I held off reporting this while waiting for confirmation… and also because I was hoping it wasn’t true. Alas, his friends have confirmed it: Longtime album-rock air personality Geno Michelini passed away on March 2nd at the age of 77, his beloved cat Bud Bud by his side.
Born Theodore Eugene Dunmire, Michelini was the son of a fighter pilot who fought in World War II and the Korean War. The military family lifestyle — moving to different bases often different states — helped him prepare for his radio career, which often meant moving from station to station and city to city.
Michelini graduated from high school in Germany, class of 1964. He enrolled in Penn State where, according to friends, he learned the love of a great party. Facing the Vietnam draft, he enlisted in the Air Force, following his father’s influence.
He eventually ended up in the Philippines, where he started his broadcast career: a DJ for Armed Forces Radio transmitting from Clark Air Force Base. This experience led him to enroll in the famous Don Martin School of Broadcasting after he left the military, courtesy of the G.I. Bill.
Early work included stations in Thousand Oaks and Stockton using the name Doc Holiday; he changed his air name to Gene Mitchell when he made his freeform FM radio debut at KSFM/Sacramento in the mid-1970s, and it is there that he developed his on-air persona that his fans in Los Angeles remember.
It was at KOME in San Jose that his on-air name evolved into Geno Michelini, done because station programmer Mikel Hunter told him he needed a name with more “pizzazz.” After six years there, he moved to San Francisco’s KMEL, staying until the station dropped album rock in favor of top-40.
He arrived in Los Angeles to take on the afternoon drive shift at KLOS (95.5 FM), where he developed the Five O’ Clock Funnies, a segment that helped promote and expose local comedians to the huge KLOS audience. Unfortunately, over the ten years of his initial tenure at the station, new programmers, consultants, and perhaps just a sign of the times brought ever tighter musical playlists and restrictions on what could be said and done on the air; Michelini began to get frustrated. “I’m not good at being told to shut [the heck] up,” he once said.
In 1995 he found himself on KFI (640 AM) doing a Sunday morning talk show for a couple years, then it was off to KLSX (now KNX-FM, 97.1) and a second stint at KLOS, 1999 to 2003.
In his obituary posted at everloved.com (https://everloved.com/life-of/geno-michellini/obituary/), it is written that “Like all of us, Geno was many different people. Big-hearted, sensitive and generous to a fault, he was also stubborn, self-centered and opinionated with a flair for the dramatic. If he was angry, you knew it. He possessed a vicious wit that only sharpened with time and could be painful if you were the target …
“But Geno also wore his heart on his sleeve.”
You Are the Music We Play
I was listening to 93/KHJ the other day – not old airchecks, but American Samoa’s Best Music Mix as found on apps, smart speakers, and online at https://www.southseasbroadcasting.com/93khj/. Lo and behold, what do I hear but an old mid-1970s era long-form jingle, culminating with the sung line “We play it for you, on 93/KHJ.”
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It’s one of my favorite jingles, and an amazing representation of what was once found on our own local airwaves. Upbeat, positive, connected … I had to write to former KHJ programmer Chuck Martin to tell him about it.
“What did you think of it?” he asked. I knew something was up. Turns out, it was Martin’s baby.
“I originally created it for WDRC in Hartford but shared the reproduction rights with Tom Meriman of TM productions. I was consulting WDRC and other Buckley broadcast stations at the time. TM put it out on market, and I helped writing the lyrics for associated stations (including KHJ). That package is where I wet my feet in jingle productions.”
Martin went on to later program KHJ, create an award-winning jingle package (Rhythm of the Southland) for KHJ and later “Station of the Eighties” for K-WEST (now KPWR, 105.9 FM).
My brush with greatness.
Richard Wagoner is a San Pedro freelance columnist covering radio in Southern California. Email rwagoner@socalradiowaves.com.