RIP Dick Pleasants (WUMB and WGBH)

[Eli Polonsky]

The official obit didn't detail his complete radio career. This was what I
posted in radiodiscussions (with edits):

Longtime Boston area folk music radio host and concert promoter Dick
Pleasants passed away at 75 on Tuesday, November 8, after more than a
decade of battling Parkinson's Disease, which took him off the air in 2012.

I believe he began on-air after graduating Emerson College in the early
'70s at WCIB in Falmouth, followed by folk programs on the former WCAS in
Cambridge in the '70s, many years hosting an evening folk show on WATD in
Marshfield, and 25 years at the former weekend folk music program "Folk
Heritage" on WGBH-FM.

Dick also co-founded and programmed former commercial folk music station
WADN "Walden 1120 AM" in Concord in the late '80s to the late '90s (when it
became WBNW, business news, through today), and as I remember he also had a
stint as a morning co-host with Robin Young at 92.9 WBOS at some point
during its AAA years in the '90s.

Dick spent the last fifteen years of his radio career at professional
public radio music station WUMB during its more strictly folk and acoustic
music formatted years when it positioned itself as "Folk Radio". (It
dropped that slogan about ten years ago and went to its present Americana
and Roots music leaning AAA format).

The many live folk music events that he booked, or had a hand in booking,
included the former Boston Folk Festivals on the U.Mass. Boston campus, and
he was the Director of the annual Summer Acoustic Music Week camp in the NH
Lakes region.

I enjoyed meeting him many times at folk music events, at WADN when I
visited, and when I briefly worked at WUMB during his tenure. He was a
great guy, and a legend in presentation of folk music in New England.

EP


> Date: Fri, 18 Nov 2022 21:29:25 -0500
> From: Kevin Vahey <kvahey@gmail.com>
> To: Boston Radio Interest
>         <boston-radio-interest@rolinin.bostonradio.org>
> Subject: RIP Dick Pleasants (WUMB and WGBH)
>
> Dick was best known for his love of folk music.
>
>
> https://www.legacy.com/us/obituaries/bostonglobe/name/richard-pleasants-obituary?id=37148042
>
>
>