Monday, August 25, 2014

RIP Don Cannon

The news was reported by Radio Online...

Veteran radio personality, Don Cannon, known as "The Dean of Philadelphia Radio," has died, reports Philadelphia Magazine. He was 74. Cannon, a New York native who adopted Philly as his home, was heard on morning radio there from 1969 until his retirement in 2004. The "Cannon in the Morning" show started on WIBG and has been heard on WIP, WFIL, WIFI and WSNI. His last stint was with CBS Radio's WOGL-FM from March 1990 to June 2004

Cannon was a friend of John Landecker's, and John told a story about him in the pages of "Records Truly Is My Middle Name"...

One time I was the victim of a practical joke played by one of the other jocks on WIBG — Don Cannon. I was working the 6-10pm shift, and everything seemed normal that night. I put a 45 RPM record on the turntable, put the needle on the record, and it began playing on the air. But as I was talking over the intro, a hand reached over and picked the needle off the record. There was suddenly nothing on the air but my voice. When I turned around to see what happened (with the microphone open), Don Cannon was standing there with a woman wearing a fur coat. When she saw me turn around, the woman opened her coat, and revealed that she was totally naked underneath. I was speechless. And Don Cannon laughed hysterically. To this day that is the only totally naked woman I’ve ever seen at a radio station.

Emphasis: Totally naked.

By the way, here’s a little trivia about Don Cannon. If you watch the first Rocky movie, in the scene where Rocky is drinking the raw eggs, the radio is tuned to WIBG, and the jock on the air is Don Cannon.