I grew up listening to Rick Dees.
He arrived in Los Angeles to work at KHJ way back in early 1979 when I was 16 years old. KHJ program director Chuck Martin, in an extremely successful attempt to bring glory back to the once-mighty top-40 powerhouse, hired Dees away from WHBQ in Memphis.
When KHJ changed to country in November of 1980, Dees found himself without a station. That would not last long, as KIIS-FM was about to change formats to top-40 and hired the morning man to be part of the transition.
Truth be told, the early days of Dees on KIIS weren’t great. The music was badly chosen light rock, and the elements for success were not yet in place. Soon, however, the station got it together, and Dees was the morning leader on a station with some of the best talent in the industry. He was backed by superb marketing, fun contests, and even weekend warmups, where listeners could meet personalities at local clubs.
As KIIS-FM headed to record-breaking ratings, Dees himself was building his own empire. Talent, such as wife Julie Dees and friend Danny Lemos, helped add to the fun, and Dees soon found himself the top radio talent in the industry. If you were around at the time, you may remember his hilarious “candid phone” calls (we are still debating if they were real or not or even in accordance with FCC rules) that made it onto his best-selling comedy albums released during the era.
I started becoming a true Dees devotee around 1984. After KHJ dropped top-40, I was a K-WEST (now KPWR, 105.9 FM) guy, listening in the morning to London and Engelman. But when that station’s format changed, I rediscovered Dees while commuting in the morning to UCLA in 1984.
He made the commute tolerable … no, fun, actually. I looked forward to the show every day, and it got me listening to KIIS-FM almost all the time. The chemistry between the cast of his show was friendly; Dees himself had the foresight to always be clean in his comedy. If you remember anything off-color, it was almost always said by someone else, such as “Willard Wiseman” (voiced by Dees) or even Chuy from La Puente (Lemos). One of my favorite segments came when Dees would call his “agent, Bernie Shelly,” who always had a “bigger name on the other line.” One time, it was Ted Bessel, the boyfriend on the 1960s television show “That Girl.”
Dees was replaced by Ryan Seacrest in 2004 after 23 years with the station. Not to diss Ryan Seacrest, who is multi-talented in his own right, but Seacrest is no Rick Dees when it comes to radio. There just is no comparison.
I happened to catch up with Dees recently just to see what he’s doing. Turns out, still a lot. He’s hosting the syndicated Weekly Top-40 — created as an alternate to American Top-40 — heard on stations nationwide as well as on the free iHeart app. He also does the Daily Dees, which allows station owners and programmers to get what is called “dry voice tracks” — no music — that can be used between songs and make the station sound like Dees is there hosting the show.
He recently released a new free smartphone app called the Rick Dees Music Express, which, Dees told me, “has really caught on with music lovers everywhere. This app allows you to create your own music channels and listen to hundreds of premade channels.”
The app also allows you to host your own music channels, according to Dees. I have not tried it yet but he says, “A simple tap of the record button gets you hosting your own music channels. Nobody else has this feature.”
There are 28 pre-configured channels, from Hawaiian music to top-40, jazz to podcasts. And if you missed the Weekly Top-40, the app has that available as well. As I mentioned earlier, I have not used it much; I’ll try playing with it in the next few weeks and give a better report on the app later.
On November 15th, he’ll be recognized along with Kelsey Grammer, Gary Sandy and others at the 22nd Annual Giants of Broadcasting and Electronic Arts presented by the Library of American Broadcasting Foundation. The gala will be held at New York City’s Gotham Hall.
Richard Wagoner is a San Pedro freelance columnist covering radio in Southern California. Email rwagoner@socalradiowaves.com
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