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Mary Turner Pattiz, who as Mary Turner was a silky-voiced disc jockey at KMET, the album-oriented rock station that was the soundtrack of Southern California within the Seventies and early ’80s, earlier than leaving radio to turn into an dependancy counselor and philanthropist, died on Might 9 at her house in Beverly Hills. She was 76.
The trigger was most cancers, mentioned Ace Younger, a former KMET information director.
KMET was a hard-rocking upstart within the early Seventies, with its laid-back jockeys delivering a gentle movement of latest music from bands just like the Who, Pink Floyd and Steely Dan, together with barely naughty patter — a little bit of sexual innuendo, limitless stoner jokes — that was a welcome counter to the Prime 40 hits churned out by AM stations.
They had been proud renegades, mixing surf experiences with information protection of occasions like the Mexican government’s spraying of its illegal marijuana crops with paraquat, a lethal poison. (When Jim Ladd, a late-night D.J., informed his listeners to telephone the White Home to protest the apply, 5,000 callers jammed the White Home switchboard.) Their vivid yellow billboards had been typically put in the other way up. They’d a signature cheer, “Whooya” (the “w” was silent), that each one the jockeys labored into their packages; the neologism was a refinement, Mr. Younger mentioned in an interview, “of the coughing sound we made after we smoked an excessive amount of pot.” Ms. Pattiz — then Mary Turner — was often known as “the Burner,” a nickname mentioned to have been given to her by Peter Wolf, the lead singer of the J. Geils Band, for her seductive supply and beauty, and she or he had the prime nighttime spot, from 6 to 10 p.m.
When main bands got here to city to carry out or promote a brand new document, they made a cease at KMET to be interviewed by Ms. Pattiz. She was soft-spoken and conversational, a gentle interlocutor who once teased Bruce Springsteen by asking, “Do you actually know a fairly little place in Southern California, down San Diego manner, the place they play guitar all evening and all day?” (She was quoting “Rosalita,” a music from Mr. Springsteen’s second album.) Most essential, she let her topics speak with out interruption. For his half, Mr. Springsteen was so taken along with her that he requested her on a date, and at his performance on the Discussion board in Inglewood, Calif., the evening after the interview, he devoted the music “Promised Land” to her.
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