The way he said his name.
“This is [micro pause] ... Lou,” the short name lowering yet elongating, punctuated with “Dean,” a bit more than declarative, but not an exclamation. "Hello," this manner of introduction enunciated, “I have things to say that you may want to know."
Broadcaster Lou Dean in an undated file photo
When the First Persian Gulf War erupted, I kept abreast of the unfolding events via the radio of my car while delivering pizzas. Between stops and rising out of the crackling, snapping static came the booming 50,000-watt “Voice of Virginia,” as I grew up knowing the station. The frantic sense of that time is difficult to communicate to those who didn’t experience it. People were calling WRVA, reasonably certain that the war signified the end of the world. And I vividly remember, and have a recording, of veteran broadcaster Lou Dean’s warm, soothing voice saying, “When we get through this, and we will get through this …”
And the world didn’t end.
But WRVA did, as we’d known it.
In 2000 radio giant Clear Channel Communications swept from Richmond radio a studio-full of familiar voices, including WRVA’s Tim Timberlake, Jerry Lund and Lou Dean.
And this past weekend, Dean succumbed to cancer that few but those closest to him knew he had. I found out about his decease, as did many, through the electric wailing wall know as Facebook. This method, by the way, became a method for Lou and me to exchange occasional communications. As recently as Jan. 2, he sent me an early greeting for my birthday.
Back in April of last year, he sent me this reminder: “You may remember that about two years ago I offered to play for you two recordings by Tom Lehrer that no one else had ever heard. Not only is that offer still good, it is now timely as Swift Creek Mill Theatre will produce 'Tomfoolery' in July and August.”
They’d served in the Army together, and Lehrer, a musical satirist, gave these songs to Dean with the promise that he’d not release them to the public. But he could let people listen to them privately, and in mid-August, when I and friends went down to Swift Creek Mill, Lou, who was on the board, played us two rather naughty but quite funny Lehrer tunes from his phone. The two were close enough that for years they exchanged Christmas cards. And it all became somewhat surreal as I stood in that old structure, now a dinner theater, listening to a young and amusing Tom Lehrer, a guy I’d known only as a voice coming out of an appliance. Dean seemed genuinely happy that he got this opportunity.
A few years ago, when I was in some radio station to record some spot for something or another related to this publication, I was reminiscing aloud about those broadcasters of Richmond yore. And a program director, not familiar with most of the names nor their summary dismissals from the airwaves without little or no fanfare, remarked, “There is no history in radio.” Not quite as catchy as “There’s no crying in baseball,” but originating in general from the same place.
Radio people keep a valise under their bed because of sudden format changes and potential clashes with management. Richmond, though, kept hold of its local niche until the outset of the 21st century, when the big guys came down here to convert us and give us blather and Billboard Top 40. Thus was a generation deprived of Alden Aaroe’s badinage with Millard the Mallard or Lou Dean’s soothing tones late at night.
From 1957 to 1977 he hosted "Music Till Morning" from 11:30 p.m. until 4:30 a.m., which was introduced by three chimes announcing an orchestra for "Devotion" by Otto Cesana. For five hours Dean spun good music and kept the conversation lively but never jarring, just as you’d want from any guest in your life.
After his departure from regular radio play, Dean didn’t sit at home. He got involved at one point or another more than two dozen charitable organizations. In June 1990, Richmond Surroundings, this magazine's immediate predecessor in name, put Dean on a list of “100 Most Influential Richmonders.”
When Dean left WRVA, he went to work for Henrico County and was the human behind their voicemail prompt system. He emceed in a white tuxedo at Dogwood Dell. He seemed to many of us of a certain vintage someone who would always be around.
There is history in radio, though. And when one of the great ones goes, notice is given.
Since he was on the dusk-till-dawn shift for so long, we wish Lou good morning.
