Legendary WVON-AM disc jockey Pervis Spann, who helped build a Black radio powerhouse in Chicago, died Monday at 89 at his South Side home from complications of Alzheimer’s disease.
Mr. Spann’s melodious voice and catchphrase on the overnight shift — "Pervis Spann, the BLUES man" — helped countless fans, workers and college students get through all-nighters by listening to their transistor radios.
Mr. Spann — who also worked as a concert promoter — was credited with boosting the careers early on of Aretha Franklin, B.B. King and the Jackson 5. Growing up at their home, she said, "It was nothing to wake up, and B.B. King would be here or Johnnie Taylor." Davis said WVON helped swing crucial votes to Harold Washington, Chicago’s first Black mayor, Carol Moseley Braun, the first Black woman in the U.S. Senate, and President Barack Obama.In a 2013 Chicago Sun-Times interview, he said: "I am the first Black American that built a 50,000-watt radio station on United States soil. And I built it in Memphis. . . This was in the 1980s. I could listen to my station in Memphis riding up and down the Dan Ryan Expressway.