John Moore, WSB morning host in the 1970s, has died at 82
Longtime WSB radio host John Moore, whose voice boomed over Atlanta morning airwaves in the 1970s, has died at age 82.
The Georgia Radio Hall of Fame inductee died Nov. 10 from complications related to dementia, his stepdaughter Laura Fowler said.
Media options in the 1970s were significantly smaller than they are today, and radio hosts like Moore on a station as big as WSB were often treated like celebrities.
“It was a different era,” said Fowler. “Everybody listened to him. We would go to all the restaurant openings and new Six Flags rides. He was a big guy and very recognizable. We’d go out and people would come up to him. It was kind of cool and kind of embarrassing.”
Jim Howell, morning co-host with Moore from 1977 to 1981, called Moore “the most intelligent man I’ve ever met. There was a mind meld between him and me. He always knew where I was going. We didn’t rehearse anything.”
Kim “The Kimmer” Peterson, a current talk show host on Xtra 106.3, worked with Moore as a morning newsman 1972-1976.
“He owned this town,” Peterson said. “I remember Jimmy Carter was a fan.”
Moore grew up in West Tennessee and began DJing at a local station at age 15.
In the early 1960s, he attended Georgia Tech with initial hopes of working for the burgeoning federal space program. He graduated with a degree in electrical engineering, but he decided to pursue radio instead, landing a job at WSB-FM, then the powerhouse station WSB-AM.
He married Nancy Crissman in 1970 and raised her four children as his own. He became WSB’s morning host after his mentor, Bob Van Camp, retired in 1972.
In 1974, Atlanta Constitution columnist Leo Aikman spent time with Moore and wrote a column under the headline “An Artist at the Console.”
Aikman described Moore’s show, dubbed Merry Go Round, as a “fun trip. The rotund jocund conductor at the carousel controls is a lively conversationalist, on and off the air.” He “sits in a swivel chair and handles dials, switches, flanking record turntables and cassette inserts with the agility and artistry of a Jesse Crawford at the organ.”
Moore interviewed an array of celebrities who came to Atlanta, such as Charo, Burt Reynolds, Minnie Pearl and Dolly Parton. One of his favorites? Newspaper humorist Erma Bombeck, he said in an AJC interview. “I remember as a child I got to meet Mark Hamill and Dudley Moore,” Fowler said.
In 1979, WSB-TV’s Wes Sarginson reported on Moore and Howell, calling it a “tightly scripted, predictable show by Jim and John, filled with corny jokes. It is here for the masses and it reaches more listeners than any other station.”
Moore told the TV station he paid no mind to rivals: “I don’t know what our toughest competition sounds like. When I’m on vacation, I’m out of town. And when I’m working, I’m working.”
Indeed, Fowler said he would take his family each summer on a monthlong trip cross-country in their Winnebago.
At the same time, she said, he was deeply dedicated to his work: “Loyalty was one of his biggest virtues. He was the type of person who never called out sick. I don’t remember him missing work ever.”
Moore struggled with his weight for much of his life. By 1981, he had ballooned to 388 pounds. (Fowler said he had a weakness for country fried steak.) That year, he joined the Nutri-System weight-loss clinic, a WSB sponsor, and lost nearly 200 pounds. Nutri-System ran regular ads chronicling his weight loss in the papers.
“This has been the best year of my life,” Moore said in a Sunday AJC story in 1981.
His on-air testimonials boosted sales by $2 million to $3 million, a Nutri-System executive told the newspaper in 1982.
Fowler recalled her stepdad kept the weight off for a time but eventually gained some of it back. She said he remained around 280 pounds until dementia affected his appetite.
In 1982, new management took over WSB radio and cleaned house, dumping Moore’s morning show despite it still being No. 1.
Moore moved to the much lower-rated talk station 680/WRNG-AM that same year as morning host but lost his job when the format switched to all news WCNN-AM a few months later and he refused to move to an evening producer job.
He later worked at oldies standards stations Joy AM & FM and Lake 102 FM in Buford before leaving radio in 1992 and becoming a PC software developer.
“He always loved computers,” Fowler said. “He would take them apart and put them back together.”
He retired from Radiant Systems in Alpharetta in 2008.
Moore also loved organs and was a longtime member of the Atlanta chapter of the American Theatre Organ Society.
Ron Carter, house organist at The Strand in Marietta, said Moore emceed his silent film series for many years. “He had such a great public speaking voice and he knew his stuff about silent films and organs,” he said.
Moore is survived by his wife, Nancy, and four stepchildren Laura Fowler, David Crissman, Jennifer Head and Drew Crissman.
About the Author
Rodney Ho writes about entertainment for The Atlanta Journal-Constitution including TV, radio, film, comedy and all things in between. A native New Yorker, he has covered education at The Virginian-Pilot, small business for The Wall Street Journal and a host of beats at the AJC over 20-plus years. He loves tennis, pop culture & seeing live events.
