ProductionNinja.com

There was some very sad news out of Chicago today, Wally Phillips has died at age 82:

The WGN mainstay hosted the morning show from 1965 through 1986. During that time, he ruled the roost in morning drive, at times attracting half of the market’s listening audience.

“Wally’s voice was the first millions of Chicagoans heard every morning from 1965 to 1986,” said Tom Langmyer, Vice President/General Manager of WGN Radio in a statement. He was one of a kind, and he was a “Broadcaster” in the truest sense.”

Phillips arrived at WGN Radio in 1956. He retired from a weekend show in 1998. His lasting legacy at the station is the “Neediest Kids’ Fund,” a children’s charity. Phillips had been battling Alzheimer’s disease for the past five years.

WGN will be running an interview with Phillips from the Museum of Broadcast Communications back in 1996, and they have also set up a page where listeners can leave their memories of Wally Phillips

I can’t tell you how sad this makes me. Obviously since I’m only 25 I barely caught the tail end of his career, but people like Wally Phillips, Bob Collins and Spike O’Dell are pretty much the reason I got into radio to begin with. I think the reason that WGN Radio can accurately bill itself as “The Voice of Chicago” is because of the impact Phillips had, and that’s saying something since he left the radio landscape just about 10 years ago.