Ron Lundy, a member of the St. Louis Radio Hall of Fame thanks to his work with WIL in the early '60s, died on Monday of a heart attack. He was 75. Lundy became nationally known for his work at New York's WABC-FM and WCBS-FM, but at the beginning of his career, he worked at WIL, which was then a top 40 station. Says Lundy's biography on the Radio Hall of Fame inductee page:
He took the air name "Wil' Child" here for awhile and lived up to the image. In 1960, Balaban's Bob Whitney brought Lundy to town from Baton Rouge, citing his audition tape as a combination of "country and crawfish pie," a folksiness that stayed with Lundy through his career. Whitney said Lundy was "a guy who radiated the fun of being alive."
An obituary in the New York Times detailed Lundy's contribution to radio in the Big Apple:
"Hello, Love -- this is Ron Lundy from the greatest city in the world!" was his longtime catchphrase."He made everybody feel good with that signature," said Joe McCoy, who was Mr. Lundy's program director at WCBS-FM for 13 years. "He laughed and laughed while he was on the air."
Along with the likes of Bruce Morrow (known as Cousin Brucie), Dan Ingram, Dan Daniel, Scott Muni, Herb Oscar Anderson and Jack Spector, Mr. Lundy was among the popular broadcasters in New York during the heyday of rock radio. He was at WABC-AM from 1965 to 1982, and was at the microphone beside Mr. Ingram when the station played its last Top 40 tune on May 10, 1982, before switching to a talk-radio format.
When WCBS-FM came back on the air in NYC as an oldies station in 2007, Lundy was one of the first voices to introduce the format. Listen in starting at 1:25 below.
