R.I.P.: San Antonio Radio Icon Bruce Hathaway

San Antonio radio icon Bruce Hathaway, a towering figure of the golden age of Top 40 radio, died of a heart attack Friday at Metropolitan Methodist Hospital.

He was 78, according to the News-Express.

Friends said Hathaway, who was best known as a KTSA 550 AM  disc jockey in the 1960s, ’70s and early ’80s, had been suffering from complications resulting from back surgery and diabetes since June.

Bruce Hathaway

Along with radio personality Ricci Ware, who died in October, Hathaway epitomized the era’s devotion to teen music. Both hosted high school dances and teen-oriented TV shows, and both were blessed with the gift of gab, which could be self-deprecating, bawdy and, at times, politically incorrect.

But it was Hathaway who was the closest thing to San Antonio’s Wolfman Jack, with his thick shock of hair and elegantly trimmed beard that were a staple of the Beat era.

“He was one of a kind, a true Texas legend,” said music journalist and friend Margaret Moser, the former Austin Chronicle columnist. “His voice is the soundtrack of my teen years.”

Former KTSA disc jockey J.J. Rodriguez mourned his old friend on Facebook. “I will never forget working all nights and he was the morning man,” he recalled from his radio years in the ’70s and ’80s.

Later in his career, Hathaway did stints at Magic 105.3 (KSMG-FM) and KONO AM and FM.

He also is remembered as the charismatic, up-for-anything host of the local teen TV dance show “Swingtime.”

It debuted on KSAT (KONO at the time) in 1964 without Hathaway. However, when it made the leap to WOAI in 1967, Hathaway jumped aboard.