John Diliberto is a nationally published writer and award-
winning radio producer who has been exploring and exposing new music on the radio, in print and on-line since 1974. He currently is the host and senior producer of Echoes , a nightly music soundscape on Public Radio International,
and heard on over 130 public radio stations.
John grew up in
Tewksbury, Massachusetts. A child of the British invasion, the first music John embraced was by The Beatles, The Rolling
Stones, Animals, Kinks and Zombies. In junior
high school, John had two passions, Marvel comics and "underground"
rock. His first concert was the Jimi Hendrix Experience, The Soft Machine and The Eire Apparent at the Framingham Music Tent in Framingham, Massachusetts in 1968.
Inspired by Jethro Tull and The Blues Project, John began playing flute in 9th grade, but he
had to give up his lessons because the marching band conflicted with football. But he kept playing on his own.
John's football playing got him a scholarship at the
University of Pennsylvania in Philadelphia where he double-majored in jockology. He played defensive tackle for the Penn Quakers and was a DJ on the campus radio station, WXPN. It wasn't long before he
was hosting Diaspar, a high energy show that included space
music, avant-garde, jazz, and new wave sounds.
In 1975 or 76 John created Star's End, a "journey to the outer
limits of your aural universe." A seamless soundscape of
ethereal music, Star's End is still on the air today, and in the
same time slot, Sunday morning 1-6 am.
Upon leaving Penn in 1976, John worked in various
record stores while starting to write for the local alternative
paper The Drummer. His editor was David Fricke, who has written and edited for Rolling Stone. In 1979 he began writing reviews for
Audio magazine. A sidetrack in 1980 brought him to Berkeley
California where he was Program Director of KALX, the university
station there.
In 1981 he returned to Philadelphia where he continued
hosting shows at WXPN. That same year, he and the station's
music director Kimberly Haas began producing programs for
national distribution. Their first was a five part series on the
electronic underground called Electronic Minstrels. These half
hour documentaries included David Borden, Helen Thorington, Woz,
The Ghostwriters and Michael William Gilbert.
More documentaries followed: The Mythic Worlds of Sun Ra,
Bird Flight: A Portrait of Charlie Parker, and Edgar Varese's
Liberation of Sound. The latter was a runner-up for the Major
Armstrong Award.
Then came Totally Wired, a
weekly documentary focusing on artists working at the cutting
edges of music. Some of the highlights included location interviews with John Cage, Brian Eno, Karlheinz Stockhausen, Tangerine Dream, Kate Bush, Klaus Schulze, Robert Fripp, Keith Jarrett, Vangelis, Wendy Carlos and Steve Roach.
In all, 122 Totally Wired episodes were produced from 1982-1989. It
won The Major Armstrong Award, The Ohio State Award, and the
National Federation of Community Broadcasters Golden Reel Award.
Totally Wired ended when Echoes began in October, 1989.
On Echoes, John is the senior producer and host. He oversees the
selection of music on the program, conducts, produces and writes
most of the interview features.
Among too many highlights for Echoes, he'd have to mention the first Living Room Concert with Sheila Chandra in her Glastonbury cottage, more interviews with Brian Eno, Yo-Yo Maand the Silk Road Ensemble playing live, George Winston playing in John's living room, and the first-ever Living Room Concert with Mark Isham, in his Los Angeles home.
Many of John's interviews can also be found in magazine
form. He's a nationally published music journalist whose reviews
and features have appeared in Musician, Billboard, Downbeat,
Jazziz, Pulse, Audio, CD Review, Music Technology, Electronic
Musician, Mix, and other publications. He's currently an editorial writer at Amazon.com.
