R.I.P.: Longtime Billboard Radio Editor Claude Hall

Claude Hall

Longtime Billboard Radio/TV Editor, Claude Hall, credited with coining the term Easy listening in 1965 while describing the sound of WPIX-FM in New York has died.

Joey Reynolds, now on WABC, but who spent 15 years on 710 WOR, told Don Anthony's Jockline Daily, "I would not be legendary if this man had not created an 'image of rebelliousness and lefant terribe' in his Vox Jox columns for Billboard magazine which he authored in the 60's. As radio had no common ground, Claude single handedly, with the help of his publisher Lee Zhito, cleverly asked us to pay money to meet each other to find better jobs, exchange war stories, eat and drink together in a community which was war torn by payola scandals so we gathered at the Plaza Hotel in NY with sessions conducted by Dr Wayne Dyer and Geraldo Rivera, Wolfman Jack, Imus, Howard Costello, all of these incredible talents with crazy personalities in a glamorous setting at the finest hotel in NY back in the day."

Claude Hall's son Andy wrote on Facebook, "Claude died this morning (7-7-17) at 12:02 am at Sunrise Medical Center in Las Vegas after complications from a fall earlier in the week. His family was with him and loved him dearly. He loved his friends, students, and colleagues. He remained proud of radio and music stemming from his days listening to radio as a kid. He sent out his obit by accident in February of 2016... But this time... He has joined the radio waves he so treasured. He was proud of his books that he wrote.... Which he would like you to read.... Available on Amazon Kindle."

Jerry Del Colliano,  publisher and editor of Inside Music Media blog, remembers Hall.

"Claude Hall made disc jockeys, program directors, managers and record industry people stars. His Vox Jox column in Billboard for many years was like a soap opera. Even if you didn’t know the personalities that he was writing about, somehow you felt like you did after reading Claude."

"Claude Hall died late last week from complications of a fall.  Until the very end, Claude’s love affair with radio and music and the people who made it was as strong as ever.

"Longtime talk show host and now station owner Rollye James helped Claude resurrect Vox Jox online to continue the narration and spread the love.

"To be in (Hall's Billboard column) Vox Jox was always an honor. To be considered a friend by the man who seemed to love all radio and music people without boundaries forged close friendships that lasted in many cases for a lifetime."