[msb-alumni] Jerry Lubin, Detroit pioneer of underground radio, dead at 80 after COVID-19 battle on February 5, 2021
- From: Steve <pipeguy920@xxxxxxxxx>
- To: <msb-alumni@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
- Date: Fri, 26 Feb 2021 17:01:52 -0500
BlankJerry Lubin, Detroit pioneer of underground radio, dead at 80 after
COVID-19 battle
In a rock-radio era when the great disc jockeys could become iconic local
tastemakers, Jerry
Lubin was a bona fide star. Lubin, a pioneer of underground radio best known
for his years
at Detroits freeform WABX-FM, died Thursday morning in Los Angeles. He was 80.
Lubin had
been hospitalized since Jan. 25 with COVID-19, his son Ethan Lubin told the
Free Press,
although a cause of death has not yet been officially declared. The Detroit
native and
Mumford High School graduate made his name as one of the progressive stations
Air Aces from
1968 through the early '70s, part of a local radio career that included stints
at WRIF-FM,
WWWW-FM and again at WABX, before wrapping up at WLLZ-FM in the 1980s. As part
of the early
'ABX crew, Lubin was a preeminent on-air voice during a fertile, explosive
chapter in
Detroit rock, as music, politics and activism swirled in a hip, heady brew.
There was
something gained other than a paycheck, he told the Free Press in 2003,
reflecting on that
first WABX tenure. A degree of passion was involved. (It was) being able to
express oneself
politically, socially, culturally, whatever on the radio either by saying
things or by
playing things. Lubin and his colleagues struck an antiestablishment tone,
taking the
word-on-the-street to the airwaves while forging a sense of community on the
Detroit scene.
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Month The music, the politics, the dope: None of it is connected without the
radio, Lubin
said of those days. You dont have the antiwar movement and otherwise without
the radio. You
dont have the exposure of the music. Like his fellow Air Aces at WABX Dave
Dixon, Dan
Carlisle, Larry Miller and others Lubin had plenty of freedom, making his own
playlist
choices and operating with just one programming rule: Listen to the guy right
before you, so
youre not transitioning shifts with the same songs. While rock was the stations
core Lubin
recalled the excitement of a new Led Zeppelin or MC5 record in the day's mail
he delighted
in straying far outside assumed lines. The WABX library had 8,000 records, he
said, and all
of them got played on the air. I just wanted to play this stuff and not give it
a name. Dont
niche it. If you give it a niche, its usually I dont like country music, I dont
like opera,
I dont like jazz, I dont like folk, Lubin remembered. I didnt like
pigeonholing. I thought
it would be nice to play other music that seemed to fit. At ABX, if you could
somehow play
Black Sabbath and then Frank Sinatra and it made sense to you, then maybe it
would make
sense to a couple other people. Energized by hometown bands such as the MC5,
Stooges, the
Rationals, SRC and the Frost, Lubin pumped up Detroit music on the air. He was
a man about
town and a regular at the Grande Ballroom, which hed later describe as a hippie
punk teenage
heaven. His scene connections went beyond radio, including work as a road
manager for Mitch
Ryder and, later, as manager for the band Savage Grace. Lubin left WABX by 1972
and took up
with the station that would become WRIF. But he soon became disenchanted by
that outlets
evolving direction too restrictive for his taste and watched dismayed as the
library was
abruptly winnowed down to a selection of commercially acceptable records. The
musical
massacre, he said, was guillotine-like in its precision. After a short time in
San Diego,
Lubin returned to Detroit in 1974 for a gig at the rock station known as W4. He
returned to
WABX from 1977 to 1979 and worked at WLLZ in the 1980s. His time in
broadcasting ended as he
took a job with the U.S. Postal Service. He loved radio, but things were
changing. Having a
family with young kids, he wanted stability, Ethan Lubin said. But radio was
his true
passion and calling. Jerry Lubin moved from Oak Park in 2014 to settle in
southern
California, where his sons and grandchildren lived. Willy Wilson, a Detroit
music buff who
has worked at WDET-FM, WEMU-FM and CJAM-FM, said Lubin was crucial to shaping
his musical
tastes growing up. The radio elder eventually became an important source of
guidance for
Wilson as he forged his own broadcasting career. Long after his time in radio,
Lubin
remained a fixture in Detroit music, popping up around town to catch shows and
working with
local bands. He dug the music and supported it as much as possible. He really
was what youd
thought he'd be from hearing him on the radio, said Wilson. For my mentality,
if I was going
to be an on-air host, how would I pattern myself? Being able to pick the brains
of someone
who played cool music, someone who was out and about on the scene, was very
important. Thats
what I took away from him when I was on the air: Get involved with the
community, meet the
musicians, see whats going on musically. Lubin is survived by two sons, Ethan
Lubin and Adam
Lubin; a daughter-in-law, Erika Lubin; and two grandchildren, Colin and Ellie
Lubin. Funeral
arrangements are pending. Contact Detroit Free Press music writer Brian
McCollum:
313-223-4450 or bmccollum@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
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