HYANNIS – Cat Wilson, the radio deejay who created the local music show, The Cheap Seats, is a great storyteller. One of her best stories is about Meghan Trainor.
Trainor was a student at Nauset High School and and taking guitar lessons from Johnny Spampinato, of the Incredible Casuals and now of the Spampinato Brothers, when she recorded a song and wrote on the CD with a Sharpie one word, “Meghan.”
Cat Wilson, creator & host of The Cheap Seats, which focuses on local music.
Spampinato gave that CD recording of the then 15-year-old Trainor, “who writes pop songs like pouring water,” said Spampinato, to his friend another local musician, Julia Randall of the band, The Ticks. Randall, as co-host of The Cheap Seats that week, brought along some CDs to play. Wilson played each of them, incuding the one that had one word, written in Sharpie, on it: “Meghan.”
The Cheap Seats, the long-running show focusing on local New England music and especially Cape Cod music, played that song by Trainor “and then fast forward a few years and she’s playing Wembley Stadium,” said Wilson.
Trainor was grateful for the exposure.
“Cat Wilson will forever be my favorite radio show host, for being the first one to play one of my songs on the radio,” said Trainor in a quote relayed by her mother, Kelli Trainor of Nantucket.
Kelli Trainor described the story with a bit more detail. According to Kelli, Meghan had heard her song was going to air but the radio in the house did not pick up the show so she sat in a car in her driveway and listened.
When Meghan’s song finally aired that night, “She called me bawling hysterically. They were tears of joy,” said Kelli.
“Cat was smart enough to put the damn thing on the air,” said Spampinato.
Purchase Required
To read the rest of this one Longform story, please purchase access. The price for this one story is $3.00. To access all of our Longform stories, choose a $5.00 monthly membership or a $50.00 yearly membership.
