Remembering Seattle’s Pat O’Day
• Seattle radio legend Pat O’Day, whose name was synonymous with the massive ratings he achieved in the ’60s at KJR before going on to launch the successful Concerts West booking firm, has died at the age of 85. O’Day passed away at his home in the San Juan Islands, his son Jeff O’Day wrote in a Facebook post.
As the Seattle Times reports, “To understand his impact one has to consider the power of that station — it was not uncommon for KJR to boast of a 37 percent rating, an unheard of dominance by a radio station. O’Day was eventually promoted to program director and, by 1968, to general manager. He oversaw the production of each week’s Fab-50 playlist — inclusion was virtually the only way a record could become a hit in the Seattle area.”
The son of a coal miner-turned preacher, O’Day was born Paul Wilburn Berg in Norfolk, NE in 1934. When he was 7, his father accepted the pastorate of a Tacoma church and soon landed a regular radio ministry show on Tacoma’s KMO-AM 1360. “He didn’t pound the pulpit, but he could move people emotionally,” O’Day recounted in a 2018 Seattle Times story. “I knew then that I wanted to be on the radio. Every night I’d go into the bathroom and practice announcing into the bathtub because it made my voice resonate.” All that practice paid off — The Times story continues, “At one time, Pat O’Day owned the afternoon airwaves, averaging 35% of the after-school and drive-time audience at a time when traffic was growing dramatically. Teenage car culture was in its heyday. Around the time the Lake City branch of the legendary Dick’s Drive-In opened in 1963, O’Day’s listenership peaked at 41%.”
After leaving KJR in the late ’60s, O’Day became one of the biggest concert promoters in the country, presenting tours for Jimi Hendrix, Elvis Presley, Led Zeppelin, Chicago, The Beach Boys, The Eagles, Neil Diamond, Paul McCartney, Frank Sinatra and many others.
As Jeff O’Day said of his father, “The Pacific Northwest will always seem a little empty without the legendary Pat O’Day. All we can do is focus on the incredible role he had in making the Emerald City a better place to live, and the difference he made in people’s lives.” [Photo from The Seattle Times]
