Dusty Street, Seminal Voice for KROQ and a Pioneering DJ in San Francisco Scene, Dies at 77
23.10.2023 - 16:17
/ variety.com
Chris Willman Senior Music Writer and Chief Music Critic Dusty Street, a DJ familiar to Southern Californians as one of the seminal personalities in the early days of KROQ, and one of the pioneering female voices in rock radio, period, died Saturday at age 77 in Eugene, Oregon. With her sultry voice and deep knowledge of the music she played, Street was not just an essential personality in L.A. rock radio history.
She began her career in San Francisco, DJ-ing at freeform KMPX beginning in 1967 before moving on to KSAN in 1969, where she held court for a decade. She moved on to KROQ in 1979, as the new wave movement was cresting and making that station feel like a clubhouse for a new generation. Her other stints in L.A.
radio included stops at KWST and KLOS. Street eventually moved to Las Vegas and then Cleveland, from which she did her SiriusXM show on the Deep Tracks channel over the last two decades. She settled back in Oregon in 2022 as she battled health problems.
Street was heavily featured in this year’s MGM+ documentary “San Francisco Sounds: A Place In Time.” She was also inducted into the Bay Area Radio Hall of Fame this year. Many former colleagues took to social media to memorialize Street. Freddy Snakeskin, a fellow KROQ alumnus, called her “one of my life’s all-time favorite people” in a post.
“Shattered,” wrote Tami Heide, one of the women who later followed in her wake at the station, saying “thank you for all you did for KROQ, and women radio hosts.” Geno Michellini broke the news on Facebook. “I have been in Eugene the last two days at Dusty Street’s bedside,” he wrote late Saturday night. “The numerous afflictions that she has been so indomitably fighting these last years finally caught up to her.