Remembering Detroit’s ‘Uncle Russ’
• Detroit music industry fans are in mourning, as our friend (and Radio’s Best Friend™) Art Vuolo shared the sad news of the passing of Russ Gibb, affectionately known as “Uncle Russ” — arts lover, free-form DJ, concert promoter and, yes, local high school teacher, who died on Tuesday evening, April 30, 2019 at the age of 87.
Gibb gained local fame as a rebel radio personality on the short-lived “underground” Album Rock format on 100.3 WKNR-FM (now WNIC)/Detroit in the late ’60s and early ’70s. That’s Gibb (left) with The Who’s Pete Townshend, playing the first copy of Tommy on WKNR. In 1966, inspired by San Francisco’s Fillmore West, Gibb leased out a Detroit venue known as the Grande Ballroom and booked a plethora of huge nationally known rock bands like The Who, Cream, Led Zeppelin, Janis Joplin and The Grateful Dead, as well as many popular Detroit names like The MC5, Ted Nugent and Iggy Pop & the Stooges.
Yet, for many years, Gibb’s primary job was as a video-production teacher at Dearborn High School. However, many feel he is best remembered for spreading the now infamous 1969 rumor that Paul McCartneywas dead. As reported in an excellent piece in The Detroit Free Press, “Gibb was on the air at WKNR-FM in October 1969 when a listener called to discuss rumors, then circulating on the underground, that Beatle Paul McCartney had died. Gibb gleefully took up the discussion on his show, pushing the story into the limelight and ultimately helping kick off a cottage industry of ‘Paul is dead’ conspiracy theories based on clues from Beatles lyrics and imagery.”
Yesterday, May 1, a bunch of local radio luminaries, including Dick Purtan, Jo-Jo Shutty MacGregor, local marketer Mike Seltzer, Specs Howard’s Dick Kernen and many others met up for lunch at the famous Buddy’s Pizza in suburban Farmington Hills to remember Russ. Rather than bringing his trusty video camera, Art Vuolo alerted the TV media and WDIV (Local 4) came down and provided some nice coverage, which is posted below. [Photo by Tom Wright]
