Radio was never her plan, but it’s what made her the music legend she is today.
Marblehead native Julie Kramer was the voice of a generation. For 25 years, she helped break bands like Mumford & Sons, and she played your favorite alternative hits as the disc jockey for WFNX.
“We broke Nirvana. We were the first alternative station to play Adele or even The Smashing Pumpkins. That’s why all the bands came to Lynn for interviews, like Iggy Pop and The Red Hot Chili Peppers,” she said. “For five years in a row, we were the number one alternative station in the country.”
From 1983 to 2012, WFNX was the alternative rock radio station that had its broadcast tower in Boston but was stationed in Lynn. It was on the top floor of what we now know as the LynnArts building on Exchange Street. The station was a lifeline for anyone with an FM radio.
“It was all fun. How could it not be? It was literally the best job ever,” Kramer said. “My mom was a huge fan of Willie Nelson, and I remember he came to the station. I have pictures of him holding my son while next to my mom.”
The DJ was also their photographer, having taken some of the most iconic photos of music legends gallivanting around downtown Lynn. She interviewed and photographed some of music’s biggest icons, including Lenny Kravitz, the Red Hot Chili Peppers, Elvis Costello, Blondie, and David Bowie.
The list of legends doesn’t stop there, but all of it did stop entirely when WFNX was sold to Clear Channel in 2012 for an estimated $14.5 million. It was then she went to work for online radio station Indie617.com. But in 2018, Kramer was ready to hit play on her next adventure.
Her then-boyfriend and now-husband began to rummage through her Marblehead basement and found more than 10,000 negatives of photos from her time at WFNX. So, they put together a photo exhibit. It was called The Basement Archives: Vol I: The Ghosts of WFNX, and it had various showings at the former radio station throughout October 2018.
However, what most people don’t know about Kramer is that her first real love was photography. It was what young Julie thought adult Julie would be doing for the rest of her life.
“I didn’t go to school to be in radio,” she said. “It wasn’t what I wanted to do. I wanted to do photography.”
Kramer went to what is now called UMASS Dartmouth, where she got a Bachelor of Fine Arts degree for photography and visual design. While getting her education, she decided to work for her college’s radio station. As someone who grew up with music as a lifeline, having parents and sisters who all played, it only felt natural. And the rest, they say, is history.
“You never know where your path is going to take you,” she said. “You take some chances, and you just don’t know what’s going to happen.”
She grew up listening to Cheap Trick and David Bowie, and she even went to see Bowie live in 1974 with a mouth full of braces. She loved to hear her parents play, and she loved going to her sisters’ concerts. One was in a bunch of bands, with one of them even getting signed by RCA Records, and the other was a concert pianist.
“I was brought up on music. I always loved it, but I am so tone deaf,” she laughed. “I remember my piano teacher telling my mother to save her money.”
Her knowledge of music and her habit of being a chatterbox made her the perfect future radio host. Every report card she ever had said “super nice, but talks too much.” Safe to say, her chattiness paid off.
After her stint with part-time college radio, she took a job in New Hampshire doing a morning show with a co-host. When that partner moved to WFNX, she went with him. Her quarter of a century there turned her into the legend we all know and love, which led to her hall of fame honor.
“It was great. I was nominated by Henry Santoro, who I worked with forever at FNX,” she said. “I was psyched. My friend Beth flew in from Texas, and a bunch of my friends from college radio came out.”
The ceremony was held at the Vault in New Bedford in the middle of one of those February snowstorms. Kramer said she and the friends that came out all made it a night and even slept there overnight.
“30 plus years in radio, it was very nice of them,” she said. “I am grateful, honored, and psyched that my kids got to be there. It was a great night, and I got to see so many people who I hadn’t seen in forever.”
Kramer’s kids are 19 and 23 years old, and she raised them with her late husband. They are both students at Suffolk University, and while neither of them are following their mother’s trajectory, they grew up getting the coolest music education. Kramer brought them to live concerts throughout their entire life, and there is even a studio in their Marblehead home where they create together.
Kramer says her kids have an appreciation for the music they were brought up on. Now they know how cool their mom was (still is), but when they were kids, they just thought of it as “mom’s job” and didn’t think twice about it.
“Music is medicine,” she said. “It’s all about how it makes you feel, where you were when you heard it, and whether or not a particular song can actually make you have a better day.”
While that testament still stands true for Kramer now, she does consider how we listen to music in this day and age to be very different. She definitely thinks radio is different now, with too many big companies buying things out and too many alternative ways to listen to it.
“You can get new music now by touching a button on your phone. Before, you used to have to listen to the radio, or you would have to go wait in line at Newbury Comics for that EP you wanted,” she said. “I think it has changed how artists have to deal with music. I think it’s changed the whole radio business and music business in general.”
Kramer’s next big adventure will be a big retrospective photo show at LynnArts in the last two weeks of July. She said it will be a culmination of all the photography work she’s done over the years with musicians and the Beyond Walls murals. It will be a whole lot of pictures that no one has ever seen before.
And this grateful legend has one last message to share.
“Keep listening to music and get your friends to listen. Go out to shows and experience it live,” she said. “Do it as a family thing! Music transcends all, ya know? Just like art does!”
