On the evening of Saturday, October 22, fresh off his weekly Wake-Up Club radio show and just hours before heading back downtown to do his Sunday-afternoon program on WVAZ, the immortal Herb Kent proved to be mortal.
Mr. Kent never demonstrated that purity better than the last time I encountered him. I’ve enjoyed a number of run-ins with my hero over the decades: he DJed my wedding; he was a guest a number of times on my cable-access kids’ show, Chic-a-Go-Go; my mother-in-law helped him get his honorary Stony Island street sign; and when I located the rarest and earliest Michael Jackson studio recording for a Reader story in 2009, the tape was on the same property as Dusty Stepper, Herb’s famed horse. So I was honored to be invited on his Sunday show earlier this year.
Herb Kent – Chicago radio G.O.A.T.! Immortal! My puppet and I beat him at battle of the best, he DJ’d my wedding, he made me laugh a million times. Best radio voice ever.
A photo posted by Jake Austen (@jake.austen) on Oct 23, 2016 at 1:32pm PDT
