LOS ANGELES — This letter arrives courtesy of Sunday morning radio listeners across the country, from those millions in bedrooms and kitchens or near car stereos whose first pop music experiences arrived through the voice of one man, a DJ named Casey Kasem.
Kasem, the warm voice of the syndicated show “American Top 40” on and off for more than three decades and a seminal figure in Los Angeles music starting in the 1960s through his work on local radio and television, died June 15 at age 82. With his passing, generations of listeners who awakened to his pop music sermons have found themselves without a formative educator.
Each week beginning on July 4, 1970, Kasem counted down America’s “hits from coast to coast.” With a comforting voice that delivered each song with enthusiasm and catch-phrases such as “the hits get bigger and the numbers get smaller,” the disc jockey paced through the pop, rock, country and R&B hits that made up the chart. At its peak, “American Top 40” aired on more than 1,000 stations (and continues to this day with host Ryan Seacrest).
The result was must-hear radio. Before the Internet shattered the top 40 template by allowing infinite access to volumes of new music regardless of chart position or buzz, “American Top 40” was, with television’s “American Bandstand,” the most prominent and enduring stethoscope monitoring the country’s musical heartbeat.