R.I.P.: Former Baltimore Personality Joe Knight

Joe Knight

Joe Knight, a radio personality who was known to several generations of WFBR-AM and WCBM-AM listeners as "Joe Knight, the Knight of the Spinning Roundtable" during the golden age of Baltimore radio, died Saturday at Hope Hospice in Fort Myers, Fla., of complications from a broken hip.

He was 87-years-of-age accoridng to The Baltimore Sun.

He began his radio career sweeping the floors of a Great Bend radio station, and when he was a senior in high school, he graduated to working weekends, announcing station breaks. In the late 1940s, Knight went to work on air at KFDA-AM in Amarillo, Texas, and then joined KRMG-AM in Tulsa, Okla., where he picked up his on-air name.

"When he was working at KRMG, the station manager said no one knew how to pronounce his name, 'So, from now on you're Joe Knight,' " said his wife of 58 years, the former Bobbie Baland, whom he met when working in Amarillo.

Following a stint in the Army, Knight returned to KRMG. When the station's general manager, R.B. Jones Jr., came to WFBR in 1957, he brought "The Knight of the Spinning Roundtable" with him to Baltimore.

When he joined WFBR, Mr. Knight hosted "Melody Ballroom," and then moved up to being the voice of an afternoon drive-time show. In 1959, he began hosting "The Joe Knight Show" in the morning.

In 1972, Knight left WFBR and joined "Morning Mayor" Lee Case on WCBM, forming what was at the time the only two-man radio program in Baltimore. He left in 1983 after the station switched to an all-talk format.

After leaving WCBM, he wrote and produced radio commercials for WYST-FM. Knight, who moved to Fort Myers 20 years ago, continued writing ads on a freelance basis for WJST-FM.

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