Keri Noble/ Star Tribune photo by Sara Glassman

Minneapolis singer-songwriter Keri Noble will join Brian Oake on Cities 97 revamped morning show, starting April 16. Noble specializes in songs that connect with 30- and 40-something women, a key demographic for Cities 97.

"It's my first real job," Noble said Monday afternoon. "I still have that new-car smell. I'm really excited.:

Noble has been doing entertainment reports regularly on KFAN and occasionally Cities 97 for the past year. She never gave up her music career but having to be wide-awake at 6 a.m. on weekdays could impact her gigging.

"I'll never give it up," Noble said of her music. "This is going to allow me to do it on my time."

Ironically, Cities 97 has not embraced Noble's music of late (they used to play her stuff and included her on Cities Sampler Vol 16 in 2004) but now program director Lauren MacLeash will pay Noble to talk.

There will be a keyboard in the radio studio, pianist Noble said, "so there's going to be a way to marry" her two jobs "but this gig is to establish me as a personality."

Noble will spend the next two weeks in "radio boot camp" with MacLeash and Oake. The singer-songwriter never had an audition with Oake. She has appeared several times on the radio with him. "We're friends," she said. "It's going to sound like a real conversation."

Oake, Cities 97's longtime afternoon-drive DJ, will shift to mornings but he will continue to do his Oake on the Water remote broadcast from establishments on lakes and rivers on Thursdays. He said he had too many commitments and plans with that annual summer series to not participate this year.

Meanwhile, longtime morning personality Brian "BT" Turner will host the acoustic sunrise and sunset programs on Sundays and serve as an ad salesman for Clear Channel Radio, which owns Cities 97, KFAN, KDWB and other stations.