R.I.P.: VA Radio Personality Jeff Beck Dead At 66

Jeff Beck

Virginia radio personality Jeff Beck has died from brain cancer at the age of 66, according to fredericksburg.com.

For over a decade, the Jeff & Jeff show was a staple of Richmond radio.  The team of Jeff Beck and Jeff McKee hosted the morning program, which was known for its mix of prank calls and community-oriented programming, from 1990 to 2001. They revived the show in 2012 on WWUZ 96.9 The Rock in Fredericksburg, VA.

“We became over time a local institution, and we felt a great responsibility for the people who were our community,” McKee said.

The duo was inducted into the Richmond Broadcasters Hall of Fame in 2006.

“[Beck] was a wizard in the studio,” said Brian Illes, who was a program director at WRXL-102 in the 1990s when Jeff & Jeff was on the air.

“Every day it was good to be working with him, and every day you knew what you were going to get with him, and you knew you were going to get a guy who was having a good time,” Illes said.

After the Jeff & Jeff show went off the air in 2001, Beck worked for several stations in the Richmond and Fredericksburg areas. He finished his career as operations director with Alpha Media in Fredericksburg.

Before moving to Richmond in 1990, Mr. Beck’s career included jobs at several New York radio stations, including WLIR. The station—and Beck—was featured in the 2017 documentary, “New Wave: Dare To Be Different.”

His wife, Joyce Beck, said her husband was raised as a “radio brat” whose father was a general manager at stations around the country.