R.I.P.: Detroit Personality Gene Elzy Passes

Gene Elzy

Gene Elzy, a Detroit broadcast personality of more than 45 years who entertained listeners with his jazz and R&B programs on stations like WJR-760 AM and WDET 101.9 FM, died of natural causes Saturday evening, according to his family.

He was 81, according to the Detroit Free Press.

“Eugene was a scholar of the music and he understood the business (of broadcasting),” said Wade (Butterball Jr.) Briggs. “He was a class act.”

Briggs said he began working with Elzy in the late 1960s when he was program and operations director for Bell Broadcasting. Elzy worked at the time at Bell’s WCHD 105.9 FM, sister station to WCHB 1440 AM, Detroit’s first African-American-owned and -operated station.

Elzy retired in 2006 from WDET-FM, where he hosted the jazz show “The Gene Elzy Program.” After that, Briggs drew him out of retirement to help him run the advertising department of a business that sold air time for Cablevision.

“He and Ed Love are probably the most notable, most beloved Detroit broadcasters that had focused on the art of jazz,” Briggs said. “That was his forte. But truly, Gene had a great knowledge of the business and a God-given talent to communicate.”

Born Eugene (Geno) Elzy Jr., he graduated from Detroit’s Northwestern High School and served in the U.S. Air Force, where he was a disc jockey for Armed Forces Radio.