Bill Carlson; Classical Music Announcer at KFAC

Bill Carlson, 80, who parlayed an ability to speak four languages into a 30-year career announcing classical composers and their compositions on radio station KFAC. Carlson was an announcer at the Los Angeles station from 1953 until his retirement in 1983, the heyday of classical music on KFAC-FM (92.3). “The appreciation of good music hasn’t wavered one bit” during that long tenure, he told The Times on his final day of work. Carlson retired to devote his musical talents to singing in the choir at Westwood Hills Congregational Church six years before KFAC became KKBT-FM, a hip-hop and R&B; station. Carlson often credited his hiring by KFAC to the five years he spent in the Army during World War II, working in prisoner intelligence and learning French, German and Italian. With that background, station owners knew he could pronounce the titles of the records he would play on the air. Initially, reading the titles was the extent of his assignment, but eventually Carlson began telling listeners more information about each work he played. “To me, the educational part of it all was extremely important,” he said. “We were trying to spread the good word of culture.” Born in Plum City, Wis., Carlson earned a journalism degree at the University of Wisconsin, where he worked on the campus radio station WHA. He later worked at KMBC in Kansas City, and after the war at WTMJ in Milwaukee, before his Los Angeles audition. On Wednesday in West Los Angeles of cancer.