Dudley "Bud" Ballou (December 11, 1942 – April 15, 1977) was an American

disc jockey A disc jockey, more commonly abbreviated as DJ, is a person who plays recorded music for an audience. Types of DJs include Radio personality, radio DJs (who host programs on music radio stations), club DJs (who work at nightclubs or music fes ...

and radio personality active for fifteen years on several

commercial radio Commercial broadcasting (also called private broadcasting) is the broadcasting of television programs and radio programming by privately owned corporate media, as opposed to state sponsorship, for example. It was the United States' first model ...

stations during the 1960s and 1970s. Ballou was born and raised in

Liverpool, New York Liverpool is a lakeside village in Onondaga County, New York, United States. As of the 2020 census, the population was 2,242. The name was adopted from the city of Liverpool in the United Kingdom. The village is on Onondaga Lake, in the weste ...

, a suburb of

Syracuse Syracuse most commonly refers to: * Syracuse, Sicily, Italy; in the province of Syracuse * Syracuse, New York, USA; in the Syracuse metropolitan area Syracuse may also refer to: Places * Syracuse railway station (disambiguation) Italy * Provi ...

. His father was Leslie G. Ballou, and he had a brother, James. After a stint as an electronics technician at Western Electric in Syracuse, Ballou began his radio career as disc jockey at

WOLF The wolf (''Canis lupus''; : wolves), also known as the grey wolf or gray wolf, is a Canis, canine native to Eurasia and North America. More than thirty subspecies of Canis lupus, subspecies of ''Canis lupus'' have been recognized, includin ...

in 1962. With Ballou's help WOLF enjoyed a majority share of Syracuse radio listeners in 1963 and 1964. In 1964 he moved to WNDR radio. He also hosted a

black-and-white Black-and-white (B&W or B/W) images combine black and white to produce a range of achromatic brightnesses of grey. It is also known as greyscale in technical settings. Media The history of various visual media began with black and white, ...

television version of "The Bud Ballou Show" on WNYS-TV, channel 9, originating from the station's

Shoppingtown ShoppingTown Mall is an abandoned regional shopping mall in Dewitt, New York. First opened as an open-air shopping center in 1954, it was enclosed in 1973 and remained a major shopping center before no longer being part of Dewitt in March 2020 to ...

studios in DeWitt, which premiered on February 8, 1965. Ballou left the Syracuse area for KBTR in

Denver, Colorado Denver ( ) is a List of municipalities in Colorado#Consolidated city and county, consolidated city and county, the List of capitals in the United States, capital and List of municipalities in Colorado, most populous city of the U.S. state of ...

, in 1966, and in 1967 he moved to WKBW in

Buffalo, New York Buffalo is a Administrative divisions of New York (state), city in the U.S. state of New York (state), New York and county seat of Erie County, New York, Erie County. It lies in Western New York at the eastern end of Lake Erie, at the head of ...

, to replace

Joey Reynolds Joseph Pinto, better known as Joey Reynolds, is a long-time radio show host and disc jockey. Reynolds' broadcasting career started on TV in Buffalo at WGR TV 2 and he worked at various stations, including at WNBC. Career His first radio job wa ...

. As an April Fool's Day stunt in 1967, Ballou hosted one shift on WPOP, trading places with another DJ for that day only. Ballou moved to the

Boston Boston is the capital and most populous city in the Commonwealth (U.S. state), Commonwealth of Massachusetts in the United States. The city serves as the cultural and Financial centre, financial center of New England, a region of the Northeas ...

area in 1968 appearing on WMEX until 1971 and then moving to WVBF in

Framingham Framingham () is a city in the Commonwealth of Massachusetts, United States. Incorporated in 1700, it is located in Middlesex County and the MetroWest subregion of the Greater Boston metropolitan area. The city proper covers with a popula ...

(serving the Boston market) until 1976. During this period he was an avid hockey fan who sometimes watched games even while broadcasting. Ballou died April 15, 1977, at age 34 of a massive stroke at Leonard Morse Hospital in South Natick. He is buried in Fulton, New York. He was married to the former Kasia Rondomanski of Fulton and had four children. Confusingly, a different ex-WOLF disc jockey from the Syracuse area named Howie Castle used "Bud Ballou" as his professional name while working for

Radio Caroline Radio Caroline is a British radio station founded in 1964 by Ronan O'Rahilly and Allan Crawford, initially to circumvent the record companies' control of popular music broadcasting in the United Kingdom and the BBC's radio broadcasting monopol ...

in Europe in late-1967 and early-1968.WOLF AIRCHECKS Page 4
/ref> As of 2002, Castle was the news anchor at KOGO in

San Diego San Diego ( , ) is a city on the Pacific coast of Southern California, adjacent to the Mexico–United States border. With a population of over 1.4 million, it is the List of United States cities by population, eighth-most populous city in t ...

References

External links

WOLF 1490 Tribute Site

Bud Ballou Tribute radio show, 1977
{{DEFAULTSORT:Ballou, Bud 1942 births 1977 deaths American radio DJs Offshore radio broadcasters People from Syracuse, New York Pirate radio personalities 20th-century American musicians