The Last DJ: Larry Monroe
Austin's personal trainer for good musical taste
“Free-form radio will not die as long as I’m alive,” Larry Monroe told the Austin Chronicle in 1997. Thirteen years later, he signed off at KUT, which had cut his hours on-air and implemented a partial playlist. His final “Blue Monday” on KUT was August 30, 2010. After 29 years at the station, he moved on to KDRP (AKA Sun Radio) in Dripping Springs for the freedom to play whatever he wanted to.
On the morning of Jan. 17, 2014, Monroe signed off for the last time. The beloved Austin music institution, who suffered from chronic obstructive pulmonary disease, died after being admitted to the hospital with breathing difficulties. He was 71.
Less than two weeks later, his photo flashed before a national audience as part of the Grammys’ “In Memoriam” segment. This mid-market DJ with the voice of you and I was included because no one person had done more for Austin music. Fittingly, he was there between bluesmen Bobby “Blue” Bland and Magic Slim. If there’s anything Monroe appreciated it was a nice segue (which he spelled “SEGWAY” on his license plate).
A native of Indiana, Monroe attended Ball State University, where he had a friendly rivalry in the radio-televison-film department with David Letterman. Watching his former classmate’s career soar didn’t make Monroe jealous in the least. He was a radio man, pure and simple, following a dream that started as a teenager when he announced his high school’s basketball games.
Larry Monroe lived to make a connection through music. He wanted to play something that listeners would hold in their hearts, and after so many years of that he became a piece of this town’s spiritual infrastructure.
Like Clifford Antone, Monroe did not just want to provide entertainment, but education and enlightenment. Kids here grew up like Willie Pipkin, who taped every episode of “Blue Monday” when he was learning to play guitar, and Heather West, whose earliest memories include her mother swaying in the kitchen to Little Walter and Big Mama Thornton. Pipkin is now one of the best blues guitarists in Texas, and West is a Chicago publicist who worked on so many great Ponderosa Stomps in New Orleans. If you wanted to give your kids a great musical head start you superglued the dial to KUT. And let’s not forget Paul Ray’s “Twine Time,” which was a Saturday night ritual when getting dressed to go out.
Monroe and Ray upheld this standard of music: It’s not just for background, it belongs deep inside. There was a relationship with listeners, so the outrage was quick after KUT moved to minimize the veterans. An organization called Save KUT put together “Twang Dang Doodle,” a three-club event to raise awareness of this homogenization of Austin radio. One of the highlights was a reunion of Two Nice Girls, whom Larry championed on KUT. Even more significantly, the DJ helped pull Laurie Freelove of the band out of homelessness and depression. He also did everything he could for Blaze Foley.
Special programs on the nights that Doug Sahm and Townes Van Zandt passed away remain some of the most moving hours of Austin radio. FCC stood for fostering community connection.
Listen to Larry tell the story about Townes and the Lucinda t-shirt.
Monroe worked his way up in radio, which is the best way to do anything, though it doesn’t seem so at the time. His first paying gig was as an overnight DJ in Ann Arbor, Mich. He then got a job at WABX in Detroit, one of the best underground stations in the country. But when the X switched to a more commercial format, Monroe quit on the air.
Fuck this radio bullshit! He tried menial jobs for a couple years, but returned to his first love at a small station in Nashville. When Billboard named cosmic cowboy champion KOKE-FM (led by program director Joe Gracey), the most innovative station in the country, Monroe knew that was where he needed to be.
But by the time he got to Austin in 1977, success had led to excess and the progressive country movement was nursing a hangover. Monroe got hired by KOKE, but two weeks later the station’s format changed to country hits. “My heart just dropped,” Monroe told the Chronicle in 1997. “My job had disappeared.” He bounced around a few Austin stations, but he finally found his place on March 1, 1981, when he was hired at KUT.
“One of the things that disturbed me most about radio was the randomness of it,” he told the Chronicle. “What I wanted to figure out was how to make the transitions smooth.”
Monroe’s encyclopedic knowledge of songs allowed him to perfect his style of putting them together to create a mood. Then, every night after his show he’d hit the clubs- 444 nights in a row was his longest streak. If your music moved him, and you had a CD, Larry would play it on the air. That’s how things worked in Austin back then.
Like most of Monroe’s favorite recordings, this story needs a bridge.
There used to be a nondescript creek overpass near Stacy Park in South Austin, but after Larry passed, his girlfriend Ave Bonar, artist Stephanie DiStefano, and dozens of volunteers got permission from the city to transform the bridge in the 1500 block of East Side Drive. The cross street to the “Larry Monroe Forever” Bridge is Monroe. Covered with hundreds of mosaic tiles, it’s a beautiful tribute to the man who crossed into musical worlds they might have otherwise not discovered.
One side of the bridge is dominated by a 22-foot recreation of the words and musical notes of one of Monroe’s favorite songs, “To Live Is To Fly” by Townes Van Zandt.
Everything is not enough/ And nothin' is to much to bear/ Where you been is good and gone/ All you keep is the getting there
It doesn’t take any talent to play records. Having good taste doesn’t take much effort either. But even if Monroe didn’t play an instrument with dazzling proficiently, he was a musician. An artist. He put his shows together like a guitarist builds his solos, knowing that one “clam” just blows the whole thing. At his best, he created music from music.
I taped dozens of blue Monday shows in the 90s. I was listening to 4/25/94 this morning.