{"id":8313,"date":"2015-07-27T20:15:19","date_gmt":"2015-07-28T01:15:19","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.robertfeder.com\/?p=8313"},"modified":"2015-07-27T20:34:36","modified_gmt":"2015-07-28T01:34:36","slug":"legendary-dj-landecker-quits-wls-fm","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/robertfeder.dailyherald.com\/2015\/07\/27\/legendary-dj-landecker-quits-wls-fm\/","title":{"rendered":"Legendary DJ Landecker quits WLS FM"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"John<\/a>

<\/a> John Records Landecker<\/p><\/div>\n

John Records Landecker, one of Chicago radio\u2019s most celebrated disc jockeys, is calling it quits. His last show as evening host on Cumulus Media classic hits WLS FM 94.7<\/a> will be Friday.<\/p>\n

Landecker, 68, who\u2019s been working without a contract since he started in January 2012, said the decision to leave was entirely his own.<\/p>\n

\u201cPeople use the word \u2018retire.\u2019 I don\u2019t \u2014 at least not yet. \u2018Retire\u2019 says it\u2019s over,\u201d he told listeners in a prepared announcement Monday. \u201cI say things like: \u2018My biological grandfather clock is ticking.' . . . It\u2019s time to go and see if any of those things that I\u2019ve claimed to want to try for years are really things I want to try.\u201d<\/p>\n

In an interview earlier Monday, Landecker said this was the first time in his career he was leaving a radio station voluntarily without having another job lined up. \u201cI\u2019m not leaving 94.7 WLS with the intention of going on another radio station at all,\u201d he said. \u201cIf I do somewhere, fine. If I don\u2019t, fine. But if I do, it\u2019s definitely going to be on my terms 100 percent.\u201d<\/p>\n

One thing he knows he won\u2019t miss is the music he\u2019s been playing night after night: \u201cI graduated from high school in 1965. All I really want to hear is the \u201960s. I\u2019ve had it with the \u201970s, the \u201980s, now and all that. I don\u2019t want to hear any of that stuff anymore. In about 10 years, maybe I\u2019ll want to hear it again.\u201d<\/p>\n

Landecker said his immediate plans are to visit his daughters and granddaughter in Los Angeles. (One daughter, actress Amy Landecker, stars in the Amazon comedy series \u201cTransparent,\u201d now in production on its second season.) After that, he hopes to pursue other projects \u2014 \u201cthings I have thought about for years\u201d \u2014 including writing a screenplay and podcasting. \u201cThe world of possibilities opens up,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

No word yet on a replacement for Landecker from 8 to 11 p.m. weekdays. WLS FM has been without a program director since July 15 when Jan Jeffries transferred<\/a> to WRQX in Washington, D.C. Although he and Jeffries were close, Landecker said he made his decision to leave before he learned of Jeffries\u2019 departure.<\/p>\n

As fans well know, Landecker\u2019s destiny was foreshadowed at birth in Ann Arbor, Michigan, where his parents chose his mother\u2019s maiden name \u2014 Records \u2014 as his middle name. \u201cThey had no way of knowing that their son would become a radio disc jockey, or that this name they had chosen would become my unlikely calling card,\u201d he wrote in Records Truly Is My Middle Name,<\/em> his critically acclaimed<\/a> 2013 memoir published by Eckhartz Press.<\/p>\n

Landecker took Chicago by storm in 1972 when he landed the nighttime shift at 50,000-watt powerhouse\u00a0WLS AM 890.<\/a>\u00a0While still in his 20s, he elevated Top 40 radio to performance art each night with his quick wit, high energy and rapid-fire style, honing such trademark bits as \"Boogie Check\" and \"Americana Panorama.\" \u201cI haven\u2019t worked at a radio station before or since that had the kind of camaraderie we had at WLS in the 1970s,\u201d Landecker recalled in his book. \u201cIt was like one big non-stop party.\u201d<\/p>\n

Except for brief detours in Toronto and Cleveland, he spent most of his career on the air in Chicago, including stints at WLUP, WAGO, WCKG, WJMK, WZZN, WGN, back at WLS AM, and, since 2012, at WLS FM. He officially achieved legendary status when he was enshrined in the radio wing of the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame.<\/p>\n

In the latest Nielsen Audio survey, WLS FM tied for 21st in evenings with a 1.8 percent share and cumulative weekly audience of 265,100.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

John Records Landecker, one of Chicago radio\u2019s most celebrated disc jockeys, is calling it quits. His last show as evening host on Cumulus Media classic hits WLS FM 94.7 will be Friday. Landecker, 68, who\u2019s been working without a contract since he started in January 2012, said the decision to leave was entirely his own.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[1],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/robertfeder.dailyherald.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8313"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/robertfeder.dailyherald.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/robertfeder.dailyherald.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/robertfeder.dailyherald.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/robertfeder.dailyherald.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=8313"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/robertfeder.dailyherald.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8313\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":8317,"href":"https:\/\/robertfeder.dailyherald.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8313\/revisions\/8317"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/robertfeder.dailyherald.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=8313"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/robertfeder.dailyherald.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=8313"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/robertfeder.dailyherald.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=8313"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}