In this week’s issue… Public radio loses a friend, and some towers – Breeze blows at Jersey shore – Yankees stay put – Go west, young Silverman – No new FMs in two Ontario cities
By SCOTT FYBUSH
Jump to: ME – NH – VT – MA – RI – CT – NY – NJ – PA – Canada
*Pacifica Radio and its New York outlet, WBAI (99.5), have attracted a lot of characters over six-plus decades, but even in that crowd, Larry Josephson was a truly unique individual.
Josephson navigated the turmoil of WBAI’s early 1970s, moved west for a few years to work at sister station KPFA in Berkeley, then returned as the station’s general manager from 1974 until 1976, a period of (relative) calm in the station’s history. While he remained involved with WBAI as a weekend host into the 1980s, he branched out into independent radio production, perhaps most notably shepherding the return of Bob and Ray to a regular radio show syndicated to public radio stations through much of the 1980s.
His programming output came from a spare bedroom in his Manhattan apartment, a homebrew studio that became a surprisingly popular production spot not only for Josephson’s own series but also as a rental space where Ed Bradley recorded his Lincoln Center jazz show, Garrison Keillor did “Writer’s Almanac” and even the Rolling Stones stopped in for an interview.
In recent years, Josephson had suffered from Parkinson’s disease, which took his life on Wednesday night. He was 83 when he died, with a radio by his bedside that family members said was putting out static when they found his body.
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