Hi there I'm Nick Francis, producer and host of Quietmusic. This program basically started right here on KYOT over fourteen years ago. Not only that, but I'm the guy that originally put KYOT on the air. Even though I no longer live or work in the Valley of the Sun, I still love and miss the Coyote!I currently live in the Seattle area with my wife and two cats and work as the Music Director at KPLU, a successful public radio station serving the Northwest.

Once upon a time, over 20 years ago, I started DJ-ing at a very cool eclectic music station in Santa Fe, NM. (KLSK). Because I was just starting out, my first air shifts were at night, usually from 8pm-2am, with one interminably long overnight shift starting at 11 on Saturday night and going to 8am on Sunday. The station's music mix was primarily instrumental, and covered a wide palette of styles - jazz (both contemporary & traditional), classical, folk, light rock, mellow R&B, and a type of music later referred to as "new age". With an amazing library of music at my disposal, I got to mix all kinds of music, and was often thrilled to find many combinations of seemingly different styles blend together seamlessly.

That interminably long overnight shift led to a breakthrough of sorts. Every week, by 4am, it became a major challenge just to stay up and function without falling asleep. But like clockwork, just when I thought I was totally wasted and not even able to think straight, I would get my "second wind" at about the time just before sunrise. I could see the Sangre De Christo mountains come into view through the window of the studio, the early morning light was beautiful, Icould really feel some magic to the beginning of the day...and for some reason, I would pick out the most quiet, peaceful, contemplative, and compelling music in our library, and play it from 5am or so, until the end of my shift. I rarely got phone calls at night; but when I started to spin the quiet stuff in the morning, the phone would just light up! And people were actually starting to tune into the station specifically for that "Special Feeling". There was something about that particular time that hit me....and others...deeply. Some of the music you'll hear on QuietMusic goes back to those days. Anytime I hear Michael Hedges, or Vollenweider, or Liz Story or Pat Metheny - I feel those early mornings in Santa Fe as if they were yesterday.

A few years later I landed an amazing job, as the first music director of KKSF in San Francisco. It was then that I convinced my Program Director to run a Sunday morning program, in the spirit of my early days in Santa Fe. The show, called "Sunday Morning" still runs on KKSF to this day. I did the same thing in the early 90's at KKNW in Seattle. And when I arrived in 1994 to program KYOT, I decided to do the show and also host it myself. I called it "Quiet Moods". The show became the #1 Sunday Morning show in Phoenix. It was a real labor of love.

In the summer of 2000, I started a syndicated version of the show, under the aegis of my own production company. The first official "QuietMusic" program aired on July 16, 2000. One year later, I signed an arrangement with WestStar Talk Radio Network. They are the exclusive national marketer and distributor of the show. The program has aired in many cities and towns across North America.

Also in 2000, I began putting a handful of QuietMusic shows on the Internet. The webcast on live365.com logged over 1.4 million hours of listening from computer users all around the world. In 2004, I moved on to a new web project - a daily internet radio show at quietfm.com, where I produced over 200 programs within a span of two years. Most of those are still available on the site. Check it out sometime.

Again, thanks so much for your interest in my show. Keep listening!