LOS ANGELES (CelebrityAccess) — Jim Ladd, the influential Los Angeles rock DJ, interviewer, and SiriusXM host died on Sunday after suffering a heart attack. He was 75.
According to the Los Angeles Times, his passing was announced on Monday by fellow SiriusXM host Meg Griffin.
“SiriusXM remembers Jim Ladd, legendary freeform rock DJ,” SiriusXM announced on social media. “For over 50 years, he championed classic rock and interviewed many of the greatest artists in his Los Angeles studios and on SiriusXM’s Deep Tracks channel.”
A Los Angeles native, Ladd began his radio career at KNAC in Long Beach, but soon relocated to the Los Angeles station KLOS and later, KMET, where he spent more than a decade at the end of the 1970s.
During his tenure at KMET, Ladd was at ground zero for the development of Lee Abrams’ Album Oriented Rock format, which ruled the rock airwaves during the late 1970s and early 1980s.
While his aversion to playlists limited Ladd’s employment opportunities in the late 1980s, he was featured as the fictional ‘DJ Jim’ in vignettes on Pink Floyd bassist Roger Waters’ second solo album Radio K.A.O.S.
In 1997, Ladd returned to KLOS with a freeform show, routinely leading his timeslot in the market in Arbitron ratings but he was fired in 2011 after KLOS was acquired by Cumulus Media.
That same year, he signed on with SiriusXM to host the daily free-form music show on Deep Tracks, channel 27, remaining with the platform until November 2023.
Following his passing, friends and colleagues paid tribute to Ladd, including Doors drummer John Densmore.
“There wasn’t a more soulful spinner of music,” Densmore wrote on X (formerly Twitter). “The songs he played were running through his blood, he cared so much for rock n’ roll. Irreplaceable… a very sad day, which can only be handled by carrying his spirit forward.”
