Shadoe Stevens
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Shadoe Stevens (born Terry Ingstad in 1946 in Jamestown, North Dakota) was the host of American Top 40, heard in 120 countries by an estimated one billion people a week, from 1988 to 1995. He currently hosts two worldwide radio shows, the Internationally syndicated "Top of the World" and a four hour weekly "new rock" show "Rock the World" heard on www.pulverradio.com. He is also the announcer for The Late Late Show with Craig Ferguson on CBS.
Stevens first came to fame in 1957, when a Life Magazine article about him, entitled "America's Youngest D.J." featured a photo of Stevens broadcasting live over Radio Station KEYJ (now called KQDJ) in his hometown of Jamestown. The accompanying article extolled the fact that he had built his own working transmitter in the attic of his home the year before, using a "souped-up" wireless broadcasting kit with a hundred foot antenna. He was later "discovered" in a "man on the street" interview by the local station and was soon broadcasting a weekly rock show called "Spin with Terry."
He was an Art major helping to put himself through school working full-time in radio. After graduation from the University of Arizona, he joined the Bill Drake-formatted station WRKO in Boston, in October 1968, where he worked the early evening (6-9 p.m.) shift during the station's peak in popularity. In the spring of 1970, he moved to Southern California to another Drake outlet, KHJ, as one of the last true, "Boss Jocks", where his big baritone and energetic enthusiasm soon gained a following. Before long, he gained significant popularity on radio and became the announcer and sidekick on the nationally syndicated television series The Steve Allen Show.
He went on to be an award winning radio personality and program director in Los Angeles at KRLA. Attaining status as a programmer, he was hired to make a success of KMET-FM and then to create the programming for a new radio format on a new Los Angeles station, World Famous KROQ-FM, where he remained for five years.
During the early 1980s, Stevens gained additional cult following when he created and produced "Fred Rated for Federated," a long-running series of offbeat television commercials for The Federated Group, a chain of home electronics retailers in the southwestern United States. It became so popular it was the subject of a two-page spread in Time Magazine and led to a movie deal, television shows, and American Top 40.
He contributed several memorably straight-laced readings of absurd material for The Kentucky Fried Movie and then gained national recognition as the announcer for two incarnations of The Hollywood Squares (the 1986-1989 and 1998-2004 versions) appearing in the middle square of the bottom row and being portrayed as the smartest square on the show for the majority of the time as well as playing Kenny Beckett on the sitcom Dave's World (1993-1997). He appeared as himself on an episode of The Larry Sanders Show when character Hank Kingsley called on him as a substitute announcer, labeling him "a vocal god."
In 2006, Stevens was hired to be The Late Late Show's announcer, a position as noted in the opening paragraph he still holds. He is also the author or a series of children's books. The first, released in 2006, called The Big Galoot, received rave quotes from Whoopi Goldberg, Dick Clark, Henry Winkler, and Gene Simmons. Dick Clark said, "In verse reminiscent of Dr. Seuss...it's the perfect combination for kids from four to a hundred and four." It's currently available online and in select bookstores.
| Preceded by Casey Kasem |
American Top 40 Host 1988-1995 |
Succeeded by Casey Kasem |