Craig Faulkner

Craig Faulkner was born in 1948 in San Francisco and lived in Santa Barbara for many years before moving to Southern Oregon in 1990. He designed and built custom homes by day and in the evenings taught swing dancing classes.

In 1996 a chance encounter with Colleen Pyke, a longtime on-air personality at JPR, got him invited to drop by the studios where he met John Baxter who was then Program Director. Their ensuing conversation about his swing dance classes and vintage music, coupled with John’s observation that he had “a good radio-voice” resulted in an audition tape, and American Rhythm – The Gourmet Oldies Show was born. It first aired on February 1, 1997 and has been heard every Saturday evening since. Drawn entirely from Craig’s own collection, the program is an eclectic and in-depth retrospective on the early, formative years of American popular music.