Indy Radio: J-D Cannon Retires From Full-Time At WLHK

J-D Cannon is on a first-name basis with every country music star on the planet, but he says he’ll mostly miss the listeners after he wraps up his afternoon radio show on WLHK 97.1 FM.

According to The Indystar.com, Friday was the final time Cannon fields calls at the station’s street-level studio on Monument Circle. He’s retiring — well, mostly retiring — from an iconic Indianapolis radio career that began in 1977.

Listeners have tuned in to Cannon when he worked at WFMS- 95,5 FM  — 1977 to 2011, aside from a six-month detour to a Des Moines, Iowa, station in the '70s — and at WLHK, where he joined the staff in 2011.

Cannon is a two-time Country Music Association “large market personality of the year,” and he’s collected a trophy in the same category from the Academy of Country Music.

The Country Radio Hall of Fame made him an inductee in 2002.

Cannon’s career has matched the rising arc of the country genre, which experienced a 54 percent growth in fans ages 18 to 24 between 2005 and 2015, according to a CMA survey.


He said it’s gratifying to see concertgoers ranging from age 16 to 60 when Nashville’s biggest names play Klipsch Music Center each summer.

Throttling down from his WLHK show to part-time weekend shifts will allow 63-year-old Cannon more nights when he doesn’t have to represent the station at events.