In about 1985, I was at the front desk of KLON when a white haired guy in white dress shoes and an expensive looking Hawaiian shirt breezed in and handed the receptionist his card, announcing “my name is Bob Keane and I have a big band, a jazz band, and I’d like to introduce myself to your station,” or something like that.



Me:  “Bob Keane. The Del-fi Records’ Bob Keane, the man who discovered Ritchie Valens?”



“Yes.”  He wanted to downplay that aspect of his life, figuring it was all history and that his big band was the thing to push.  



Well, I pushed back, invited him on my show and conducted an extensive interview (some call it an interrogation), playing records by people he worked with – from Sam Cooke – to Ritchie Valens and many others.  



After that interview, Keane realized there was unfulfilled interest in his rock and roll past and about 1995, Keane reactivated his label(s), hired a staff of three and put out a series of CDs. I wrote many of the liner notes and actually got paid, something Keane had to be convinced would be worth his while.  



The CDs tanked… apparently there was less interest than he assumed…he fired his staff and contacted me about collaborating on a book.  I agreed to do it, but he thought better of the offer and wrote it himself.  It finally came out, but I didn’t go to the book signing… though I do seem to have a copy of it in my collection.  In it, I learned a lot more about his life and struggles to get his label up and going and how it was nearly impossible as one guy out there in the music biz to maintain any semblance of success and income.  I think it made him distant and harder to reach than most people would have hoped.



Well, just got word that this weekend, Keane died at age 87, meaning there is one less of the original 1950’s L.A. record guys – Art LaBoe and very few others.