…and keep reaching for the stars.
Sadly, we’ll never hear those words uttered (except in long-ago recorded form) by music radio icon Casey Kasem, who passed away early Sunday at the age of 82.
The younger folks who have read the TMZ coverage of Casey’s family members fighting over his care and end days may not know the man who singlehandedly changed the face of hit music radio.
But starting in 1970, Casey’s “American Top 40” turned music chart-based radio on its ear, at a time where radio was starting to experiment with “free form” formats, or what would later be called “album rock”.
Despite the changes in society at about that same time, with war protests and civil unrest taking center stage, Casey’s upbeat, family friendly “play the hits with along with loads of stories about the artists and songs” style caught wildfire.
Casey Kasem, the man who brought you the hits and the story behind them, had a hit of his own on his hands.
Unlike the Billboard charts the show used, “AT40” was known for the countDOWN, where listeners hung on every song and Casey’s every word to find out, near the end of the show, what was the number one popular song in America.
In between, music fans got detailed, personal stories about the artists, and of course, those “long distance dedications”.
And between 1970 and when Casey Kasem left all his countdown platforms by 2009, “counting down the hits” turned into a touchstone for music radio stations.
Even in his absence from “AT40” in an extended contract dispute, Casey continued with his own “Casey’s Top 40”. He’s also known for voicing TV’s “Shaggy” on numerous incarnations of the TV cartoon “Scooby Doo”, also for decades.
But did you know Casey Kasem had Cleveland on his resume?
Neither did we, until the flood of stories and obituaries hit the media on Sunday.
The Plain Dealer’s Tom Feran reports that Kasem was a little known radio guy who had the unenviable task of replacing a local fixture at WJW/850, “Mad Daddy” Pete Myers:
Kasem, who took over Myers’ evening slot on WJW in 1959, billed himself as “Casey at the Mike,” and probably was wise to do so — news stories and even his own station variously misidentified him as Casey Kassen, Casey Kassem and Kemal Kassim.
Deciding that succeeding Myers required more than just spinning rock and roll and rhythm and blues records, Kasem started developing a style of his own. Though his show was known more for comedy bits like “Payola Tune of the Night,” in which he’d pretend to bargain with a record promoter, than for the trivia and teasers that became his signature, he already was using his trademark sign-off, “Keep your feet on the ground and keep reaching for the stars.”
“Mad Daddy” headed off to WHK/1420, and later, New York City.
Casey Kasem left WJW just a few months later in 1960, when the station decided to throw in the towel in the top 40 radio race. He went to Buffalo, and eventually landed in Los Angeles…and you know the rest.
There was one other link to Cleveland for Casey Kasem.
In another article, Feran notes:
Casey Kasem’s Cleveland connections included longtime friend Avery Friedman, the civil rights lawyer and CNN legal commentator.
Kasem called Friedman “the true freedom fighter, one of the great human beings of the world.”
Friedman considered Kasem “the most positive, humane and kind person I have ever known.”
On Friedman’s website, there is a video with numerous clips of his appearances on TV, on CNN and other networks.
But 39 seconds into this promotional video, it’s Kasem making a personal pitch on behalf of his Cleveland lawyer friend.
The PD’s Feran reports that Casey’s family members asked Friedman to call him and talk to him over the weekend, hoping he could hear his friend’s words:
“I talked about his being on the air here in Cleveland, being together for the opening of the Rock Hall 20 years ago and our travels together around the country.
“Mostly I talked about how he brought joy every week to millions of people in a thousand markets worldwide. He did what no one has ever done by creating stories about the music while he counted down the hits. Always a warm heart. Always a kind word. Always a gentle spirit.
“Then I said goodbye.”
The PD’s media writer, Mark Dawidziak, has an “appreciation” here.
Those who want to revisit Casey Kasem’s radio career have an easy time of doing so.
Through Monday morning, SiriusXM satellite radio is featuring 24 hours of classic Casey-era “American Top 40” shows. The “70s on 7” channel normally airs the show on weekend mornings.
And Clear Channel’s iHeartRadio digital platform has a 24/7 “Classic American Top 40” channel for Kasem’s shows.
And a final thought.
When Kasem passed away, it was Sunday morning…HIS time on the radio over all these decades…
Magic 105.7 plays AT40 shows from the 70’s for three hours Sunday mornings. Fun to hear what he is saying about up and coming artists, knowing what we know today about how they turned out.
Bruce
With all due respect to the late “Casey Kasem”, an Americanized nom de plume, in my opinion he was, in his last two decades as host of AT40, the radio version of Vanna White. Picture Mr. Kasem at his microphone, presenting various trivia about the artists whose songs he spoke about, but whose songs were not spinning as he spoke. Add some schmaltzy ‘long distance dedication’ drivel. This process probably took him about an hour a week. Then, some underpaid producer made it all magic by back-timing Mr. K’s comments so he ‘hit’ the intro on all his songs. He had a great voice, just as Ms. White has a great body after all these years. But the performances are strikingly similar. Big bucks for minimal effort/talent. Let’s celebrate the life of Casey Kasem, another Hollywood type who basked in the California sun in luxury over the last decades of his life.