Dennis Owens, “the witty voice of classical music radio in Washington,” Dead at 87

Dennis Owens, “the witty voice of classical music radio in Washington whose rumbling bass voice could throw off the atomic clock,” died Sept. 26 at a hospice center in Naples, Fla, reports The Washington Post.  He was 87.

The cause was degenerative heart disease, said his wife, Christiane Owens.

According The Post,”For nearly four decades, until his retirement in 2005, Mr. Owens dazzled his listeners on WGMS with tongue twisters, told gently ribald tales of wayward composers, sniped at radio industry consultants eager to make every station sound the same and delighted loyal listeners with antics generally heard more on pop stations than on the august airwaves of classical outlets.

“Having worked as a country and western DJ in Canada and a pop jock in Bermuda, Mr. Owens brought to classical radio a brash, sometimes biting style that he used to break the stereotype of the classical DJ as a stuffed shirt who might order you to turn your radio off if you mispronounced a German composer’s name.”

“This is not music for people who understand it,” he told The Post in 1997. “It is music to be enjoyed. The people who complain when I play ‘Star Wars’ are retired, in their living rooms, prepared to be concert-hall entertained. I play music for people who are in their frigging cars, they’re agitated by the traffic and they want something to soothe them.”

More here.

PHOTO: The Washington Post