Stephen C. "Steve" Propes
[ (b. about 1943)]
Steve Hochman, ''Los Angeles Times
The ''Los Angeles Times'' is an American Newspaper#Daily, daily newspaper that began publishing in Los Angeles, California, in 1881. Based in the Greater Los Angeles city of El Segundo, California, El Segundo since 2018, it is the List of new ...
'', July 20, 1990, accessed December 27, 2013.Long Beach, California
Long Beach is a coastal city in southeastern Los Angeles County, California, United States. It is the list of United States cities by population, 44th-most populous city in the United States, with a population of 451,307 as of 2022. A charter ci ...
record collector, disc jockey, and writer.
During the 1980s, Propes hosted an oldies
Oldies is a term for musical genres such as pop music, rock and roll, doo-wop, surf music from the second half of the 20th century, specifically from around the mid-1950s to the 1980s, as well as for a radio format playing this music.
Since 2 ...
/rhythm and blues
Rhythm and blues, frequently abbreviated as R&B or R'n'B, is a genre of popular music that originated within African American communities in the 1940s. The term was originally used by record companies to describe recordings marketed predomina ...
radio show on KLON which had a large effect on the classic R&B revival of the time. He interviewed dozens of blues and R&B legends, such as Joe Turner, Lowell Fulson, Ruth Brown
Ruth Alston Brown (; January 12, 1928 – November 17, 2006) was an American singer-songwriter and actress, sometimes referred to as the "Honorific nicknames in popular music, Queen of R&B". She was noted for bringing a popular music, pop music ...
, Curtis Mayfield
Curtis Lee Mayfield (June 3, 1942 – December 26, 1999) was an American singer-songwriter, guitarist, and record producer. Dubbed the " Gentle Genius", he is considered one of the most influential musicians of soul and socially conscious Afric ...
, Bo Diddley
Ellas Otha Bates (December 30, 1928 – June 2, 2008), known professionally as Bo Diddley, was an American guitarist and singer who played a key role in the transition from the blues to rock and roll. He influenced many artists, including Buddy ...
, Ike Turner
Izear Luster "Ike" Turner Jr. (November 5, 1931 – December 12, 2007) was an American musician, bandleader, songwriter, record producer, and talent scout. An early pioneer of 1950s rock and roll, he is best known for his work in the 1960s and ...
, Hank Ballard, Bobby Day, Richard Berry, Don Julian, Brenton Wood, and Eugene Church, as well as doo-wop
Doo-wop (also spelled doowop and doo wop) is a subgenre of rhythm and blues music that originated in African-American communities during the 1940s, mainly in the large cities of the United States, including New York, Philadelphia, Pittsburgh, ...
enthusiast George Carlin
George Denis Patrick Carlin (May 12, 1937 – June 22, 2008) was an American stand-up comedian, social critic, actor and author. Regarded as one of the greatest and most influential comedians of all time, he was dubbed "the dean of countercultur ...
. He has since hosted a similar show on Simmons Cable television in Long Beach.
He is known for his collectors' books listing the monetary value of rock 'n' roll records.[Harrington,Richard (1993) "Jingle Bells and Whistles", '']Washington Post
''The Washington Post'', locally known as ''The'' ''Post'' and, informally, ''WaPo'' or ''WP'', is an American daily newspaper published in Washington, D.C., the national capital. It is the most widely circulated newspaper in the Washington m ...
'', December 10, 1993, p. N07[Grushkin, Paul (2006) ''Rockin' Down the Highway'', Voyageur Press, , 'Author acknowledgements'] In 1989, Propes founded the Southern California Doo-Wop Society, with the help of some students from a rock 'n' roll history class he taught at Cal State Long Beach in the mid-'80s.[
According to his entry at "L.A. Radio People",][The City Radio Left Behind]
by Steve Propes, in Volume XXIII - Number 4, accessed March 1, 2015.
Books
*''Those Oldies But Goodies: A Guide to 50's Record Collecting'', Macmillan, 1973
*''Golden Oldies: A Guide to 60's Record Collecting'', Chilton, 1974
*''Golden Goodies: A Guide to 50's & 60's Popular Rock & Roll Record Collecting'', Chilton, 1975
*''What Was the First Rock 'n' Roll Record'' (with Jim Dawson; introductions by Dave Marsh
Dave Marsh (born ) is an American music critic and radio talk show host. He was an early editor of '' Creem'' magazine, has written for various publications such as ''Newsday'', ''The Village Voice'', and ''Rolling Stone'', and has published num ...
and Billy Vera
Billy Vera (born William Patrick McCord; May 28, 1944) is an American singer, songwriter, actor, author, and music historian. He has been a singer and songwriter since the 1960s, his most successful record being " At This Moment", a US number 1 ...
), Faber and Faber
Faber and Faber Limited, commonly known as Faber & Faber or simply Faber, is an independent publishing house in London. Published authors and poets include T. S. Eliot (an early Faber editor and director), W. H. Auden, C. S. Lewis, Margaret S ...
, 1992
*''Merry Christmas Baby: Holiday Music From Bing to Sting'' (with Dave Marsh
Dave Marsh (born ) is an American music critic and radio talk show host. He was an early editor of '' Creem'' magazine, has written for various publications such as ''Newsday'', ''The Village Voice'', and ''Rolling Stone'', and has published num ...
), Little, Brown & Company, 1993
*''L.A. R&B Vocal Groups 1945-1965'' (with Galen Gart), Big Nickel, 2000
*''45 RPM: The History, Heroes & Villains of a Pop Music Revolution'' (with Jim Dawson), Backbeat Books/ Hal Leonard, 2003
*''The Hobo Diaries: Nickerson Days - The Thousand Miler'' (with Clarence Bernard Propes), 2011
*''OLD SCHOOL: 77 Years of Southern California R&B & Vocal Group Harmony Records 1934-2011'', 2013[''Stephen C. Propes: Books, Biography, Blog, Audiobooks, Kindle'']
Amazon.com, is the source of this information on Propes' books, and of his real name.
Additional information
There is differing information on when Steve Propes worked at KLON. According to a ''Los Angeles Times'' article,[ it was from 1980 to 1989. According t]
Steve's information
at Rock-it Radio,[
]
References
External links
Steve Propes Interview
NAMM Oral History Library (2021)
{{DEFAULTSORT:Propes, Steve
Living people
American writers about music
Year of birth missing (living people)