… Has anybody seen the 5000 foot tall chicken? …
[Description by contributor Greg Barman]Deep-voiced, tall, skinny, laidback and free-spirited, Herb Kent had a sound and style all his own. He was known variously as The Cool Gent, HK the DJ, Herbert Rogers Kent, and The King Of the Dusties. For more than a decade Herb Kent did the evening shift on WVON with a spontaneous freewheeling style. He would say anything he wanted at any time, often in the middle of a record. On this show he felt like clicking his tongue a lot. He apparently had the freedom to play artists not on the regular playlist, or occasionally, a long soul LP cut. He did running bits such as The Electric Crazy People, the Gym Shoe Creeper (a crimefighter with smelly feet), The Wahoo man, and as you’ll hear on this aircheck, a 5,000 foot tall chicken. And he had a loyal following, especially with the teen audience.In 1971 I did a high school TV interview project on Chicago DJ’s and Herb Kent was a guest. As preparation for the program I visited WVON and asked him for this studio aircheck of his show. “What do you want on it?” he asked. “I dunno,” I replied, “maybe throw in some jingles.” Which he did. The aircheck begins with part of Jim Maloney’s news headlines at :14 (part of WVON’s “14-50 news”). The aircheck has a few skips due to tape decay.
Herb Kent recently turned 80 and as of this writing (March 2009) he is still on the air in Chicago on the weekends at WVAZ(FM). Kent was inducted into the National Radio Hall of Fame in 1995. He authored a book, “The Cool Gent: The Nine Lives of Radio Legend Herb Kent”.
Kent did his final radio broadcast Saturday morning October 22, 2016. He died that evening. He was 88.