Dennis J. O'Boyle remembers: "I knew and worked with Jim Brown. We went out selling the services of the ad agency and started up a local group of car dealers on Milwaukee's south side, from the Foster Pontiac dealership on S. 27th St. near Loomis Road, all the way down to near Bob Tolkan Buick and Don Jacobs Toyota near W. College Ave. That dealership group eventually became what is today known as the Automotive Dealers Association of Metro Milwaukee, ADAMM.

Through this and many other ventures, the memory of Jim Brown will live on.

--from The Milwaukee Journal Sentinel -- WED 24 MARCH 1999

By Eldon Knoche of the Journal Sentinel Staff

Jim Brown, one of the city's hottest rock disc jockeys in the late 1960s and '70s, died of lung cancer at St. Michael Hospital.

Brown, 61, likely held the local record for the number of times he worked at one radio station during his career: seven times at WOKY-AM (920). Three of those times he was the station's program director.

Other rock stations he worked at until 1985 were WRIT-AM (1340), WZUU-FM (95.7) and WLUM-FM (102.1).

In those days, Top 40 stations were going through repeated format and ownership changes, according to Jack Lee, a former WOKY DJ and now president of Milwaukee Area Radio Stations (MARS, a local radio station marketing group--D.J.O.)

When "someone wanted to try someting different," the program director would leave on his own accord or maybe be fired, he said. When the new programming didn't work, "they'd hire him back."

The radio business has "personalities and egos," said Bob Barry, longtime WOKY DJ who later went into business with Brown. "Sometimes he quit. Sometimes they let him go."

Lee, who emceed sock hops and other events with Brown, said Brown excelled at personal appearances. He was good-looking, instantly likable and "had the ability to mix with people and make them think he'd known them forever."

"He just loved the radio business," Barry said. "He had a great ear for hit records."

Brown had "a big heart" and hired people who were out of work and needed jobs, Barry said. He also helped local groups get recognized by playing their records.

He was born Sept. 9, 1937, in Mayfield, KY, and his family moved to St. Louis when he was a young child. After high school, he joined the U.S. Army and, while still in the service, got a job as a DJ at a small civilian station. For the next 25 years he worked nowhere but radio stations.

He was on the air in Centralia and Godfrey, IL, Fargo, ND, and Albany, NY, before coming to Milwaukee in the late 1960s. He signed onto WOKY for the 9 a.m. to noon show, following Barry's early morning shift. Then he became WOKY program director while continuing on his own show.

He also was program director at WZUU -- where he hired Larry the Legend (Johnson) -- and at WLUM -- where he was fired in 1985.

After that, Brown promoted records at Milwaukee and Chicago radio stations and in 1988 started a business with Barry called Commercial on Hold.

The pair sold and produced commercial spots for a business' customers to hear when put on hold on the telephone.

Barry did the recording and production, and Brown sold and serviced the accounts. Brown was active in the business until he became ill about 1-1/2 years ago (about Sept. 1998--D.J.O.).

Brown, who was divorced, lived in Brown Deer (WI).

He is survived by two daughters, Dena of Iowa City, IA, and Darla of Kansas City, MO, and his mother, Jean Hargrove of St. Louis.

Copyright (c) 1999 The Milwaukee Journal Sentinel

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