Collier DJ parlays love of music into global audience

Some people find music to be little more than a pleasant auditory diversion.

Others take a more active interest. And then there are those for whom music pretty much constitutes a way of life.

For Collier resident Robert Paparella, his fascination stretches back about 60 years, to when he was a youngster growing up in Pleasant Hills.

“Like every young kid, we had our transistors, and every one of my friends was listening to KQV,” he said about the radio station that specialized in Top 40 hits. “Well, I was scrawling up and down the dial, and I came across who other than Porky Chedwick, an icon, obviously, in Pittsburgh. He was playing what would have been ‘oldies’ then, like the Five Keys, the Harptones, Flamingos, the Dubs, Duprees, so on and so on.”

The general style of music favored at the time by the late “Daddio of the Raddio” has come down through the decades as doo-wop, vocal groups featuring tight harmonies and a strong sense of melody.

And that’s one of the genres Paparella enjoys playing in his role as a disc jockey for the 21st century.

“Peppy’s Music Memories” has four time slots each week on Remember Then Radio, stylized as “The Soundtrack of Our Lives” and streamed online to an audience that would seem like science fiction to Chedwick and WAMO, his AM station, back in the day.

“At one time, I had between six and eight other countries listening, and then in the United States, I think it was upward of 150,000 people,” Paparella said.

Along with doo-wop music, he generally focuses on material that was popular in the 1950s through ’70s, such as Motown hits, soul, ballads, and rhythm and blues. But he also will put on songs by contemporary performers whose talents he appreciates.

Given his background, he likes to treat listeners to Pittsburgh-area artists such as the Vogues, Lou Christie, the Skyliners and the Holidays. And whatever Paparella plays, he’s invested.

“I’m sitting here with headphones, listening and enjoying and remembering. My heart is really into it,” he said. “And every song that I play, I try to make it have meaning.”

A while ago, Paparella selected a tune from 1961 called “Come Home Soon” by the Philadelphia soul band the Intruders. That got him thinking about what “home” truly represents.

When he was 21, the Thomas Jefferson High School graduate relocated to Arizona, where he met Becky, his wife of 36 years. He asked her about the possibility of moving East, and she basically said, sure.

And here they are, going through the types of seasonal changes that aren’t exactly common in the Grand Canyon State.

“Everybody is saying, ‘Why the hell are you coming back here? You’re not going to last here long. You’re going to be back to Arizona,’” Paparella said. “We don’t look at it that way.”

In fact, they have a house under construction near Canonsburg Lake in North Strabane.

Wherever he is, Peppy — he’s had that nickname since childhood — continues to share his musical memories.

He got his start as a disc jockey about four years ago on streaming services Twitch.tv and Mixcloud, and he came to the attention of Remember Then Radio deejay Stevie Dunham, who in turn recommended Paparella to station co-owners Steve Soskin and Barbara Cornagie.

“We did an interview, and now it’s been 13 months, 14 months on the air,” Paparella said. “I went from one show to two to three, and I’m up to four shows because of the ratings right now.”

He acknowledges Chedwick and other Pittsburgh radio personalities of his youth — including Charlie Apple, Bob Mack, and Terry Lee of “Music for Young Lovers” fame — for providing inspiration:

“The DJs we had here were just phenomenal.”

For more information, visit rememberthenradio.com/pec-events/peppys-music-memories.