Posted on 06/15/2014 8:22:11 AM PDT by Yossarian
Casey Kasem has died.
ABC News confirmed that the radio personality died today in a California hospital. He was 82.
Born Kemal Amin Kasem in Detroit, the disc jockey began his career in nearby Flint before becoming an announcer on Armed Forces Radio Korea Network in 1952. Upon his return, he went on to work at radio stations in California, Ohio and New York before launching "American Top 40" in 1970. He hosted that show until 1988, and then a revived version from 1998 until 2004, when Ryan Seacrest took over. From 1988 until 1998, Kasem hosted a show called "Casey's Top 40."
"Keep your feet on the ground and keep reaching for the stars," was how he ended every program.
(Excerpt) Read more at abcnews.go.com ...
In rural Georgia probably.
Thanks DFWGator. I didn’t follow his politics, but it doesn’t surprise me. He had to have traveled some pretty Leftist pathways in his career. Probably voted for the louse we have in the White House right now.
Definitely the dark side...
Lebanese Druze. I knew he was from Detroit and just assumed he was Lebanese Christian.
RIP, Shaggy!
Probably an atheist, rather than a Muzzie.
ME TOO I remember him on KRLA back in da day
What a coincidence - he went and hid for a while, was found just recently (by his “loving” inheritors of his money); and now he’s dead.
Finally out of misery and that selfish family. You are in better company now. Those vultures can’t touch you any longer.
Relax Casey, besides Dick Clark, you have a very able replacement in Ryan Seacrest for the young ins. You did your job well.
.....And that is it for our countdown, RIP, Casey Kasem.
That was what I had thought too, since most Arab immigrats to America were or are Christian.
Druze aren’t Muslims really, but there’s no doubt he was a leftist kook. AFAIK, his politics didn’t intrude into his pop music promotions.
Same here.
Snuggles will be happy to see Casey.
RIP
:o[
I’m with a lot of the other posters. You provided me with a lot of soundtracks as a teenager, and helped me buy some amazing records.
R.I. P.
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Hard to believe that that show only lasted 18 years. It was such a fixture when I was growing up that it seemed like he'd been doing it forever. Yes, he had countdown shows after that but by then, nobody was really listening to countdown shows anymore.
Younger people don't understand but during the 1970s, Kasem's AT40 show was about the only way to get information on Top 40 music. There was no internet. There were no music videos on TV. The mainstream press didn't consider pop music "respectable" enough to cover it as anything else other than as a curiosity (as in "look what those youngsters of ours are obsessed with").
What few "music" magazines there were gave pop music short shrift as it wasn't "cool enough" to make the pages of Rolling Stone or Creem. You weren't going to hear the stories behind Gary Wright's "Dreamweaver" or Starland Vocal Band's "Afternoon Delight" unless you tuned into Casey Kasem each week.
In those days, Top 40 stations rarely "back-announced" the records they played so if you wanted to know the artist and title of the latest hit that you wanted to buy at the record store, the only sure way was to listen to the AT40 show with pen and paper at the ready. Seems unimaginable but many radio hits came and went without us ever knowing the proper title and artist because the DJs just yapped between the songs and went to commercial without telling us what they just played. So we went on wild goose chases at record stores looking for a song called "This Ain't No Disco (This Ain't No Foolin' Around)" when what we really wanted was "Life During Wartime" by Talking Heads.
The Sirius "70's" station re-plays a lot of Casey Kasem's shows from that period and his banter between the songs sounds banal and corny to modern ears but back then, that was all we had.
That was my favorite record store when I was in high school.
The one on Sunrise Blvd in Ft. Lauderdale was open past midnight and was a popular hangout in the 1970s.
-PJ
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