[78-L] End of an Era: Dr. Demento ends radio run

[Cary Ginell]

The Dr. Demento Show is history.

 

(June 8 - 7:56 a.m.) After 40 years of delighting radio audiences with weird, off-beat, mostly homemade music, Barret “Barry” Hansen, better known as the Dr. Demento with the battered top hat, tuxedo-clad King of Dementia, is airing his final broadcast on a half-dozen stations. Long-gone from Los Angles airwaves after being heard on KPPC, KMET, KLSX, and KSCA for decades, wrote on his website that it was a painful decision. “I really hate to let it go after almost 40 years but I have come to agree with my manager and my family that it's necessary. The broadcast has been losing money for some time.” 


The good news is that he intends to continue producing new shows every week for www.drdemento.com for the foreseeable future. A new one will be available Saturday morning, June 12, and more new shows will be posted every Saturday thereafter. 


Perhaps best known as the man who launched "Weird Al" Yankovic's career, the Doctor has also resurrected awareness of Spike Jones, Tom Lehrer, Stan Freberg and other classic comedy musicians. 


He was born in Minneapolis in 1941. The Doctor-to-be began haunting thrift shops for old records while in junior high, eventually accumulating nearly half a million platters of all speeds, sizes and shapes. He began his radio career at 10-watt KRRC/fm on the campus of Reed College in Portland, Oregon. 


After graduating from Reed with a degree in classical music theory, he headed for UCLA where he wrote a master's thesis on the evolution of black music from blues to rock & roll. After a stint as road manager for the rock-blues band Canned Heat, he became a staff producer for Specialty Records, where he compiled numerous LP reissues of vintage blues, gospel and rock recordings. 


Meanwhile he was invited to share some of his vintage treasures with the audience of alternative-programmed KPPC in 1970. He was playing Transfusion by Nervous Norvus when the gm's secretary commented "You've got to be demented to play that on the radio!" 


Rechristened Dr. Demento, Hansen was hired for a weekly rare-oldies show which soon mutated into a bonanza of "mad music and crazy comedy." The Doctor moved to KMET in 1972, and started national syndication in 1974. 


In 1975 Warner Bros. released Dr. Demento's Delights, the first of nearly two dozen Dr Demento compilation albums. Most of them are on Rhino, including his 20th, 25th and 30th Anniversary Collections and The Very Best Of Dr. Demento (2001) which includes his all-time most requested songs: Fish Heads, Dead Puppies and They're Coming To Take Me Away, Ha-Haaa! He has also worked on many other Rhino compilations; his notes for "The Remains Of Tom Lehrer" received a Grammy nomination. Away from the microphone, Hansen has always been a serious student of many types of music. In the 90s he wrote his first full-length book, Rhino's Cruise Through The Blues from Backbeat Books.

 

Cary Ginell

 		 	   		  
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