Dusty Frances Road, one of many first feminine disc jockeys on the West Coast, died Saturday in Eugene, Ore. She was 77.
She was most lately the host of SiriusXM Deep Tracks, however is greatest identified for her time working at KROQ-FM, often called Ok-Rock. The station turned a pressure in punk and new wave music within the late ’70s into the Eighties.
“We now have misplaced one among our personal. Dusty Road has handed away after 77 joyous journeys across the solar. And sure, Dusty Road was her actual identify,” SiriusXM Deep Tracks, Road’s most up-to-date employer, shared Sunday in a Fb put up.
“Dusty was one of many first feminine rock jocks on the West Coast, working at KMPX and KSAN in San Francisco from 1967 by way of 1978 earlier than heading to Los Angeles, the place she held court docket within the evenings from 1979 by way of 1996 on KROQ. … We’re heartbroken, Fly Low Pricey Good friend and Keep away from the Radar.”
After a while at smaller stations, Road joined KROQ in 1978. She briefly left KROQ in 1980 and frolicked at native rock stations KLOS and KWST, earlier than returning to anchor KROQ’s night programming from 1981 to 1989.
Road departed KROQ in 1989, claiming that she was a “renegade” to the more and more tightened programming demanded. She additionally was a vehement opponent of the Dad and mom Music Resoure Heart, which was then making an attempt to impose a scores system on music recordings.
She landed on her toes in Cleveland on the Rock Corridor of Fame, becoming a member of upstart SIriusXM on its fifth flooring studios.
Veteran KLOS DJ Geno Michellini posted on Fb relating to Road’s dying.
“I’ve been in Eugene the final two days at Dusty Road’s bedside. The quite a few afflictions that she has been so indomitably preventing these final years lastly caught as much as her. I’m writing with a damaged coronary heart to say that Dusty left us tonight,” Michellini wrote. “She died peacefully, quietly and surrounded by love in a fantastically serene location overlooking probably the most lovely lake you could possibly ever need. As befitting the queen that she was.
“Tonight I misplaced top-of-the-line mates I ever had and the world misplaced a radio and music legend … She was all that and a lot extra. There’ll by no means be one other Dusty Road. The queen is gone, however she’ll by no means be forgotten.”
No memorial plans have been revealed.
