LA Classic Rock Radio Icon Jim Ladd Passes Away at 75: Jim Ladd’s star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame will be decorated with flowers on Tuesday in his honor. Ladd was a DJ and producer who worked at KMET, KLOS, and SiriusXM and promoted classic rock for many years. He also met many of the best rock acts of the time.
Ladd had a heart attack late Saturday night and died early Sunday morning. He was 75 years old. DJ Meg Griffin revealed the death on SiriusXM on Monday, during the time slot of Ladd’s weekly show on the Deep Tracks satellite channel.
According to Tom Petty, Ladd served as the inspiration for the song and album title “The Last DJ.” He had been with SiriusXM since 2012 and was one of the few free-form rock DJs still working in radio.
LA Classic Rock Radio Icon Jim Ladd Passes Away at 75
Over fifty years ago, Ladd worked as a music radio host. While at KMET in the late 1970s and early 1980s, he was named Los Angeles’s best FM DJ. While working at the station, Ladd made and presented “InnerView,” a nationally broadcast show that ran for an hour and was shown on more than 160 stations from 1974 to 1986. John Lennon, Pink Floyd, U2, Joni Mitchell, Eagles, and Led Zeppelin were some of the people he talked to.
Besides that, he made the nationally televised show “Headsets” and came up with thematic sets of songs that became his trademark, with his catchphrase “Lord have mercy!”
Ladd was born in Lynwood on January 17, 1948. He started his work in 1969 as the midnight to six a.m. disc jockey at KNAC, an FM station in Long Beach that had just moved to playing underground rock music.
Ladd went to KLOS-FM (95.5) in 1971 and hosted one of the most popular shows on FM radio. In 1975, he went to the competing KMET-FM (94.7) to play “free form rock and roll” again.
Ladd’s most famous moment at KMET was in 1977, when he told fans to call the White House’s 24-hour public comment line to speak out against the use of the herbicide paraquat on marijuana fields in Mexico. Ladd said that the listeners messed up the White House’s systems for days on end.
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Ladd stayed with KMET until 1987, when it changed its program. After playing a rebellious DJ on Roger Waters’ concept record “Radio K.A.O.S.,” Ladd went back to TV and radio in Los Angeles in 1991 at the classic rock station KLSX.
Again, Ladd joined KLOS in 1997. In 2011, he left for SiriusXM to lead his own show on the Deep Tracks channel.
Ladd’s autobiography, “Radio Waves: Life and Revolution on the FM Dial,” came out in 1991. It was about his time as a top rock radio DJ in Los Angeles, both before and after a company took over his station.
In 2000, the Los Angeles Music Awards named Ladd “Air Personality of the Year.” In 2007, The Hollywood Arts Council gave her the Media Arts Award. Ladd got a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame in May 2005.
The address of Ladd’s star is 7018 Hollywood Blvd. At 11 a.m., flowers will be put on it.
Helene Hodge-Ladd, Ladd’s wife and a writer and singer, will miss him. There were going to be memorial events.
