command.
At the Citadel Mall in Colorado Springs, she discovered a contest sponsored by Magic FM, KKMG 98.9. The winner, she learned, would spend time on air with the FM jocks.
More than 60 people stood in line, dressed in suits and holding resumés.
Neal, who was wearing sweat pants and lacked a resumé, remembered that people had always said she had a good voice.
“You already have a job,” she said to herself. “What do you have to lose?”
She entered, and she won.
That part-time gig at Magic FM spawned a love for radio, which she pursued after graduating from the University of Colorado.
A job as reporter-anchor at a Houston radio station, where she worked for two years, then led back to Colorado, where she spent nearly 10 years as afternoon news anchor for Newsradio 850-AM KOA.
Along the way, she established herself as a local media personality, and a particularly popular MC on the social scene.
“She’s just so funny, she makes my day,” says city council president Elbra Wedgeworth, who listens each morning to Neal’s Sassy show. “I think, ‘How does she come up with that?’ She’s so hysterical.”‘
The ability to make people laugh, which dates to the days when she made money jiving with “the crazy FM jocks” at Magic radio, is integral to her nature.
Still, when her husband, Amani Ali – whom she met on the job at KOA – suggested that she try out for new talent night at Comedy Works, her initial reaction was not happy.
“I was like, ‘Are you on crack?”‘ says Neal. “Are you crazy? It’s one thing to make someone laugh at your house, but (another thing) to go and get your happy booty up onstage with a microphone, with people saying, ‘OK, make me laugh.”‘
He continued to push. She relented. It went so well at the Comedy Works that her reputation spread to the larger community, and she began getting gigs as MC of such events as the recent Athena Awards, sponsored by the Colorado Women’s Chamber of Commerce.
“I was knocked out the first time I heard her speak,” says Kenney. “Not all on-air entertainers are as strong in public as we’d like them to be, and a big part of her reputation is people who’ve seen and heard her in the community.”
Her passion for humor is rooted in doing news, she says, where often she dealt with the worst society offers: murders, rapes, mayhem.
“Comedy was an outlet for me,” she says. “Some of the best comics are coming from a place of pain. The best way, the only way, to deal with that a lot of times is through comedy.”
Sassy’s tagline – “Your music, your generation” – emphasizes the music of people like Blondie, Donna Summer, and Carly Simon. Its target audience is women over 40.
At age 42, Neal is the woman she seeks to attract: active, sassy and passionate about 1970s and ’80s music. She says her morning show, which runs from 6-10 a.m., “encompasses every part of me. The news, the comedy, the interviewing skills, the seriousness – my whole life.”
Her news segments are called “hot flashes.” The humor, jaw-dropping real-life stories, are called “honey hushes.”
One recent morning, in addition to giving all this – plus traffic and weather reports – Neal chatted with a psychic and a life coach, where topics ranged from Anna Nicole Smith to achieving your deepest desire.
The start-up station is still struggling to get its footing. Sassy 107’s Arbitron ratings for fall 2006 were 0.6, compared with 6.2 for the No. 1 station in the Denver-Boulder area, KOSI-FM. But the hard-working Neal is doing quite well, says Kenney, building her audience of listeners to an estimated 25,000 in less than a year.
And Paris is part of that.
Thirty couples traveled with Neal, otherwise known as “the Morning Glo,” to the City of Love on Valentine’s Day, the first segment of the station promotion called “World Sass Travel.”
“It’s part of bonding with the Sassy listener,” says Neal. “Not only are you listening to the station, but I’m going to another country with you. We get to spend time together.”
Men are a valued part of her audience. She receives more e-mail from men than women, and almost as many phone calls. They come for the music, she says, but get hooked by the talk.
“One guy said it best,” Neal recalls. “‘Gloria, when I listen to you I feel like I am secretly listening to two women talk. I get where you are coming from! Now I understand my wife.”‘
Neal is committed to a healthy balance in life. She works out five days a week with a personal trainer and has lost 70 pounds the past year.
Still, she works, hard, especially out in the community, three to four nights a week, promoting her show.
Friends assume that this fast-talking wisecracker talks nonstop at home too. But Neal has a secret side.
“At home I’m quiet,” she says, sitting on the sofa of her large house in Aurora. “I give out there; I’m talking, and I’m making you laugh.”
At home, she nourishes her spirit.
“Sometimes I take a bath, and sometimes I just sit here and look out the window,” she says. “I look at the rabbits. I mean, it sounds cheesy. But sometimes I just sit here with a pad of paper, and a joke will come to me, or an idea, or something I want to say to my husband, or myself. I’ll journal.”
Sometimes, her inner news-junkie does take over, and she’ll turn on the television. But she has strong boundaries.
“I’ll say, ‘OK, that’s 30 minutes. Turn it off. It will eat you alive.’ I want just quiet time, to just be still. I love that.”
Staff writer Colleen O’Connor can be reached at 303-954-1083 or at coconnor@denverpost.com.
