Radio Legend Uncle Joe Benson Dead at 76

Los Angeles radio legend and former Ultimate Classic Rock Nights host Uncle Joe Benson has died at the age of 76, his family shared Friday (Feb. 27) on social media.

Benson hosted UCR’s nationally syndicated nighttime radio show from 2018 until 2024.

“In the early hours of Tuesday, February 24th, Joe passed away peacefully from Parkinson’s Disease, Parkinson’s Dementia & complications of a fall,” they wrote. His passing capped an incredible career of nearly 60 years behind the microphone, including more than 30 years at the legendary Los Angeles radio station 95.5 KLOS.

“A radio legend silenced,” Rita Wilde said on Facebook. The two DJs worked together for years at KLOS as well as The Sound. “Nothing but love and respect. At least you aren’t in pain anymore. Love you forever, JB.”

Uncle Joe’s Early Days in Radio

His career began in 1968 in a humble fashion, they noted, “in a double wide trailer next to a cornfield in Illinois.” His initial tour of the Midwest airwaves included additional stops in Wisconsin, including Milwaukee. He eventually left that city to go to Cleveland where he spent a little more than a year hosting the morning show at WWWM-FM (M105).

Journalist and author David Budin was working at M105 in the marketing department in those early years and forged a friendship with the air personality. “I talked to Joe a lot and he thought I was funny, so he had me on his show, too,” he recalled. “I was there to be funny, but his excuse for having me on was that I was a rock musician – then called Baxter Shadowfield – so he’d start out pretending to talk about music, but would quickly branch out into … anything.”

Even once he was no longer in the building proper, Budin found himself still being tapped for on-air hijinks. “Joe would call me at home – live on the air – at 6 or 7 in the morning,” he remembered. “The phone (next to my bed) would ring, waking me up, and Joe would say, ‘Baxter. Hang on. We’re live in 30 seconds.’ And I’d have to try to regain consciousness and start thinking funny [quickly].”

Uncle Joe Heads to Los Angeles and Helps Break Motley Crue and Ratt

In October of 1980, Benson departed from M105 and scored a big gig at KLOS, where he spent close to 30 years, anchoring a variety of shifts, including afternoon drive and nights. His now-legendary deep pipes and seemingly bottomless musical knowledge made him a fixture of the Los Angeles radio and music scene. The 7th Day was broadcast on the station on Sunday evenings and quickly became a fan favorite, a weekly destination where they could count on hearing an album of Benson’s choice in its entirety.

His Local Licks program, also heard on KLOS, boosted bands like Motley Crue and Ratt, giving the future hard rock legends important early airplay, which proved to be crucial to their eventual career success.

“We had no [promotion]. Ratt was not [on] a major label,” vocalist Stephen Pearcy told UCR in 2023. “Our first EP was [released on an] independent [label], Time Coast, through our manager, Marshall Berle. “I think he had some connections, but Benson, man, he embraced us and really helped us.”

“I remember the first time hearing [music from the EP] on the radio. [Ratt guitarist] Robbin [Crosby] and I were driving out of Hollywood, in the wee hours. We were going back to Ratt Mansion West and all of a sudden there’s our song,” he recalled. “And we’re like, you guys, they’re playing our song! Then, that ends, we change the channel, and it’s on again on another local station. Uncle Joe embraced the band and really supported us.”

Benson himself briefly highlighted the Ratt association during one of his shifts on KLOS in the early ’90s, which you can hear in the below clip about three minutes and 56 seconds in.

Hear Uncle Joe Talk About Ratt

ZZ Top, Steve Perry Were Fellow Fans of Uncle Joe

As Benson’s career progressed, he became well-known within the artist community and became a trusted voice and friend of numerous rock legends. His knowledge could occasionally leave musicians both within and outside of the L.A. area speechless.

“We had the honor of interviewing Jimmy Page about his book. Here’s a rock god and a radio legend. They barely knew each other, but you could see the respect Jimmy had for Joe and vice versa,” Benson’s longtime radio producer Mike Sherry tells UCR.. “But the part that I remember the most was Joe asking a question. I can’t recall what it was, but Jimmy paused, looked at Joe and he said, ‘How did you know that?’ That’s how knowledgeable Joe was. He knew anything and everything!”

“Joe will be truly missed. He rocked more than sixty years over the airwaves, in print and on the race track,” ZZ Top’s Billy Gibbons said in an email to UCR. “Joe was a triple-threat guy whose passion could be discerned in his delivery every time he ignited the mic.”

ZZ Top With Uncle Joe Benson

Steve Perry was another friend and fan, as Sherry remembers — he even called the radio station one particular year while Benson was on the air, to wish him a happy birthday.

