[Kzyxtalk] Les Tarr is dead.

[John Sakowicz]

R.I.P. Les Tarr


> On 03/24/2022 12:04 AM Marco McClean <memo at mcn.org> wrote:
> 
>  
> Les Tarr of /Eight To the Bar With Tarr/ died.  I got email from Bob 
> Woelfel, from KTDE in Gualala, who said, "I'm sorry to relay that Les 
> died of pancreatic cancer this past Sunday. I saw him on 2/15 in Willits 
> and he was starting to feel poorly. Kathy admitted him about 10 days 
> before he passed but it was more than a week before it was diagnosed. He 
> last did his show on 3/4. We've been running repeats the last two Friday 
> nights. Tonight, Wednesday, we're doing a tribute to him with anecdotes 
> and a partial replay of his show that included an interview with an old 
> blues man from San Francisco where they remember early times in San 
> Francisco."
> 
> One time when Bob was still running KMFB I was in on a not-my-show night 
> to keep things rolling while everyone else was out. This was far enough 
> back when hardly anyone had decent internet service, and I had put an 
> MP3-playing DVD player in the studio so people could do 
> four-hour-or-more-long shows from the other end of the county if they 
> wanted to and just mail an MP3 CD or DVD. I had disks for all the shows 
> Saturday night, and I was reading and working on my show and napping 
> (this was a Saturday and I'd been up all Friday night, as usual, and I 
> got the order of the shows wrong. I put Lilia Albuquerque's One Ocean 
> show on instead of Les Tarr's.
> 
> Les roared in half an hour later, having driven like a rocket in his 
> truck from Willits, steaming mad. He said his relatives were over for 
> dinner and he turned on the radio and his show didn't come on. He told 
> me, "I'm /Italian/, baby! I express myself!" I apologized, told him I 
> can't go back in time but I can be sure to never do it again. Nothing 
> helped. I told him to calm down; I'd heard he had heart trouble and I 
> didn't wanta be responsible for him having a heart attack. He showed me 
> a silver screw-top bullet on a chain around his neck with nitroglycerine 
> pills in it in case of that. "I'm covered!" he boomed. "I'm prepared!"
> 
> His real name, I'm told, was Les Hjulmand. That's a good Italian name. 
> He played bass in hot roadhouse bands, and he had a voice like a pipe organ.
> 
> All kinds of people around here were fans of his show on KMFB and KLLK 
> and KTDE and others. If you remember something about him or something he 
> did that struck you, please pass it on to me; I'd like to put them all 
> in one place and of course read them on KNYO.
> 
> --
> Marco McClean, memo at mcn.org
> https://MemoOfTheAir.wordpress.com
> 
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