So long, jazzoids. After nearly 30 years, KNKX’s Dick Stein calls it a career
Dick Stein finally felt comfortable telling the story — the real story.
At long last, he was ready to come clean.
“Maybe since we’re doing, ‘now it can be told,’ I can tell you the truth,” Stein said by phone, on the first day of what would be his last week as a jazz DJ and host on KNKX.
“I never knew anyone named Jeannine. I never dated anybody named Jeannine,” Stein went on to admit.
“I just like the song.”
It was one of several revelations divulged Monday, during a wide-ranging conversation that clearly made Stein more uncomfortable than listeners are accustomed to.
After spending the better part of three decades on the air at KPLU and later KNKX, including weaving numerous colorful tales to explain his well-known affinity for the jazz standard “Jeannine,” it turns out that the 75-year-old local radio personality had no idea that his imminent retirement would strike such a chord.
Stein said the reaction to the news — which was announced in a short personal note he penned for KNKX last week — left him “overwhelmed,” and, for once, searching for the right words.
“To be honest, I really didn’t expect all of this. I didn’t think it would be that big of a deal,” Stein told The News Tribune, downplaying the situation with self-effacement and humility.
“I was really just moved by it,” Stein said.
While the prospect of a career twilight tribute might make Stein squirm, it should come as no surprise that news of his retirement has reverberated across the South Sound
Having begun his career as a jazz DJ at KPLU in the early 1990s, Stein’s unique voice and offbeat sense of humor — which seem specifically designed for dry one-liners — have become staples for public radio listeners in the area.
Whether you’re a fan of his favored music or not, Stein’s familiar “Hi ho, Jazzoids!” sign on and his descriptions of the “Big Red Switch” in the studio — which back in the original KPLU days was essentially a reset button that would erase the station’s software — were long ago woven into the local cultural fabric.
So, too, was Stein’s predictable playing of a rendition of “Jeannine” every Friday.
By speakerphone from his Tacoma home on Monday, Stein said it was simply time to hang it up.
If that meant dispelling the mystery of Jeannine after all these years — and putting an end to the playful speculation and innuendo he cultivated behind the microphone, which typically revolved around fabricated romantic encounters from his younger days — so be it.
“I’m no spring chicken. I’ve been doing this for a long time,” Stein said of his decision to call it a career.
“I don’t know what I’m going to do,” he added with a chuckle. “It just seemed like it was time to retire. I’m pretty old.”
Stein’s career playing jazz for local listeners — which will officially end Friday, with a farewell show from 9 a.m. to noon on 88.5 FM — actually marked his second foray into radio.
Originally from New York, Stein joined the Air Force after a brief stint at Emerson College in Boston. Armed Forces Radio took him to Alaska, where he eventually hosted a political call-in show over the commercial airwaves in Anchorage.
Before long, the experience soured Stein, so he left Alaska and spent roughly six months traveling the country in an old Volkswagen bus before eventually settling in Tacoma.
By the time a part-time position at what was then KPLU opened, Stein had built his own chimney sweep business (no really) and had also been doing voice-over work, including commercials for McClendon’s Hardware and recording the American Heritage Dictionary on CD-Rom for Microsoft.
Looking back, Stein said the opportunity to play jazz at KPLU and later KNKX allowed him to do radio on his own terms.
“I had freedom at KPLU and KNKX that I’d never had before in commercial radio,” Stein said. “(The station) let me do my show the way I thought best.”
It was a style that quickly resonated, according to current KNKX station manager Joey Cohn, at least for listeners.
The station’s decision makers at the time, on the other hand, required some convincing.
Cohn worked at KPLU when Stein submitted his audition tape and remembered the station manager’s initial skepticism.
“He had been out of radio for some time. He was a little wacky on some of them, and he was being Dick Stein on some of them,” Cohn recalled of Stein’s tape. “My boss did not want to hire Dick, and I said, ‘Oh, come on. You know, he’s got a sense of humor. Let’s just give him a try.’”
“I always keep an eye and an ear out for humor. Because if you can make somebody laugh, I mean, that’s gold,” Cohn said.
Stein has made former Seattle Times food columnist and critic Nancy Leson laugh more times than she can recall.
Much like Stein’s love of jazz, his passion for food and cooking helped to launch the popular and long-running “Food for Thought’‘ segment, which he has co-hosted with Leson since late 2006.
Leson said that Stein’s passion, along with his wit and the approachable rapport he has built with listeners, comes through loud and clear over the air — whether he’s talking about music or what he’s doing in the kitchen.
While Stein might not fully appreciate it, Leson believes that his departure from KNKX will leave a void.
She described working with Stein as “the best part of my working life for the last 14 years.”
“He’s really a modest guy. I don’t think he recognizes how much he means to people who don’t even know him, that feel like they’re his friend or he’s their daytime companion,” Leson said.
“The radio is what he’s great at.”
This story was originally published December 2, 2020 at 5:00 AM.
