Richard Pegue (Finding Aid)

Richard Pegue

1943 - 2009

Favorite Color: Blue

Favorite Food: Grits and Oatmeal

Favorite Time of Year: Summer

Favorite Vacation Spot: Negril, Jamaica

Interview Length: 138 minutes

Interview Date(s): January 24, 2002

Interview Location(s): The HistoryMakers, 1900 S. Michigan, Chicago, Illinois

Abstract

Radio personality Richard Pegue remembers his growing up in Chicago, Illinois, during the 1940s and 1950s. He discusses the death of his police officer father when he was three and his family's move into the majority-white Chatham neighborhood where he was the first black pupil at Cornell Elementary School. He remembers his early interest in music, listening to Al Benson's radio program, experimenting with a tape recorder he got when he was eleven, and playing with friends in a doo-wop group, The Belvederes, which they started in grammar school and continued throughout their years at Hirsch High School. Radio personality Richard Pegue talks about the beginnings of his career in music as a teenager on Chicago's South Side, where he and his friends from Hirsch High School listened to disc jockeys like 'Jam With Sam' Evans spinning doo-wop records on WGES and sought fame singing in their own group, The Belvederes. The young Pegue also started dee-jaying at parties, and working at Maurie Alpert's Met Music Record Store. Alpert also had a small record label, Penny Records, and Pegue produced a local group, The Cheers, recording a song he had written, "I'm Not Ready to Settle Down." Pegue also talks briefly about studying radio, television and photography at Columbia College in Chicago. Radio personality Richard Pegue talks about the Chicago music scene of the late 1950s and 1960s and compares the "Chicago sound" with other distinctive regional rhythm and blues styles of the time. In addition to his own band The Belvederes (later The Norvells) Pegue discusses other Chicago groups, the record companies Vee Jay and Chess, radio DJs Herb Kent and Russ Vanoy and Maury Alpert's Nicolet Music publishing company. He also shares his thoughts on the positive changes over the years in musicians' awareness of the business side of music. Radio personality Richard Pegue looks back on his experience working at WVON-AM radio in Chicago, Illinois, where he became music director in 1968. He discusses the conflict of interest in Leonard Chess owning both Chess Records and WVON, analyzes the "down home" black image that made the station number one, recalls popular promotions and talks about his relationship with mentor Herb Kent and his first on-air slot on a late-night radio show. Radio personality Richard Pegue looks back on his career from the late 1960s through the 1990s including both on-air work and management at radio stations, writing commercial jingles and promoting dance party events. He talks about his enduring love for "dusties"--black music from the 1950s-1970s. He also comments on fellow DJ Pervis Spann's live music promotion work and describes Leonard Chess, the white Jewish owner of Chess Records and WVON radio, as a tough boss but not an exploiter, who had a good relationship with his black employees and musicians on his label. Radio personality Richard Pegue remembers learning to arrange music from Johnny Pate. He also discusses his regret that black radio has become a more technical, "cold" business and has lost the strong personal element of connection between listeners and on-air personalities that used to exist at stations like WVON in earlier decades.

38 Stories (See Ordered Story Set)