- Tom Donahue
Tom "Big Daddy" Donahue (
May 21 ,1928 –April 28 ,1975 ), was a pioneeringrock and roll radio disc jockey .Donahue's career started 1949 on the east coast of the U.S. at WTIP in
South Carolina and continuing atWIBG inPhiladelphia and WINX inMaryland , before moving toSan Francisco in 1961 after thepayola scandal involvingAlan Freed and Dick Clark.Donahue re-invented himself, first as a disc jockey at
Top Forty station KYA (now KOIT) inSan Francisco , and then to run arecord label (he discovered, produced, recorded, and managed theBeau Brummels on hisAutumn Records ) label, later selling the act toWarner Brothers ), open apsychedelic nightclub, and produce concerts at theCow Palace andCandlestick Park with his partner, Bob Mitchell.He wrote a 1967
Rolling Stone article titled "AM Radio Is Dead and Its Rotting Corpse Is Stinking Up the Airwaves" which also lambasted theTop 40 format. He subsequently revamped the foreign language station KMPX into what is considered to be America's first alternative "free form" radio station on the largely ignored FM band, playing non-commercial music by album-oriented bands. In 1969 he managedLeigh Stephens ,Micky Waller , andPete Sears in the band "Silver Metre", and Stoneground in 1970. In 1972 he moved to the role of general manager at KSAN where he encouraged playlists of music from different eras and genres interspersed with political commentary.A typical example of KSAN radio featuring Tom Donahue can be found on the album
The Golden Age Of Underground Radio .Donahue, and his DJ wife Raechel, formed further free form radio stations KMET and KPPC-FM in
Los Angeles .He died from a heart attack in 1975.
Donahue was inducted into the
Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 1996 as a non performer, as one of only threedisc jockeys to receive that honor.External links
[http://www.rockhall.com/hof/inductee.asp?id=92 Induction into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame]
[http://www.jive95.com/ jive95.com -- Web site honoring KSAN-FM in its glory days]
Wikimedia Foundation. 2010.
