SEATTLE (CelebrityAccess) — Veteran disc jockey, and concert promoter Pat O’Day, one of the founders of concert promoter Concerts West, has died. He was 85.
His family announced his passing in a statement posted to social media, writing: “It is with great sorrow to announce, Pat O’Day has left the arena. Dad passed peacefully at his home in the San Juan Islands today [Tuesday].”
“Beating lung cancer was an incredible victory for him, unfortunately, it wreaked havoc with his lungs. In his final days his spirits were high, he lived every day as though it was his last… he knew the gifts he had been given and how spectacular his life had been. Dad was ready.”
O’Day, who was known as the “godfather” of the teen dance scene” in Seattle, was the son of a minister and he got his first taste of radio accompanying his father to Tacoma radio station KMO as he delivered on-air sermons.
In 1956, O’Day launched a series of teen dances in the Northwest, gradually expanding the business into a chain of teen dance clubs across the region.
The clubs included the The Spanish Castle Ballroom in Seattle, where popular artists such as Jan & Dean, the Ventures, and the Beach Boys performed under the aegis of O’Day & Associates.
By the mid-1960s, O’Day and Associates were presenting 60 teen dances a week througout Washington State.
As tastes began to shift in the 1960s, O’Day and his partners Dick Curtis and Terry Bassett expanded the concert business away from teen dances to more traditional concert fare and by the middle of the decade were bringing major touring acts such as The Beatles and the Rolling Stones to the market.
O’Day & Associates was renamed to Concerts West after a regional expansion and later became a national concert promotion powerhouse.
However, legal trouble loomed for O’Day and in 1967, his dominance over the concert scene in the Northwest prompted several local rivals to file a $3 million federal anti-trust suit accusing O’Day of monopolizing the industry and of accepting kickbacks from local radio stations.
The trial, which took three years to conclude, ultimately cleared O’Day but cost him more than $150,000, prompting him to sell Concerts West to Lester Smith and Danny Kaye’s Kaye-Smith Enterprises.
In addition to his work as a concert promoter, O’Day was a fixture on the airwaves in Seattle, including a long stint as the afternoon drive personality at Seattle’s KJR 950, where he eventually served as program director and eventually general manager.
He also owned KYYX (FM 96.5) and for decades was the radio and television announcer for Seafair, an annual summer festival and hydroplane race.
More recently, he focused on a real estate business in the Northwest.
In 2002, O’Day co-authored “It Was All Just Rock ‘n’ Roll” detailing his experiences as a radio personality and concert promoter.
He was married to Stephanie O’Day and had three sons, Garry, Jerry, and Jeff and one daughter, Kelsie.
