For the love of music: Allen Vick wanted to be “a combination of Elvis, Tom Jones, and Johnny Cash”
Farmville native Allen Vick grew up loving music and turned that passion into a career that has local radio audiences relating to him like a longtime friend. After all, they talk to him every day, or at least listen to him talk. They know what he likes: sports, racing, cats, and especially Elvis.
“I was born in Greenville but raised in Farmville and went to Farmville High School, class of 1985,” Vick said with evident pride. “I always loved music and I was drawn to it.
My mother had a 1964 RCA console, a big piece of furniture, and my teething marks were on that console because I was pulling up to it immediately. So from a very early age, I was drawn to music and entertainment. I wanted to be a combination of Elvis, Tom Jones, and Johnny Cash.”
He spent so much of his money on records that his mother said that Elvis’ death probably cost the record companies thousands of dollars because he was such a huge Elvis fan and bought everything. That memory opened a floodgate of enthusiastic talk about an upcoming Elvis concert film coming out in late February, EPIC: Elvis Presley in Concert.
“It looks like it’s going to be good,” he said with a gleam in his eyes. “They found a bunch of extra footage that has never been seen before.”
It’s with some effort he pulls his attention back to the tale of his broadcast career origins. He explained that in spite of all the changes in radio through the years, he is still called a “disc jockey” or DJ. He spoke from the Curtis Media Group WELS-FM studios –105.9 in Greenville–of “Beach, Boogie, and Blues,” his radio show on Radio Station Road in Greenville.
“The first radio station I ever walked in was this one in 1977,” he said. “They were doing racing on the radio and we couldn’t pick it up in Farmville at night on AM, when it went to reduced power,” he said. “We actually drove here and sat in the parking lot and they let us in. John Moore (the John Moore from Rocky Mount, who was the public address announcer for ECU football and the voice of channel 9 imaging) was here. And that was August 12th, 1977.”
It was his first time stepping foot in a radio station, but they put him on the air.
The fact that he remembered the exact date of an event that happened to him before he was even old enough to drive–and he also knew it was 4 days before Elvis died–just reveals another one of Vick’s superpowers: he has a near photographic memory for dates and details.
Sonny Westbrook, Allen Vick (at 17), Sonny J. Fisher & George Foley. Courrtesy of Allen Vick.
“The guy that owned the station in Farmville (WRQR and WGHB), Gene Gray, he and my dad were fishing buddies. Everything was live back then. There was automation, but it wasn’t computerized like you see today. So when I turned 16, I got up the courage and called and they put me on Saturday nights and Sunday afternoons. I started July 30th, 1983. And I was horrible. Absolutely horrible. I’ve still got some of those old air checks and I wouldn’t give a million dollars for them, but they’re terrible. And it’s said it’s that way for everybody. They basically just said, ‘Hey, here’s the records. You do this, this, this, and this. Good night. If you need me, call me.’ So I sat down and went from there.”
Twenty minutes into it, Vick said he knocked the station off the air because he “hit a button.” A guy was working on the other side, “sprawled back in his chair talking to some girl” while Vick was waving like he was drowning. “He walks over and flips that button, pats me on the head, and goes back to the FM side. It was WRQR. I was working on the country side, which was WGHB. And that’s how it started.”
Is it necessary for a DJ to like the style of music the radio station plays? Vick’s response is succinct: “It helps” and underscores it. “It does not hurt. I can’t say I’ve done formats that I don’t like, but I’ve done some things in radio that I didn’t like as much as what I’m doing now and what I’ve pretty much been lucky enough to do since 1983.”
Given Vick’s love and support of music, one might wonder if he himself plays or sings.
“I have a guitar,” Vick said. “Nicky Harris and I went to a store two years ago. And I bought a guitar just to see if I was capable, because I have Cerebral Palsy. So I’ve got some motor skill issues. I just wanted to see and I’d never picked one up. And I love messing with it and I know two or three chords now, but no, I don’t play, you know, semi-professionally or anything. I don’t know enough yet. But I’d love to be able to learn. I mean, it’s an everyday practice thing. You’ve got to take 20 or 30 minutes every day and just stick with it. And I haven’t done that yet.”
Speaking of love, when asked if he was working on Valentine’s Day, what he would choose to play, he said, “Anything beautiful like the Carpenters, Dan Fogelberg, and Carly Simon. Go back to Andy Williams or all that stuff. And I love mellow. I’m a sap for a love song. always have been.”
Vick has interviewed Debbie Boone and Bobby Goldsboro and loves the singer-songwriter music of the 1960s and 1970s. He has a wide range, appreciating music from Air Supply to rock,to Andy Williams, Jack Jones, and Bing Crosby. And he loves Elvis, Elvis in the 1970s most of all.
As a veritable expert on music, Vick’s commentary about modern music is straightforward: “I think the world needs more melody.”
Vick said he still gets calls from listeners and still “gets that charge.”
He said, “My love for radio and talking to people one on one, taking requests, finding out how people are doing, you know, I’ve never lost that love.”
And that’s a hunk, a hunk, a hunk of burning love.
Charlie Albertson, Allen Vick, Clyde Mattocks
Allen Vick’s “Beach, Boogie & Blues” show can be heard from 3-6pm Monday through Friday and on some other shows from time to time on weekends on 105.9 FMin Greenville, 102.9 FM in Kinston, 95.7 FM in New Bern, 101.1 FM in Jacksonville, and worldwide on beachboogieandblues.com.
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Originally published in the Daily Reflector 24, 2026
