Ira Blue, who was elected to the Bay Area Radio Hall of Fame in 2006 with the initial class to be inducted. Ira Blue was probably best known for his work on KGO as a talk show host in the early 1960s, during which time he broadcast his program live from the fabled hungry i nightclub.
Click here for the Bay Area Radio Museum’s tribute to Ira Blue, including rare audio, photos, and details on his career.
I was a high school kid in Washington State. I could get KGO 810 at night. I loved listening to Ira Blue discuss politics. And loved the way he greeted callers. He was gracious to each caller. I felt he was not talking a line just to put on an entertainment show. He treated serious thought with respect. But did not take himself too seriously.
Learned a lot listening his show as a young teen. Ray Taliaferro was another great. Talk radio was special then.
Oh my gosh!! I was a high school kid living in Pismo Beach and would listen to Ira Blue late at night. He was so kind and articulate!
Even if you didn’t share his views, he made you think and consider his point of view. And he did this without insulting, humiliating or beating down anyone.
I have such good memories of listening to Mr. Ira Blue. May he Rest In Peace.
My Dad and used to stay up late waiting for the Ira Blue show came on. I learned so much about politics at a tender age of 13 to 16.
His radio show was one thing my father and I had in common amount many others. Most kids I told about his show made fun of me. I found his show as such a great interdiction to thinking outside the box and feeling Mr Blue punctuated the notion of free thinking and not having to view political ideology as I was taught in Jr and senior High School.
He truly made a positive difference in my development as a man, as well as giving my Dad and I a unique bond we looked forward to listing to and learning from Mr Blue.
my dad would get in bed and turn on kgo radio and ira blue. he would fall asleep and my mother would go to turn off the radio so she could go to sleep. the second she would walk around the bed to shut it off. he would wake up mad asking her what did she think she was doing. leave my radio alone lol.
I listened in the mid 60’s, junior high, and I didn’t understand much of the conversation but it was coming from San Francisco to me in Clarkston and I so wanted to leave Clarkston
Listened to Ira Blue from the ” upholstered sewer” from Eugene, Oregon. It was the sound of San Francisco to me.
Listen to him mid sixties from boise. Made me think.
I listened to him during the 60’s
Ira Blue was a Great talk show host. As a teenager in the Bay Area I heard his broadcasts from the Hungry Eye nightclub in SF for years.
I remember growing up listening to him from my upstairs bedroom in Walla Walla, Washington.
Thank you for the memories.
Rhapsody in Blue – just listening to that every night when he came on set the tone for his show. As a school kid I remember him saying once that his father was 70 years old when he was born. So, he didn’t have any memories like many younger dads had with their sons, playing ball or hiking together.
My dad was 40 when I was born, which I had thought was old. But now after listening to Ira I changed my mind.
My dad and I listened to Ira at night in Tacoma Washington. Great memories.
Ira Blue, theme song, “Rhapsody in Blue”. Talk shows at that time didn’t know the names of the callers, and Ira preferred it that way.
Ira didn’t get along with Hungry I performer Professor Irwin Corey.
Anybody recall these things?
Alan Rossi (San Anselmo)
I, too, listened to Ira Blue when I was young. I lived in Walnut Creek – just a bit east of SF.
And, sometimes, I’d catch the end of Jim Eason, right before Ira. Eason’s theme song was “Hold On, I’m Coming” by Herbert Mann.
It’s great, reading the comments above – I see that I wasn’t alone!
I listened from Carmichael. I still have my vinyl Herbie Mann album purchased from Tower Records after one day finally hearing Jim name the song and artist.
I also was a student at WSU in Pullman, WA where I listened to Ira Blue at night in the dorm. The date was 1962-63. I’ve been hooked on late night talk radio ever since. Larry King’s death today got me thinking and remembered his name!
I started listening to late night radio with Ira Blue – it was probably because I was listening to baseball games on the radio usually Vin Scully and the Dodgers but also – back then – Russ Hodges / Lon Simmons with the SF Giants. When the game(s) were over I’d catch Ira Blue on what must have been 50,000 watt KGO.
Later on I listened to Larry King in much the same way – I don’t remember much about the Ira Blue shows other than I kept listening. I really don’t remember his show being ‘political’ at all – although topics of the day were discussed. And of course issues local to the Bay Area.
Larry King’s radio show from DC was all politics and he had his pick of guest because every politician (then and now) wanted air time and King had plenty of it after midnight. Not too many calendar conflicts for the politicians there.
King – unlike Blue – who I don’t think ever talked sports – was always giving sports updates of west coast games and stats – both those guys were stalwarts in late night radio.
With no TV in the 60’s KGO was the nightly entertainment for Mom and this kid listened to Ira at the Hungry Eye. When coming back from Viet Nam on the Enterprise, I’d tune in KGO to find out how close we were to home in Santa Cruz.
