Thursday, June 19, 2014

Casey Kasem – Peace, Love, and #1 on our American Top 40

This is not the article I had intended to post next. The Universe, however, has its own plans for us as we learned again recently, when it welcomed another American icon into its Rock & Roll Heaven.

Casey Kasem, 82, the "Father of American Top 40" found his peace last Sunday – Father’s Day, a fitting tribute for his ascent – finally escaping the spectacle of family squabbles that dogged his final year(s) on Earth. 

Casey’s “guy next door” voice served him well from his start in Armed Forces Radio Network in 1950s’ Korea, to finish, as co-creator of the perpetual American Top 40 — which has endured for decades and leaves a fitting legacy for the man behind the microphone.

There was a lot of living in between. Let's celebrate Mr. Kasem's accomplishments, dedication, and contributions to Rock & Roll music!

In the mid-1950s that blasphemous, new-fangled boob-tube was taking the world by storm. Radio simply did not know what to do next.

A vital part of the early Pop and Rock music scene, Casey and other DJs of the era helped shape the genre, as a wave of technology enveloped our world.

Television threatened to drown radio in its salty wake. But Rock & Roll rescued radio