A longtime colleague at WPLN passed away over the weekend.
In the thirty years from 1976 to 2006, there were few positions on air that Rebecca Bain didn’t fill at some point. She played classical music and reported the news, but she was best known for talking to authors.
Rebecca had a rule that she always went into author interviews having read the entire book, cover to cover.
No summaries, no skimming.
You could tell Rebecca knew each book inside and out. And sometimes, like in this interview with Bobbie Ann Mason, the result was a conversation that could have been between a pair of old friends.
MASON: “Writing this book in which my mother is really the hero of the story, it’s not enough.”
BAIN: “No, I see why you say it’s not enough. But it’s a lot.”
By the end of her time at the station, Rebecca had a reputation among publicists as not just the kind of interviewer you want to try to schedule if your author happens to be in Nashville, but the kind of interviewer that was sometimes the primary reason for making a swing through the city.
Rebecca Bain died Saturday in hospice care, with family members holding her hands.
She was 58 years old.