{"id":2086,"date":"2020-04-18T00:00:00","date_gmt":"2020-04-18T00:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/personmatters.com\/Remembering_Covid_19_Victims\/?p=2086"},"modified":"2020-04-18T00:00:00","modified_gmt":"2020-04-18T00:00:00","slug":"","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/personmatters.com\/Remembering_Covid_19_Victims\/?p=2086","title":{"rendered":"Gene Shay, disc jockey"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Gene Shay \u2011 an American radio personality \u2011 died at the age of 85, on April 17, 2020 from COVID-19 in Lower Merion Township, Pennsylvania.<\/p>\r\n\r\n

Shay was born in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania and was a representative of the city's folk music scene. He produced weekly folk radio shows since 1962 (now on WXPN and his final show on WXPN was on February 1, 2015; previously heard on WDAS-FM, WMMR, WIOQ and WHYY-FM). A founder of the annual Philadelphia Folk Festival and its emcee since its inception, he has been called the "Dean of American folk DJs" by The Philadelphia Daily News and "The Grandfather of Philadelphia Folk Music" by The Philadelphia Inquirer. Shay also served as a host for the online "Folk Alley" stream originating at Kent State University station WKSU and carried on WXPN's website.<\/p>\r\n\r\n

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Some of his early recorded interviews with Joni Mitchell, Jackson Browne, John Denver, Tom Waits, Phil Ochs, Bonnie Raitt and Judy Collins were bootlegged.<\/p>\r\n\r\n

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Shay was the first to bring Bob Dylan to Philadelphia in 1963 for his debut concert. As an advertising writer and producer, he wrote the original radio commercials for Woodstock. He helped design the famous "smiling banjo" logo for the Philadelphia Folk Festival and years later came up with the name World Cafe for the nationally syndicated series produced by WXPN and distributed by National Public Radio.<\/p>\r\n\r\n

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For a few years he edited and published Singer-Songwriter, a newsletter that had subscribers in the United States, Canada and Japan.<\/p>\r\n\r\n

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He received a lifetime achievement award from the Delaware Valley Music Poll in 1994 and was inducted into Temple University's Radio, TV & Theater Hall of Fame on October 25, 2005.<\/p>\r\n\r\n

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He was a partner in Sliced Bread Records and produced a number of folk music collections for that label. The most notable may have been What's That I Hear, The Songs Of Phil Ochs, a tribute album featuring Phil Ochs songs interpreted by more than a score of popular folksingers, and the Philadelphia Folk Festival 40th Anniversary Anthology, a historic four CD collection of recorded Festival performances from Pete Seeger, Bonnie Raitt, Fairport Convention, John Prine, Arlo Guthrie and many others. The Moses Rascoe Blues album he produced for Flying Fish Records was considered for a Grammy Award nomination.<\/p>\r\n\r\n

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Shay served as a Charter Board Member of the North American Folk Alliance, served on the Board of Sing Out! Magazine, the national folk music quarterly founded by Woody Guthrie and Pete Seeger in the late 1940s, and he was a voting member on the Board of Governors of NARAS in Philadelphia.<\/p>\r\n<\/p>

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Gene Shay \u2011 an American radio personality \u2011 died at the age of 85, on April 17, 2020 from COVID-19 in Lower Merion Township, Pennsylvania. Shay was born in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania and was a representative of the city's folk music scene. He produced weekly folk radio shows since 1962 (now on WXPN and his final […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":2087,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"spay_email":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_is_tweetstorm":false},"categories":[46,15],"tags":[1064,704],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i1.wp.com\/personmatters.com\/Remembering_Covid_19_Victims\/wp-content\/uploads\/imageholder\/uploads\/Gene_Shay.png?fit=%2C&ssl=1","jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":1780,"url":"https:\/\/personmatters.com\/Remembering_Covid_19_Victims\/?p=1780","url_meta":{"origin":2086,"position":0},"title":"Bootsie Barnes, jazz saxophonist","date":"April 23, 2020","format":false,"excerpt":"Robert \"Bootsie\" Barnes \u2013an American jazz tenor saxophonist from Philadelphia died in Wynnewood, Pennsylvania, at age 82 on April 22, 2020 from COVID-19. In the 1950s, Barnes played with various musicians in Philadelphia, including Lee Morgan, Philly Joe Jones and Bill Cosby (then a drummer). During the 1960s, he performed\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Noteworthy"","img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":2312,"url":"https:\/\/personmatters.com\/Remembering_Covid_19_Victims\/?p=2312","url_meta":{"origin":2086,"position":1},"title":"Ella King Russell Torrey, human rights activist","date":"April 16, 2020","format":false,"excerpt":"Ella King Russell Torrey \u2011 public information officer for Eleanor Roosevelt, a recipient of the United Nations Human Rights Hero Award, and a human rights activist \u2011 died of complications from Covid-19 on April 14, 2020. 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He is widely regarded as one of the most important\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Noteworthy"","img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":2868,"url":"https:\/\/personmatters.com\/Remembering_Covid_19_Victims\/?p=2868","url_meta":{"origin":2086,"position":4},"title":"Marcelo Peralta, performer","date":"March 12, 2020","format":false,"excerpt":"Marcelo Peralta \u2013an Argentine performer, teacher, composer, and arranger who played saxophone, piano, accordion, and the Latin American aerophones \u2013 died from Covid-19 on 10 March 2020. \u00a0 This section does not cite any sources. Please help improve this section by adding citations to reliable sources. Unsourced material may be\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Noteworthy"","img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":1611,"url":"https:\/\/personmatters.com\/Remembering_Covid_19_Victims\/?p=1611","url_meta":{"origin":2086,"position":5},"title":"Dick Lucas, American football player","date":"April 30, 2020","format":false,"excerpt":"Dick Lucas a professional American football player who played tight end for five seasons for the Pittsburgh Steelers and Philadelphia Eagles died on April 29, 2020, due to complications of COVID-19 Lucas was a native of Boston and played in college at Boston College. He was selected in the 10th\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Noteworthy"","img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]}],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/personmatters.com\/Remembering_Covid_19_Victims\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2086"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/personmatters.com\/Remembering_Covid_19_Victims\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/personmatters.com\/Remembering_Covid_19_Victims\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/personmatters.com\/Remembering_Covid_19_Victims\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/personmatters.com\/Remembering_Covid_19_Victims\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=2086"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/personmatters.com\/Remembering_Covid_19_Victims\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2086\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/personmatters.com\/Remembering_Covid_19_Victims\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/2087"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/personmatters.com\/Remembering_Covid_19_Victims\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=2086"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/personmatters.com\/Remembering_Covid_19_Victims\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=2086"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/personmatters.com\/Remembering_Covid_19_Victims\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=2086"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}