Legendary radio host Jim Ladd passed away on Saturday at the age of 75. According to a report by The L.A. Times, Ladd died of a heart attack. Fans, friends and colleagues are sharing their fondest memories of Ladd and his influence on pop culture all over social media.
Ladd’s on-air colleague Meg Griffin announced Ladd’s death to the public on Monday, explaining that it was caused by a heart attack. Ladd worked for many years as a disc jockey in FM radio, but he worked with Griffin at SiriusXM where they both appeared on several different satellite channels. Ladd would have hosted the service’s “Deep Tracks” channel that day where he was fond of playing album-oriented rock music that typically missed the Top 40 charts.
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“He never stopped caring. He delivered the truth. He lived for the music, and I am blessed to have worked wit him,” Griffin said.
Ladd passed away at his home in Carmichael, California. His wife, Helene Hodge-Ladd was by his side. Ladd was never a major celebrity, though fans learned something of his personal life in his 1991 memoir Radio Waves: Life and Revolution on the FM Dial. There, he also wrote about the political, social and technological circumstances that made his unique career possible.
Ladd credited his career to an FCC ruling in 1964 that said that large-market AM radio stations could not duplicate more than half of their programming on an FM outlet. That opened up many stations for more creative original content, and DJs like Ladd filled that static with rock ‘n’ roll, pop music and “free-form formats” that were different from anything mainstream listeners had been exposed to before. That allowed poeple like Ladd to develop more personality on the air as well, and his laid-back attitude became iconic in L.A. and affiliated markets.
“It was this approach to radio that made FM different from Top 40 and threatening to the powers that be,” Ladd wrote. “It was our role in the great passion play that engulfed the late sixties and early seventies… the music, the message, and the medium all combined to resonate the tribal drum, which kept time for a syncopated movement of new ideas and innocent dreams.”
Ladd’s book is out of print at the time of this writing and is not available in digital or audiobook formats. Fans can find used copies through online retailers like Amazon and bookshop.org.
