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Perry Marshall - RIP

E

ejjeff

Guest
Long time Pittsburgh radio personality Perry Marshall passed away. Perry's career in Pittsbugh included time at KQV in the early 70's He was one of the city's first top 40 personalities at WEEP. He was a talk pioneer at WJAS in the late 60's. Of course he was most famous for his long career at KDKA! Perry was pure class and was loved by many. Let's all drop a coin in the can.

His daughter Robin, posted this on facebook.
"Thanks to all of you that have ridden through this journey with me, with regard to my Dad. Thanks to my wonderful family, that understood how important it was to be by his side instead of theirs, for the last few weeks...it was worth it. I spent more time with my dad in this last month, than I have in the past 30 years.
He died today, gracefully.
He would want me to say this to you all,...” Keep lookin' for it, ...you'll find it.”
 
Perry Marshall a great person and a great teacher

I spendt some time as Perry's weekend producer on KDKA. He was a very kind and generous man. He tried to teach us something. I remember many things he tried to teach me and straighten me out. But one thing he always said was the best place to look for a job is in the yellow pages. and althought they may be electronic today.. I think that is so true. I am glad I got to see him last year at the kdka birthday party and the heinz center. he looked great and was very kind. God Bless Him and his family. Pittsburgh's original top 40 dj and a great talk host. Take a look at the photo of him behind the console at WEEP in that pittsburgh radio book. look at all of the notes written on the board to keep the station sounding great.. I would love to hear some perry top 40 airchecks. I just remember the smooth sounds of perry and him ending the show with the entertainer every saturday night (sunday am) when I worked. It was the best $3 a hour I ever made.
 
I used to listen to his late night KDKA talk show..right after Roy Fox!

A powerful, gifted communicator, and probably quite proud of his daughter's own success in the business.
 
Keep the radio on after the Pirate game, and there was Marshall- always warm, always engaging, always inviting.

He developed my love of radio.
 
I was a talk show producer at KDKA from 1968-to-1971 when Perry Marshall came in to do vacation relief for Jack Wheeler. Perry was apprehensive about the gig. He had never don two-way talk.
I explained the system I used, index cards with numbers 1-6, each card representing a phone line.
I knew what each caller wanted to speak about, the host didn't. I kept topics grouped together until the subject got boring. Perry said he trusted me to make him look good.
The show was a success. Perry did the entire week filling in for Wheeler. By the time he was done Perry was looking at a future in talk radio.
Perry was a complete gentleman. He treated the-off air people -- me and the engineers -- very well, never talking down to us.
I reconnected with Perry in the last year, but he said he didn't own a computer and didn't want one, so it was an occasional phone call.
They don't make Perry Marshalls any more. It's everyone's loss.
 
Perry had the largest ratings (at least in terms of share) on KDKA back when KDKA had gigantic shares. He regularly put up 50% shares of listening in the midnight-1AM and 5AM-6AM hours, the only hours that Arbitron measured then. Of course the total audience was smaller just because fewer people were listening, but the shares were amazing.

I remember at one point we made a sales sheet showing that even if you ignored all the over-55 listeners (of which there were a ton. two tons, actually) he *still* had more listeners 25-54 than some of the "competitive" stations during daylight hours. Unfortunately we never managed to sell but a drip of advertising on the show, but that's pretty typical of overnight radio. (Bob Logue, Perry's replacement, would change that, but Westinghouse didn't care and bounced him later, even though the ratings were good and the sales excellent. Ah well...)

Let me reiterate what others have said: Perry was an exceptionally *nice* man. I never heard him have cross words with anyone, including my wife (a producer there) or me (who also worked with him there), and when we had a problem needing a shift covered or something, he did it without complaint. He was a great one.
 
I used to listen to Perry Marshall on WIND in Chicago in the 1960s and he was always pleasant and enjoyable to listen to.
He had a very warm personality.

Sorry to hear of his passing.
 
Perry had the unusual ability to be warm & sympathetic without sounding smarmy. Nice to see the tribute from someone as knowledgable as Rick Starr. I always wanted to meet Rick Starr - he left the radio station at Lehigh University just before I got there - he was sort of legendary around the station. So it wasn't too big a surprise to see him do well in radio. He certainly knows talent as the comments on Perry Marshall show.
 
I remember my Grandma listening to Perry when I would spend the weekend over her house in the late 70s. He would come on a little after the midnight news if I remember correctly, chat with listeners until 3am, put on a previously recorded show during that hour (the R & R hour), then go until 6am (cutting off an hour later on) closing with "The Entertainer." I loved that show and would listen faithfully until the early 80s. The one thing I will NEVER forget, is that slow, soothing, song Perry would play before the news at the top of the hour. The song could start at the beginning, middle or end and played until the news started. I'd go to bed listening to the show, dose off, then wake up at a later point in the show. I would always look forward to hearing that song. So PLEASE...if anyone knows the name of that song, or even the artist for that matter (I could always do the research), I would be eternally grateful. This was a very important time in my life and it would be so nice to hear that song after all of these years. I miss you Perry and pray that you finally "found it."
 
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