Wednesday, December 20, 2023

Iconic LA DJ Jim Ladd


 Los Angeles DJ Jim Ladd died this past weekend (Sunday, December 17th, 2023).  He was 75.   

Ladd, was famous nationwide  for his syndicated radio program, Innerview (spelled exactly like that).  It was a program where he did features on Rock Acts.  The show ran from 1974-1986  It ran on some 160 radio stations. 

During that time, Ladd worked for LA radio stations like KMET, where I heard him during my brief time in SoCal.

Ladd's genre was basically freeform, where DJ's play album cuts and choices are not necessarily based on what record where the top sellers during a given week.  Music was the star of that format, more than radio personality, although, it took a certain amount of talent on the part of the host to make the format work. The DJs, rather than clowning around, presented information about the music. 

The Tom Petty song, The Last DJ was said to be a tribute to Ladd.  

Ladd had been working for the SiriusXM station Deep Tracks.  


3 comments:

Anonymous said...

Great post Mike. I remember hearing him on SiriusXM. He was very knowledgeable and made the broadcast more interesting.

Anonymous said...

He was great on Sirius. I didn’t know where he went when he went MIA over the summer. He wasn’t on the air. Sad to hear and see his passing

Mike Barer said...

I would guess it was health related, but who knows?