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Radio Personality

“CHILLY”
BILL SMITH:
Houston’s
Majic Man
By Paris Eley

Big Tigger     Chilly Bill Smith can signal the importance of an event simply by showing up. He is Mix Master, Man in the Streets, and Promotions Remote Coordinator for Houston broadcast giant KMJQ-FM, Majic 102, owned by Radio One. In the wards of the large city and its various suburbs, he is embraced by many as the face of the radio station known as the urban music and R&B leader. He moves around the city as if he holds the deed to the place. His presence is sought after and warmly received in clubs as well as community forums.
    With Houston as his turf, Bill has permeated its very underbelly in his 22-year radio career. The combination of a mother who was an elementary school principal and a father who was a popular postal clerk seemed to have produced a smart boy who was socially curious. As a seventh grader he decided that certain boundaries were not for him. In 1976, when most of his classmates at the newly integrated Johnston Jr. High School clung to the comfort of being on familiar turf, William Smith was all over the campus. By the time he entered Houston’s storied Jack Yates High School, his love of music and people had made him as popular as a mix DJ as he was football player.
    “Music was my love. When I first heard the Sugar Hill Gang, it did something to me. I knew then that I wanted to be in radio or involved in bringing music to people.” When he entered Texas Southern University School of Communications in 1983, he found his unique skills as a mixer in great demand.
    Jim Snowden, the program director for KMJQ-FM, caught one of the parties Bill was hosting. Snowden, who was searching for a way to introduce listeners to the new sound of young urban music, was looking for someone who could make the experience so memorable that they would want to repeat it daily. Bringing street style music mixers to the structured world of radio required not just the right music, but also the right personality. He thought Bill Smith had the intelligence and edginess to do it. Bill was game. The show was only 30 minutes, but it soon became the most anticipated half hour of the day for a multitude of Houston young people.
    Snowden, himself known as the Snow Man, re-christened the new air personality “Chilly” Bill Smith. People wanted him and his version of Majic in their clubs and their businesses and calling attention to their communities. Bill used the relation between broadcasting, community and promotions to better serve them all. The success was immediate and lasting.
    Whether it’s at Club Majic, his five hour show on Saturdays, or Majic After Midnight, the weekend edition that opens and closes each week like bookends on Friday and Monday, or KMJQ’s man in the streets everyday, Chilly Bill is a community favorite. And in the Houston radio community, he is on a par with such well-loved personalities as Pam Wells, Marco Spoon, Kandi Eastman, Jeff Harrison, Funky Larry Jones, Wash Allen and the iconic Skipper Lee Frazier, all of whom he also holds in high regard.
    Raising his two sons, Chadrick and Nicholas, and daughter Taylor with his wife Tracey, Bill reflects over the past 22 years. The man who loves to move about so much has built a remarkably stable and rewarding base in Houston.
    Seems like that would be a ‘Rapper’s Delight.’

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