March 12, 1945 - September 3, 2010
Rest in Peace, my friend
Rest in Peace, my friend
Added....from RadioDailyNews.com: "Jay Blackburn, who'd served in Vietnam in combat, died in San Antonio where he and his wife Chancey lived. His major radio achievement was the creation of The Loop in Chicago with his partner Bruce Miller Earle. He and Earle consulted and/or programmed many radio stations in the United States and aboard, working for Art Holt, a radio station broker and station owner whose career goes back to years with Gordon McLendon.
Jay authored "The Radio Gypsies" and was a mentor for Claude Hall's eNovel "I Love Radio." "Jay and Bruce Miller Earle were close friends dating back to the 1960s," said Claude Hall, once Radio-TV Editor of Billboard Magazine and later a college profession. "I considered them lovable radio rascals and will miss Jay Blackburn immensely."
Read J's obituary from Legacy.com here.
Read Claude Hall's thoughts on J here (scroll down to "Blackburn Matters")
Bruce Miller Earle corrects the record on WLUP here (scroll down to "Loop Matters")
Read Chicagoland Radio & Media's post here.
Chicago Sun-Times article on J (9/8/10) here.
Listen to WLUP's March, 1977 sign-on here (via Tom O'Toole; MP3 download)
More on J. Blackburn from this blog here.
5 comments:
When Jay Blackburn was my competitor in Puerto Rico 35 years ago, he made me better than I ever thought I could be. And that means that he was among the best. He later became a friend as well as an inspiration. And he will be missed.
David Gleason
Now: Univision Radio Los Angeles
Then: 11-Q San Juan
I was lost for words when I posted the news of J's passing above.
J became an influence to me years before I ever had the chance to finally speak to him...when he launched WLUP. It was the cleanest, tightest, best sounding radio station I had ever heard. Promotions were awesome and really had Chicago talking.
I never forgot. A little over 20 years after the fact I finally stumbled across his address; let him know what an influence he was...and while sitting at my desk one day I was told J Blackburn was on line one to talk to me.
Since then, its been a great friendship. He's shared much with me, even sending me the original WLUP format guide not so long ago.
I will cherish that and all our correspondence forever.
Dan Kelley
Okemos/Lansing, MI
I worked at one of Jay's lesser-known stations, WQRK in Norfolk. Crazy place! Never met him, but spoke with him several times on the phone about a sequel to Radio Gypsies He was quite the radio genius.
I believe that the date of his passing should read "September" 3rd.
Thank you Lee. Its been corrected, but apparently at the time I posted this, I listed J's passing as "December 3" instead of "September 3". Noted and corrected.
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