RIP Casey Kasem, radio legend, 82

[urth]

Casey died this morning at a hospital in Gig Harbot, Wash. He was 82.

http://www.nytimes.com/2014/06/16/business/media/casey-kasem-wholesome-voice-of-pop-radio-dies-at-82.html?_r=0

[RGMike]

 

I'll always remember the weekend in early May of 1971 that WPIX-FM first began airing AT40. Here's the chart:

http://www.charismusicgroup.com/Cue%20Sheets/05-08-71.pdf

I was already a "chart geek" at age 16 but of course had no access to Billboard magazine. Casey made my silly obsession seem serious and legitimate. Ponderous? Not at all.

[urth]

I'll always remember the weekend in early May of 1971 that WPIX-FM first began airing AT40. Here's the chart:

http://www.charismusicgroup.com/Cue%20Sheets/05-08-71.pdf

I was already a "chart geek" at age 16 but of course had no access to Billboard magazine. Casey made my silly obsession seem serious and legitimate. Ponderous? Not at all.

That probably describes a lot of folks. I have a friend, a few years younger than me, who for a fair number of years listened to Casey every week while recording it via cheap mono microphone onto cheap cassettes, AND wrote down each of the charting songs, every week. More than a little OCD? Yeah, might be. Except it may have helped inform who he became, as he went on to found No Depression magazine, and is now a music critic at the Austin American-Statesman.

[Big Fingers McGee]

That probably describes a lot of folks. I have a friend, a few years younger than me, who for a fair number of years listened to Casey every week while recording it via cheap mono microphone onto cheap cassettes, AND wrote down each of the charting songs, every week.

That sounds disturbingly like me. I still have notebooks with the listings. I remember the big discovery for me was 120 minute cassettes, so when my parents dragged me to church, I could set the recorder up to capture most of what I missed.

[RGMike]

And of course I must repeat the Weirdest. Casey. Story. Ever.

in '78 or '79, when I was a randy young man of 23 or 24, I saw a gay porn flick... and during one of the sex scenes, instead of the usual boom-chicka-wah-wah porno sountrack music, the background audio was part of an AT40 countdown from 1975.  It was a 10-or-12-minute sequence taking place in the back seat of a car and so Casey was supposedly on the car radio. Several songs, several intros & outros by Casey, a few commercials.  Simultaneously hilarious and unsettling. I'll never forget that.

[RGMike]

My radio buddy Brian Bannon at WLNG -- where they still do local stuff like "Lost and Found" and "Pet Patrol" -- just read an item about a lost dog named (wait for it) "Snuggles".  And then he played the Pointer Sisters' "Dare Me", which as any radio geek knows, was the famous "uptempo song" Casey was complaining about having to play before the "dead dog" story.  Classic stuff.

[urth]

The battle over Casey's estate (and his remains) gets ever stranger: Apparently the Widow Kasem has taken his remains out of the country, despite a court order barring her from doing so.

http://www.allaccess.com/net-news/archive/story/131587/report-casey-kasem-body-missing-despite-restrainin

[RGMike]

The battle over Casey's estate (and his remains) gets ever stranger: Apparently the Widow Kasem has taken his remains out of the country, despite a court order barring her from doing so.

http://www.allaccess.com/net-news/archive/story/131587/report-casey-kasem-body-missing-despite-restrainin

ye gawds.  Invasion of the Casey Snatchers!

[CapnJack]

The battle over Casey's estate (and his remains) gets ever stranger: Apparently the Widow Kasem has taken his remains out of the country, despite a court order barring her from doing so.

http://www.allaccess.com/net-news/archive/story/131587/report-casey-kasem-body-missing-despite-restrainin

ye gawds.  Invasion of the Casey Snatchers!

In the immortal words of Shaggy: "Zoinks!"