Today’s host’s would rather hear themselves talk than find the pulse of the public.
I will never forget one night in the early 60s listening to Ira from Palm Springs. He interviewed Prof Irwin Corey and I laughed as hard as I ever have in my life. Ira was just incredible.
I used to listen to Ira for years late at night in the 60’s, although by the time I discovered him, he was broadcasting his show from Omar Khayyam’s restaurant on Powell Street in San Francisco. You could always hear Ira chain smoking throughout the show and he sounded like he was developing emphysema right on the air!
As a kid, I learned a heck of a lot about a variety of topics from listening to Ira and his callers. I have no idea why I tuned into him other than he was a very wide window into a completely different world from the one I occupied with my parents. He had an interesting and compelling voice and presence back when radio ruled the airwaves.
Too bad he died relatively young, but lots of people who smoked heavily checked out early back then. I miss him. Wish there was some air checks of his show around. Now that would be something.
I used to listen to Ira Blue from British Columbia.
One night when I was posted at Cape St. James Weather Station at the south end of Haida Gwaii (then Queen Charlotte Islands) Ira read a bulletin that Bobby Kennedy had been shot then KGO stopped his show and went to the ABC network for live coverage from Los Angeles.
I lived in the bay area as a teenager in the late 50s early 60s. I was supposed to be sleeping but I had a very small crystal radio with one little earpiece. I listened to Ira just about every night until I fell asleep.
I vividly remember one particular night. An obviously distraught caller seemed bent on suicide. Ira talked to this person for what seemed like an hour, slowly calming him. Somehow or other the police got involved and arrived at the person’s residence. I do remember an officer coming on the phone and telling Ira that the situation was in hand.
I thought to tell my parents about the episode the next day but thought better of it as they did not know about the little radio.
Can’t believe the amount of north west listeners from the sixties on this blog. My father picked up Ira Blue from the Hungry I in the early sixties in Trail BC in the middle of the mountains. I was between 8 and 10, and still remember the static punctuated monologues from this great personality.
Those 50,000 watt clear channel stations could reach far outside their local area. Not only had they the broacasting muscle, the government protected the frequency from other users of it. I think the FCC gave a few stations around the country such licenses in the early days of radio. KGO was one of the lucky ones.
There were also stations in Mexico, like XERB (in Tijuana), which had enormous broadcasting power and could be heard up and down the West Coast. Remember the Wolfman?
I listened to Ira Blue as a teen in Hoquiam, Washington, which is on the coast. KGO had as clear a signal as our hometown station and I never missed listening to Mr. Blue and his kind and inviting dialogue with guests. He helped open my mind to a larger world.
Vancouver Washington, 1960s. I listened to him fairly regularly on my Hallicrafters AM / shortwave radio; at night KGO came in clear as a bell. Ira Blue always seemed to me to be more interested in whatever his callers had to say, however wild, than in pushing his own views, whatever they may have been.
He’d ask questions to elicit further information rather than challenge people directly. Callers that merely spouted party talking points tended to get a polite brush-off–a thanks for expressing your view sort of thing–but most people got a fair chance to express whatever was on their alleged minds. One night when he was reading some sponsor’s copy he came to a complete stop and said something like “That doesn’t even make sense” and declined to read it further. That got my attention; I don’t think I’d ever heard anybody do that on the air before.
Anyway, that’s how I remember him decades later. A great talk-show host, as commenters have already said.
Ira Blue was my Great Uncle. I wish I had met him. He died when I was very young and I learned about his radio career much later in life.
I remember listening to him while I was growing up on a wheat farm outside of Lind, Washington.
My brother and I used to sleep outside in the summer. We would have KGO
on all night. We were around ten or eleven and I am still a talk radio fanatic in my sixties.
Ira Blue had a show in the 50’s called “For Men Only.” Something to do with scary stories. Bermuda Triangle type stories. God guy.
I’m 72 and Ira Blue was my entree into the world of talk radio. I don’t recall much of the topics discussed, but I can recall his voice like it was yesterday. interestingly I was in jr. high, or early high school when I started listening like a lot of the other respondents. Listening on a transistor radio in Saratoga, CA.
Big Ira fan from Beaverton, Oregon in the 60’s. Loved the guy!
I listened to Ira Blue on my crystal radio. I was about 10 years old ,didn’t really understand the program. But the 50,000 watt KGO radio signal came through loud and clear to our Palo Alto home.
I remember that at age ten,I got an old radio. (my first) When I was playing with it one night I came across KGO and Ira Blue! That’s about when I learned about bigots! It seemed he was calling at least one person an hour one of those and would explain why he thought the guy was one! I was hooked! That was 1967 and from then on I was listening every night!