Can Any Song Be Requested on Tje Art Laboe Show
At 94, This California DJ Is Still Connecting Loved Ones on the Air
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Art Laboe on the air at KPMO, circa 1945. (Courtesy Fine art Laboe)
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I
never knew who Fine art Laboe was, or what he meant to and then many Californians, until I moved to Fresno, and started dating someone who grew up on Laboe's music. We would bulldoze on country roads lined with orange groves and tune into Laboe's Lord's day radio prove, where people from all over the state would send in lovey-dovey dedications to each other. And so in that location was Laboe'southward signature on-air smooch into the microphone.
My at present-husband Karl was a depression-passenger growing upwards, cruising in his Nissan mini-truck with tinted windows, custom-painted graphics on the side and a booming stereo. He would smash Laboe's testify, which played songs by artists like Rick James, Teena Marie, Tierra and the Temptations — from the 12-inch woofers, while waxing his car and cleaning the custom spoke wheels with a toothbrush.
By the fourth dimension I met Karl, he had moved away from the depression-rider lifestyle, merely not Fine art Laboe, or the love songs. He's one of generations of Californians — especially Chicanos and Latinx folks — who've grown up on Laboe'due south music, first listening as their grandparents did.
Later all, Laboe has been spinning oldies and love songs since 1943. He coined the term "oldies only goodies" and was one of the starting time DJs on the West Coast to play stone 'due north' gyre.
He still takes to the airwaves from a Palm Springs studio six nights a week from 7 p.m. to midnight, hosting The Art Laboe Connectedness — a bear witness circulate on more than than a dozen stations across California.
Watch a tribute to Art Laboe produced past videographer Bryan Mendez:
Laboe spends hours every day playing songs that are about the heart.
"Dear is a powerful medicine, whether you're falling in love, or out of love," he says.
Connecting Loved Ones, In and Out of Prison
These days, many of those calling in with regular dedications accept loved ones in prison.
"He'south just an amazing DJ. I would listen to him until my concluding breath," says longtime listener Rosie Morales, of Sylmar.
She calls in every single twenty-four hour period with a dedication to her married man Scrappy, who's serving a life sentence in Kern Valley State Prison in Delano. She tin can't call her husband directly right now, because he's in alone confinement. Only she can hear Laboe smooch kisses sent by her married man into his microphone.
"He's able to communicate to our loved ones when we can't," Morales says. "He brings that spark into relationships."
"They're there, human being and married woman, every night, homo and wife, doing it to each other, dedications," Laboe laughs. "Conjugal, but not conjugal."
Some prisoners ship in a week's worth of dedications to their spouses or lovers, with a different love song for each day of the week.
"Fine art's so concerned about the prisoners, because for every person that'southward inside in that location can exist 10 or 20 family members on the outside affected by that person being in jail," says his longtime sound engineer, Joanna Morones, who answers phones to take dedications.
"He actually caters to that family dynamic, you know, and connecting them. Nosotros're told every night, 'I can't get visit him. I won't be able to go run into him for two weeks, only I can talk to him on the radio.' The guys in prison sit there and expect to hear their wives' vox on the radio," Morones says.
Getting His Get-go — Thanks to the WWII Draft
Laboe's obsession with radio started when he was eight years old, when his sister sent his parents what he called "this box that talked." He gear up a ham radio station in his sleeping accommodation at age xiv, broadcasting to his neighbors.
When he was xviii, he walked into radio station KSAN in San Francisco and asked for a job.
He had no real experience, and he hadn't however honed his rich baritone. Merely he did have 1 thing: a radio operator's license.
The station had lost its engineers to the draft — this was World War II. The manager offered him a job on the spot. Every bit long as he changed his terminal name, which the manager thought sounded "also ethnic" for the airwaves in 1943.
So Art Egnoian — the son of Armenian immigrants — took the name of the station's receptionist and became Fine art Laboe.
But his music, and his fan base, take never been whitewashed. Laboe has built a huge fan base, starting with the teenagers who attended his live concerts or dances back in the 1950s. He made a name for himself hosting stone 'n' roll concerts in the Los Angeles suburb of El Monte, pioneering racially integrated, all-ages dance parties with alive bands.
"I can do some squeamish talking in Armenian. But I can exercise almost that good in Spanish, likewise," Laboe smiles. "I'm happy that [our concerts and shows entreatment to] everybody. If yous come up to ane of our concerts, you'll see a mixture, a complete mixture of what we take in California."
At 94, Laboe is still hosting live shows across California and the west, wearing his signature bedazzled rails suit and a sparkly bowler hat.
Laboe says he knows people his age always say this kind of thing, but he is nostalgic for the quondam days — a time when people used to have a petty more kindness for each other.
"It would be expert if we had a footling fleck more of what we used to have in the world," Laboe says. "Nevertheless, people are people and they all the same accept the same basic wants and needs. Everyone is capable of love and affection, if they could but accept a petty bit more of it for each other."
A version of this story was originally published on Feb. viii, 2019.
Source: https://www.kqed.org/news/11723524/at-93-this-california-dj-is-still-connecting-loved-ones-on-the-air
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