Don Barrett, who chronicled Los Angeles radio and the personalities that contributed to it in a pair of books and the LARadio.com website, has passed away after battling liver cancer. He was 81.
Barrett, who launched L.A.’s KIQQ (now KKLQ) in the early 1970s, wrote “Los Angeles Radio People – 1957-1995” and launched the LARadio.com website to publicize the book and its follow-up “Los Angeles Radio People Volume 2 – 1957-1997,” according to Los Angeles media reporter Richard Wagoner.
The website evolved into a news source for radio changes and developments in the Los Angeles market until October 2020, when he stopped publishing daily updates.
Last month, Barrett posted news of his diagnosis on the website relating to the writings of Joan Didion, who coined the phrase “ordinary instant.”
“For the past two months, I have been in constant pain. Doctors, hospitals, and ERs,” Barrett wrote, Wagoner reports. “Yesterday, I was in the San Luis Obispo ER for more tests. And there it was in an ordinary instant – advanced stages of liver cancer that had spread… The doctor was sorry to pass on the news and couldn’t hold back tears. Cherie and I looked at each other, burst into tears, and almost simultaneously said, ‘I think this is my ordinary instant.’”
Barrett continued, writing that he has been “blessed with two great loves in my life… Cherie [his wife] taught me about unconditional love. She is the greatest blessing ever. It is never too late to start over… My second love has been radio. Thank you for supporting my love affair for over a quarter of a century. I will be shutting down LARadio in the coming days.”
Upon announcing that LARadio.com would no longer be actively posting news and information in October 2020, Barnett wrote, “My goal from day one… was to pay tribute to the men and women who have entertained us in LA Radio for the past half-century. The underlying theme was to paint an accurate, positive picture of on-air radio people who sit in empty rooms broadcasting to thousands of people, weaving tales that kept the listener engaged and enthralled – the ultimate storytellers.”
Upon his death, the website now consists of two photos of Barrett and his wife and the sentence “In an ordinary instant – cancer has taken LARadio.com.”
