{"id":159,"date":"2026-05-13T20:21:13","date_gmt":"2026-05-13T20:21:13","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/dmz-wpweb-01.dmz.local:8081\/?post_type=shows&#038;p=159"},"modified":"2026-05-15T14:24:53","modified_gmt":"2026-05-15T19:24:53","slug":"rise-up-country","status":"publish","type":"shows","link":"https:\/\/wrayradio.com\/?shows=rise-up-country","title":{"rendered":"Rise Up Country with John Ritter"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><span data-contrast=\"auto\">John Ritter has been directly involved in the music business since he was a young child. At eight years\u00a0old\u00a0and before ever having a voice lesson, he was singing in church and talent contests. His natural-born musical ability continued to improve during high school,\u00a0where he played the bass guitar and sang with several local bands. After attending Saint Petersburg Junior College, he received his\u00a0master\u2019s\u00a0degree in\u00a0speech\u00a0pathology from the University of South Florida.<\/span><span data-ccp-props=\"{\">\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span data-contrast=\"auto\">In 1980, after taking a vacation to Lake Tahoe, John\u00a0decided\u00a0to pursue his music career out West,\u00a0playing the Nevada circuit. During that time,\u00a0he became friends with Colin Ray,\u00a0who was pursuing the same career. In addition to his work on the circuit, John has recorded sessions with Anita Pointer of the Pointer Sisters and Sony Music VP Paul Worley.<\/span><span data-ccp-props=\"{\">\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span data-contrast=\"auto\">After 11 years as a successful Nevada entertainer, John decided to stop entertaining and move back to Florida with his wife, Bobbie, and their two children, Lindsey and Johnny. He built a 24-track recording facility and began the positive country music show Rise Up. The success of that show allowed John to hook up with Ken Cooper to form \u201cCooper and Ritter,\u201d which ran as a very successful morning show on the legendary Q105 for six years.\u00a0<\/span><span data-ccp-props=\"{\">\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span data-contrast=\"auto\">Rise Up eventually moved to Tampa\u2019s Award Winning WQYK, 99.5,\u00a0where it was re-titled\u00a0to\u00a0\u201cRise Up Country\u201d\u00a0and distributed nationally.\u00a0Rise\u00a0Up\u00a0Country can now be heard on over 150 great radio stations across America.<\/span><span data-ccp-props=\"{\">\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span data-contrast=\"auto\">Rise Up\u00a0Country\u2019s mission statement is to tell people not to give up, that God loves them,\u00a0and there is hope. John likes to say it\u2019s where we get our weekly dose of inspiration and a message of hope. John wants to see families stay together,\u00a0and as a proud dad, one of the most important messages he hopes to convey is to love your children.\u00a0John\u00a0knows how precious family can be.\u00a0He\u00a0and his wife almost lost their son, Johnny,\u00a0to a violent attack, so they\u2019ve learned to appreciate every moment with their children and the power of prayer.<\/span><span data-ccp-props=\"{\">\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span data-contrast=\"auto\">In addition to hosting the Rise Up Country show and running his production studio, John has also continued to pursue his writing abilities and has several songs to his name, including the theme songs for the Q-Morning Zoo radio show,\u00a0\u201cBeautiful Downtown Lutz,\u201d\u00a0and the Tampa Bay Buccaneers\u00a0Fight Song,\u00a0\u201cHey, Hey, Hey, We\u2019re the Buccaneers.\u201d\u00a0<\/span><span data-ccp-props=\"{\">\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span data-contrast=\"auto\">Each month,\u00a0John\u00a0spends some time in Nashville,\u00a0writing\u00a0songs with artists and other songwriters. He has songs recorded by Craig Morgan, Aaron\u00a0Tippin,\u00a0Tracy Lawrence,\u00a0Tenille\u00a0Arts,\u00a0and Ray Stevens.<\/span><span data-ccp-props=\"{\">\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p>Learn more at <a href=\"https:\/\/rise-up.com\/\">rise-up.com<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>John Ritter has been directly involved in the music business since he was a young child. At eight years\u00a0old\u00a0and before ever having a voice lesson, he was singing in church and talent contests. His natural-born musical ability continued to improve during high school,\u00a0where he played the bass guitar and sang ...<\/p>\n","protected":false},"featured_media":328,"menu_order":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","template":"","genre":[8],"class_list":["post-159","shows","type-shows","status-publish","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","genre-syndicated-programming"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/wrayradio.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/shows\/159","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/wrayradio.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/shows"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/wrayradio.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/shows"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wrayradio.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=159"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/wrayradio.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/shows\/159\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":329,"href":"https:\/\/wrayradio.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/shows\/159\/revisions\/329"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wrayradio.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/328"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/wrayradio.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=159"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"genre","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wrayradio.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fgenre&post=159"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}