Pat O’Day

The son of a coal miner turned preacher, Pat O’Day was born Paul Wilburn Berg in Norfolk, Nebraska, in 1934. When Pat was 7, his father accepted the pastorate of a Tacoma church. The Rev. Berg soon landed a regular radio ministry show on Tacoma’s KMO, 1360, one of the state’s pioneer stations. It wasn't long that young Paul Berg knew that he wanted to be on the radio. Every night he’d go into the bathroom and practice announcing into the bathtub because it made his voice resonate.

Hosting the '67 Seattle Teen Spectacular
O’Day graduated from Bremerton High School in 1953. When he enrolled in broadcasting school in Tacoma and began perfecting his delivery, he says, he realized the secret to his father’s success as a broadcaster was being “one-on-one” with his listeners. “Whenever I was on the air, I’d look at the microphone and envision one person and talk to her or him,” O’Day says.

KVAS in Astoria, Oregon, in the fall of 1956, was O’Day’s first stop on the back roads to a major market. “In between reading lost dog reports and funeral home ads, he developed his ‘Platter Party’ concept, which meant broadcasting rock hits from remote teenage sock hops on weekends, thus turning the previously sterile medium of radio into an ‘event,’ ” wrote Northwest music historian Peter Blecha.

Moving to KLOG in Kelso, the young deejay, still going by Paul Berg, perfected his snappy, “faintly ironic” patter and began staging teen dance parties at the National Guard Armory to supplement his $350-a-month salary. He arrived in Yakima in 1958, lured by the promise of the program director’s slot and a $100 raise.

Pat with Annette Funicello
This audio captures Yakima-to-Seattle events in the Berg-to-O’Day transition. First is Berg on KLOQ in January ’59, just a few days before Berg left for KAYO Seattle. Second (recorded some years later is O’Day’s own words describing his name change. And third is an O’Day aircheck at KAYO in the summer of ’59, a segment that includes newsman Jim Harrison right before a news getaway intro to the Fabulous Wailers’ “Road Runner.” [ LISTEN ] (5:48)

When KJR announced it was switching to a Top 40 format, O’Day landed his dream job. On New Year’s Day 1960, he went on the air at KJR for the first time. Little did he know it would be his home for the next 15 years.

In 1964 and 1965, the national radio industry acknowledged his power, voting him top Program Director. In 1966, O'Day was voted "Radioman of the Year" and was also honored (along with a select few other iconic radio men) with his own volume of the popular Crusin' LP series that featured his powerhouse patter wedged between compiled period hits. As Seattle's highest-profile DJ of the 1960s and the region's dominant dance promoter, Pat O'Day ran Northwest rock 'n' roll for nearly a decade.

Lee Perkins, Pat, Dick Curtis and Jerry Kaye, 1962
O’Day was part of a Beach Boys ticket giveaway with winner Nancy Rall. The Beach Boys, from left, were Mike Love, Dennis Wilson, Carl Wilson and temporary member Glen Campbell c.1965.
O'Day's name became synonymous with KJR, the station he ran for a decade and built into an empire. To really understand his impact you'd have to consider the power of that station back then -- it was not uncommon for KJR to boast of a 37 percent rating, an unheard of dominance by a radio station. Today that rating would be more than the market share of the top seven local stations (KMPS, KUBE, KVI, KIRO, KBSG, KRWM, and KWJZ) combined!

O'Day, KJR's star DJ, was eventually promoted to Program Director and, by 1968, to General Manager. He oversaw the production of each week's Fab-50 play-list -- inclusion on this list was virtually the only way a record could become a hit in this area.

Additionally, O'Day produced or engineered numerous recordings by many of the top bands on the KJR play-list including the Wailers, the Viceroys, the Dynamics, and the Casuals. And if that wasn't enough, he also ran an extensive teendance circuit across the region -- which was the most profitable part of his empire and perhaps the most visible.

By 1962, O'Day was making more than $50,000 a year just from throwing dances. By the mid-1960s O'Day and Associates were presenting over 58 separate teen-dances a week throughout the state. He was also producing concerts featuring Northwest bands, including The Fabulous Wailers, the Ventures and the Sonics.
Pat and Jimi Hendrix, 1968

By 1968, O’Day’s success as a concert promoter and high-key, wisecracking persona — not to mention KJR’s Top 40 format — had bred contempt among the cognoscenti in the city’s growing “underground.”

They branded him a greedy opportunist more interested in ratings and his piece of the action than “music that matters” — Buffalo Springfield, Dylan and The Byrds vs. “empty-headed crowd-pleasers” like the Beach Boys and Jan and Dean.

O’Day rose to station manager, all the while expanding his concert business and investing in real estate, cutting deals and hobnobbing with the stars. Notably, he recalls a pool party where he says Pete Townshend and Roger Daltrey of The Who told their wild-man drummer, Keith Moon, to lighten up a bit because drum kits were more expensive to replace than guitars after the obligatory set-ending bashfest.

O’Day says he dabbled in cocaine and marijuana, but his drug of choice was alcohol: “A lot of times I went back on the air after a four-Jack Daniels lunch, and no one could tell.”

Worried friends staged an intervention in the spring of 1986. “I went to Schick Shadel Hospital vowing I would beat the system, thinking I’d go in for two weeks and get them off my back. Well, I walked out two weeks later and never had another drink. I felt like a new human. … Schick changed my life — maybe saved my life.”
THE KJR SUPERCAR
Pat O'Day (front) and Lan Roberts

If the old deejay sounds like an evangelist, it’s because he is. O’Day became the voice of Schick Shadel’s radio and TV commercials. He still gives the welcoming address to each incoming group of patients.

To recap, few broadcasters had greater impact on Pacific Northwest radio than Pat O’Day. His 15 years at KJR — from jock to program director to general manager, 1959-1974 — and the talent he put on the air, built KJR into an empire which at times captured more than 35 percent of the greater Seattle listening market. He was nationally recognized in 1964, ’65 and ’66. Often forgotten by many was his even greater financial success as an organizer/promoter (O’Day and Associates and later Concerts West) of teen dances and big name music concerts.

August 4, 2014
Those ventures propelled him to even higher levels which attracted legal challenges that his enterprises were unfairly monopolistic — allegations about which he was cleared, but which diminished his power-base. After leaving KJR, O’Day’s financial stamina (through the sale of Concerts West) led to ownership of several radio stations, including KXA, KYYX and KORL in Honolulu. In the early 1980s O’Day’s fortunes fell on hard times and near bankruptcy. He later carved out success in the real estate business.

Pat O'Day passed away on August 4, 2020. He was 85 years old.

WHERE DID PAT WORK? Here is the list: KAST, KLOG, KJR, KORL, KYYX, and KKMI (GM).

Some materials found on this page were originally published by the following: Radio Historian