Remembering Radio Legend Richard Pegue

by La Risa Lynch

From the Dells to Earth Wind and Fire, radio icon Richard Pegue was best known for playing the tunes that shaped the soundtrack to everyone lives.

Pegue’s knowledge of music had the uncanny ability to evoke memories of a first date, first kiss or even heartache all through a song, said Richard Steele, a friend of Pegue for 50 years. “Richard brought it all to life,” he said. “He connected the dots between you and the music.”

Pegue died last Tuesday from a heart attack at Jackson Park Hospital. He was 65.

Steele called Pegue’s death a major losts. His overnight dusty sets on WKKC and WVON “has become part of the fabric of Chicago.” Dusties or soul music of the 50s, 60s and even 70s “were like a religion to Richard,” he added.

Steele, a talk show host on WBEZ radio, said Pegue knew the back stories to many of his favorite songs and could recite who played on what session and what instrument they played. “He was in it to that degree,” he said.

Music was Pegue’s passion, added his wife of 20 years, Sevina, who added her husband collected books on music “like a woman collects shoes.”

And while everyone has a favorite song, every song was her husband’s favorite. But his program’s theme song, “Stay Awhile with Me,” by Sharon Riddley, had a special place for Richard, she said.

“That’s the one he really stayed with and I don’t know why,” she lamented. “We all have that secret place in our soul where a song means something that we just don’t discuss.”

Pegue’s longevity in the radio business was because he carved out a niche of playing old time classics.

“As music began to change and as radio stations catered to younger audiences, it was very difficult to hear a lot of that music, and there was a demand for that,” Steele said, noting that many of Pegue’s contemporaries are not working in radio today. “It is unusual and unique, because if you are Black, there was a limitation to the kind of formats we could work in,” he said. “It’s not like, when you get a certain age, you can go to a certain format in the general market. It doesn’t work.”

Pegue’s desire to spin vinyl came at age 11 when his grandmother gave him a reel-to-reel tape recorder for his birthday. He spun records at high school dances and even formed a doo-wop group, called the “Belvederes” with fellow Hirsch High School alum Steele.

Pegue’s music talents went beyond spinning tunes. He became a songwriter, releasing the single, “I’m Not Ready to Settle Down,” performed by Lil’ Ben and the Cheers. Other tunes included, “Tear Drops are Falling,” for Henry Ford and the Gifts and “Not Too Cool to Cry,” for Renaldo Domino. He operated a small Black advertising agency where he scored jingles for Fun Town and Moo and Oink.

In 1968, Pegue became the music director for WVON and an original member of the legendary “Good Guys,” with radio personalities Herb Kent, Wesley South and Pervis Spann. When WVON was sold in 1975, Pegue found work at various radio stations in Chicago and northwest Indiana, including WOPA, WJPC and WGCI, where he spent 13 years in several capacities, including program director, operations managers and on-air personality.

Marv Dyson, WGCI’s former station manager and now WKKC’s operations manager, tapped Pegue’s knowledge when he took over the management of WGCI.

“Richard was the first person I called to come help me run the station,” Dyson said, adding that Pegue put in 18-hour days to make the radio station one of the highest rated in Chicago. “I believe much of the success that WGCI enjoys to this day can be directly attributed to the work Richard put in early on at the station back in the day.

“To say he will be missed is an understatement,” said Dyson, who credited much of his 20-year success in the radio industry to Pegue’s tutelage.

Pegue often mentored up and coming disc jockeys, including WVON’s program director La Mont Watts.

The 38-year-old interned under Pegue in 1991 when Pegue worked as a deejay at AM 1390. Watts said he got a crash course in what is dusty music.

“I don’t know enough, but I learned a lot under him through the years,” said Watts, who recalled Pegue’s love for music couldn’t even be felled by a stroke he suffered in 1996.

“Nobody ever ran Richard’s board,” Watts said. “Richard was a one man show. … He was paralyzed on one side [but] with that other good arm, he was working both sides of the board.”

WVON’s Perri Small, one half of the Matt and Perri Show, also was influenced by Pegue. She said he encouraged her to be a consummate professional.

“Richard Pegue was just a radio institution,” she said. “Everybody here at this station is absolutely devastated.”

Sevina Pegue also noted that her husband always gave back to the community, either through mentoring young radio professionals or hosting his biannual dusty conventions. But, his last community service was donating his organs.

The Pegues had a daughter, Dorothy, who died of kidney failure in 2007 at which point Richard decided that he would become an organ donor. “Twenty one people lived because of his donation,” Pegue said. Doctors advised Pegue that Richard’s bone marrow was also viable.

A public viewing will be held today (Saturday) and Sunday, from 2 p.m.- 8 p.m. at Robey Park Manor Funeral Home, 2510 Chicago Road, Chicago Heights, IL.

Funeral services will be held Monday at Apostolic Church of God, 6320 S. Dorchester Ave., starting with a wake commencing at 9 a.m.-11 a.m., with a special performance by Black Ensemble Theater at 10 a.m. and the funeral service beginning at 11 a.m. Interment is at Mt. Hope Cemetery.

Pegue added that Richards final act was saying that he is “not through yet, I have one more song to play.”


Story posted: 3/9/2009

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