Perry and others, shared countless anecdotes with the radio host that went far beyond the usual surface stories about the songs. For the former Journey vocalist, one moment found him sharing memories of when he heard AC/DC for the first time, “this new band,” who were opening the shows for the Bay Area group.

“Everybody said they were really rockin,” he told Benson during an interview. “I was showing up the last 10 minutes of every show. I’m trying to sing all my stuff [backstage] and warm up, and I hear this, ‘I’m a problem child!’ I said, ‘What the hell is that?’ And I run out and I see Bon Scott just layin’ in down, and the [Young] brothers are driving, and the audience has their fists in the air, just shaking in time with the music.”

“I was stunned. I just said, ‘This is unbelievable. What is this?’ And then I had to follow this band? Go out there, sing ‘Wheel in the Sky?’ What am I doing? They’re killing me here!’”

READ MORE: Steve Perry Recalls AC/DC Opening for Journey

Watch Heart’s Nancy Wilson Talk With Uncle Joe Benson

Uncle Joe’s Garage

There’s a wealth of recordings of Benson all over the internet, including YouTube. In the later years of his career, he posted on ongoing series of videos at his channel, Uncle Joe’s Garage — and that wasn’t just a random name. As Billy Gibbons hinted with his mention of the “race track,” the DJ himself was a rabid fan of racing.

But he went far beyond just talking about it on the radio. By the mid-’90s, he was participating in as many as 50 events each year, both as a stock-car driver or drag racer. It was perhaps one of his most challenging endeavors and he welcomed the uphill nature of the profession he’d chosen to get involved with.

“The great drivers–the Unsers and the Andrettis and people like that–I know I’m nowhere near that level,” he shared with the Los Angeles Times in a 1995 interview. “But if I can go out there and compete with people on an even basis, to me that’s the greatest kick . . . not to win so much, but to get out there and get better each lap and actually run a good race and not make any stupid mistakes.”

It was a passion which had deep roots, going back to his teenage years when he built his first hot rod. When he welcomed his first child in 1996, he started to slow things down a bit, though he addressed the relative change in status with typical humor. “I made a conscious decision to do things that did a little bit less economic damage,” he quipped in 2000. “Economically, I can afford to take [my 1994 Nissan 300ZX] to Buttonwillow [Raceway in Bakersfield], get more seat time and have more fun.”

Jimmy Page With Uncle Joe

Uncle Joe Meets Ultimate Classic Rock

When you have the kind of career that Benson enjoyed, it seems almost inevitable that you might eventually find yourself working at a place called Ultimate Classic Rock. But it took a few additional steps.

After leaving KLOS initially in August of 1997, he ended up at KCBS-FM in the area doing mornings for seven years. He also began hosting the syndicated radio show Off the Record. An additional seven years followed where he was back at KLOS.

In 2013, he started middays at the sorely missed 100.3, The Sound, KSWD-FM. He stayed there through the station’s unfortunate demise in 2018 and thought he might step away from the microphone.

“I’m thinking I’m semi-retired. That there’s nothing in this town for me right now,” he told the Orange County Register in 2018. “I needed to take some time off, give my body and brain a chance, and talk to the family. Evidently, the kids grow when you’re not watching.”

Instead, he had a good phone interview at Ultimate Classic Rock, but thought probably nothing would happen. Something did indeed happen. “By God, probably a week later, [they] said, ‘OK, you can start on Monday,’” he remembered “So I went and said, ‘OK, let’s see what happens.'”

It was a big victory for Ultimate Classic Rock, as the show’s programmer, Joe Limardi, remembers now. “When the UCR program first started, I knew it was designed with Uncle Joe in mind,” he says. “When we finally got him as host, it took on the sound and essence that I had always envisioned it having.”

“We had a production meeting one time and I vividly remember Joe saying that in all of his radio and syndicated experiences, UCR was one of the best programmed shows he’s ever been a part of,” Limardi adds. “From the music to the features to the final production, it was a class act. You don’t take commentary like that from a legend lightly.”

Uncle Joe at the Whisky for Aerosmith in 2013

The Man With the Golden Pipes

In closing, Mike Sherry reflected on the radio miles he logged with Uncle Joe. “I spent almost 20 years from KLOS to The Sound to Ultimate Classic Rock producing the man with the golden pipes,” he says. “If Joe was in a room, you knew it. Not by his stature, by his voice. He will be missed, but his legend lives on with his stories, his books and his thousands of interviews with some of the greatest musicians, drivers and comedians of the last 60 years.”

“Aerosmith played a secret show at the Whisky in 2013 {complete with a guest appearance from Slash) and Joe and I got invited to cover it,” he details. “From the moment we walked out the car, until the show started and then right after the show, it was just constant people coming up to Joe to talk to him. From musicians, to industry people to fans, it was nonstop. It really is telling on how much he was loved and respected.”

Watch Aerosmith Perform at the Whisky in 2013