--Written by Melissa Milton

NOTE: Our November OZone newsletter incorrectly said Hazel's birthday is December 5.  It's actually December 3!

WWOZ will celebrate its 44th birthday on December 4, one day after longtime show host Hazel the Delta Rambler blows out the candles on her own birthday cake.

Hazel and her husband Larry Schueter are both original OZilians, having gone to the first volunteer meeting for the fledgling station, held upstairs at Tipitina's, the station's first home. It was December 1980, and founders Walter and Jerry Brock were looking for people to help launch OZ. "And we were up for it," Hazel recalls. "An amazing number of people were there, including musicians that are world famous, and you don't expect them to come to a volunteer meeting and help collate envelopes and flyers. But they did."

Remarkably, the Brock brothers wanted to create a different kind of radio station than was then available in the Crescent City. "They wanted the voices of different people," Hazel explains. "Like the Duke of Paducah was a real Yat voice in New Orleans, and that's what they wanted," rather than the slick formats dominating the airwaves at the time.

Though Hazel started programming her old-time country and bluegrass show right away, she remembers doing pretty much everything in those early years. "Some of the volunteer work was moral support. The Brock brothers might come over and have dinner and then take a nap on the couch, and then head out to change the next tape."

Born and raised in New Orleans, music was always front and center in Hazel's life. "My favorite part of school was singing!" She still has the certificate she received for passing the tonette course in school. (A tonette is a short plastic single octave flute that was commonly used in primary music education in the 1950s and 1960s). Passing tonette was an important achievement, as it qualified the young Hazel to take band. She was already charting her own life path.

In school and in church, she learned to play piano and then, through Girl Scout activities, the baritone ukulele, which later led to the guitar, and ultimately the mandolin that she has played for decades as a professional musician. Hazel's also taught music since she was a teenager. "I think about New Orleans sometime that the only thing really holding it together from sinking down is good food and the children in school bands."

As the leader of the Delta Ramblers, Hazel has been performing the old time country and bluegrass music she loves since 1977, before the birth of WWOZ. But it was as a station volunteer that Hazel was able to connect with other musicians in a way she hadn't imagined before. "One of the things that OZ did for me was, it gave me courage. They gave me a tape recorder to speak with the famous musicians at Jazzfest. There were no rules against recording on the grounds then. Previous to that, I would have been just chicken. I'd just go listen to music in awe," but as a roving reporter, Hazel interviewed many of the greats in country and bluegrass, including Bill Monroe, Jimmy Davis, and John Hartford.

Hazel and Larry have witnessed every plot twist, triumph and past uncertainty that make up WWOZ's history. The original vision holds, as Hazel sees it. "It's been really important for OZ to present different voices, not just because the voices should be represented, but because the listeners, who are worldwide, are really tired of hearing what they're hearing (elsewhere). Boredom comes from sameness. I would just hope that some of what we have done as a family, and I have done as a person, will cure some of the boredom that's out there."

"I love WWOZ! And I feel very privileged that they let me make all these shows. And bluegrass music? Because everybody's gonna say, in New Orleans? And I say, yes, in New Orleans!"

Happy birthday, Hazel, and happy birthday, WWOZ!