Remembering Jeff Levine
• 2020 has become the saddest year on record — today we received word that we have lost yet another radio veteran — Jeff Levine died of a heart attack on Monday, August 17 at the far-too-young age of 58. Levine, whose resume includes PD stints at WBAB and WLIR/Long Island, followed by a executive stint at Tribune, shared a lifelong connection to Bob Buchmann, now Director of Music Programming at SiriusXM, who called Levine one of his very best friends. Indeed, Buchman was best man at Levine’s 1990 wedding to his wife, Joanne (pictured with Jeff), and Levine was a groomsman at Buchmann’s wedding four years ago (below, far left).
As Buchmann recalled in a loving Facebook tribute, “I met Jeff Levine in my parents’ Dix Hills basement. He was 15 and wanted to help out at the little radio station we were operating out of there. When I became Program Director at WBAB, he again wanted to help out. I thought, ‘what an amazing thinker this kid is,’ We hired him, and fast forward, he became part of the braintrust that elevated us to No. 1 12+ in Nassau/Suffolk in 1985. After I became VP, Jeff got the thank you he richly deserved: WBAB Program Director.” Buchmann added, “He’d always loved newspapers, and as a high school kid Jeff received Newsday‘s Alicia Patterson Journalism Award. After radio, Jeff became a leader at Tribune, helping to run newspaper operations and even working there with a legendary radio thinker, Lee Abrams and his former radio GM, Paul Fleishman.”
Buchmann also shared this delightful story of Levine’s first encounter with Joanne, the woman who later become his wife: “I was at Chevy’s the night he met his beautiful wife Joanne. His pickup line was asking her SAT score… She dated him anyway.” More recently Levine was living in Florida, with homes in Fort Lauderdale and on the Treasure Coast and he had recently sold a South Florida dining/entertainment/shopping guide he owned.
Buchmann added, “What a giving and terrific husband he was, and father to Jenny and Bryan, big brother to Melissa [Ed. note: That’s Melissa Maxx, formerly of WBCN/Boston, KLOS/Los Angeles and until recently, Entercom South Florida], and son to Ira and Harriet. Jeff had a lasting effect on a great many people. I’ve loved reading all the Facebook tributes to him. This seems like a good place to say ‘every day is a gift, no matter our age.’ And Jeff was a gift to so many.”
