Alan Harvey; Longtime L.A. Radio Personality

Alan Harvey, Southern California radio personality for three decades, has died. He was 70.

Harvey died Sept. 21 in Burbank, according to his longtime friend and colleague, Ed Pyle, executive producer at KNX-AM (1070).

An expert on jazz, Harvey was known for his KLON-FM (88.1) program “Saturday Evening Jazz,” which ran for eight years and featured records from his vast collection.

Don Barrett, author of the book Los Angeles Radio People, said Harvey loved jazz so much that he even named his dog Swing.

Born Albert Hoefeld in Chicago, Harvey earned a degree in speech from Northwestern University and began his career as a staff announcer for a Chicago television station. He was ousted, Barrett said, for helping organize the Television Authority union, the forerunner of the American Federation of Television and Radio Artists.

Harvey moved west and, other than musical stints on KLON and KNOB-AM, worked mostly in news radio. Pyle said Harvey wrote news for KNX an KFWB-AM (980) and served as news director, anchor or commentator for KIIS and KDAY, among others, from the 1960s through the 1980s. He also worked for the late Armand Hammer at Occidental Petroleum.

Quoting John Chancellor, Harvey once said of his own career: “I have outlived my culture.”