96 Rock gets new voice

Fans of WBBB-FM 96 Rock can check out the new girl in the daytime lineup when Alli Morgan joins her new co-workers for a live broadcast from Raleigh's Downtown Live concert at 2 p.m. Saturday at Moore Square.

That's right -- girl. Finally, there's a little estrogen in the mix of the rock station's weekday air staff, now that a permanent replacement has been found for Patrick "Crash" McMahon, who left 96 Rock nearly two months ago.

"It's a great change -- no lie," says program director Jay "Foster" Nachlis. "I think it provides some terrific balance, and some great glue." Nachlis diplomatically says the parting with Crash was "just internal stuff. Just didn't work out." He adds it had nothing to do with Crash's on-air performance.

Morgan, a 30-something New Jersey jock, brings an enthusiasm for local personality-driven radio to her new job. She co-hosted the morning show for nearly a decade at South Jersey's Rock Station WZXL.

She'll begin her 9 a.m.-2 p.m. 96 Rock shift on Monday, sandwiched between Salt and Demetri in the morning, and Foster and The Blade at afternoon drive time.

It's a step up for Morgan, who's leaving the No. 141-ranked Atlantic City radio market for the No. 43-ranked Raleigh-Durham market.

"I'm pretty excited to get out of here," she says half-jokingly, of the area where she was born and raised. "I'm just really excited to come to Raleigh. I saw a posting for WBBB in the trades. I just became enamored of the company. They're a large media company for someone who's privately owned. And that was pretty much the allure."

WBBB is owned by Curtis Media Group, which also owns country station WQDR, and AM news/talk station WPTF, among others.

Nachlis says Morgan was chosen, in part, for her commitment to rock music -- going to shows, blogging about them and even a bit of moonlighting she did in Jersey.

"She's been in the same market for 10 years, which is pretty extraordinary, in radio terms," Nachlis says. "But one of the neat little sidebars with her is that she worked at this little independent record store for 10 years. She didn't have to -- she was co-hosting a morning show."

Morgan thinks she'll fit right in with the boys.

"I'm drawn to people with wacky personalities," she says. "I have one myself."

Lamb writes about crime

Fresh off a book tour promoting her recent book for moms, "Smotherhood: Wickedly Funny Confessions from the Early Years," WRAL reporter Amanda Lamb will visit another round of bookstores to promote her true-crime book about the arsenic-poisoning murder of a Raleigh AIDS researcher in 2000.

Lamb's "Deadly Dose: The Untold Story of a Homicide Investigator's Crusade for Truth and Justice" is set for release on June 3. The book tells a story of dogged persistence on the part of veteran homicide investigator Chris Morgan, who worked four years to bring Ann Miller Kontz to justice for the murder of her first husband, Eric Miller.

Lamb will discuss and read from her book this summer at locations including Raleigh's Quail Ridge Books at 7 p.m. June 3; Durham's Regulator Bookshop at 7 p.m. June 10; and Barnes & Noble at Cary Commons at 7 p.m. June 17.

More information is available at www.alambauthor.com.