Published
5 years agoon
PALM SPRINGS — It’s approaching 9 p.m. and Art Laboe adjusts the microphone as Sister Sledge’s “We Are Family” ends.
“And now it’s time for you to call up for those goodnight dedications,” Laboe announces.
“Hello?” a young girl says. “I want to dedicate this to my dad that’s in Lancaster (prison) and I miss tonight … I just want to say, Dad, I love you no matter where you go…” She dissolves into tears.
The 93-year-old DJ based in Palm Springs, California, credits one group of listeners for keeping him on the air after 75 years: family members who want to send messages to loved ones in prison.
Every Sunday on his syndicated show “The Art Laboe Connection Show,” his baritone voice calls on family members to speak directly to inmates in California, Arizona or Nevada. Sometimes, Laboe reads parts of letters written by inmates.
It’s a role Laboe says he feels honored to play.
“I don’t judge,” Laboe said in an interview with The Associated Press at his Palm Springs studio. “I like people.”
But it was when Laboe worked as a DJ for KXLA in Los Angeles where he gained fame. Laboe was one of the first DJs to play R&B and rock ‘n’ roll in California and is credited by scholars for helping integrate dance halls among Latinos, blacks, Asian Americans and whites who were drawn to his multicultural musical line up.
By 1956, Laboe’s afternoon show became the city’s top radio program.
Over the decades, Laboe maintained a fan base, especially among Mexican-Americans who followed him from station to station. He started getting calls from inmates’ family members in the 1990s on his syndicated oldies show. Current and former gang members were some of his most loyal fans.
“Here is someone who gave a voice to the most humble of us all through music,” said Lalo Alcaraz, a syndicated cartoonist and television writer who grew up listening to Laboe in San Diego. “He brought us together. That’s why we sought him out.”
Over the years, the syndicated show on Sunday has aired in California, Nevada, Arizona and New Mexico.
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