R.I.P. Clark Weber, Longtime Chicago Radio Personality

Clark Weber

Clark Weber was one of the most popular disc jockeys in Chicago during the 1960s and 1970s, first at WLS 890 AM and then at WCFL 1000 AM has died at age 89.

He died Saturday of cancer in hospice care at the Presbyterian Home in Evanston, the suburb in which he had long lived. He was 89 and had lost Joan, his wife of 63 years to cancer in 2018.

“Clark was Clark—on and off the air,” said retired radio newsman Lyle Dean, who was a colleague of Weber’s and a friend for decades told The Chicago Tribune. “He was easy to be friends with, as so many thousands heard on and off the air. And he never acted his age. An endearing quality that probably rubbed off on those who knew him.”

He was both program director and deejay at WLS, and along with Dick Biondi, Clark was one of the best known disc jockeys in America.

Weber, who started in Wisconsin, enjoyed a career that spanned more than 50-years. He also ran his own radio advertising consultancy, Clark Weber Associates.

On-air, he always referred to himself as "Mother Weber's Oldest Son".  Weber's first radio job was at WAUX in Waukesha, Wisconsin. He also worked at WBKV in West Bend, Wisconsin and WRIT in Milwaukee, Wisconsin.

He moved to Chicago in 1961 where he joined the staff of WLS, initially working as a graveyard shift DJ and climbing to program director. This is where Weber became well known spinning Top 40 records. Weber worked in Chicago for WCFL, WMAQ, WIND, WJJD, and WAIT, where he did a Friday morning show for a time.

Weber was often asked to recall what it was like for him to introduce the Beatles at Comiskey Park on Aug. 20, 1965.

He would say a variation of what he once told a reporter: “The crowd went crazy because they knew what was coming. There were about 38,000 screaming teenage girls and the sound was indescribable. I could feel the vibration in my fingers. I don’t think anyone in the ballpark heard a single second of the show. I was standing right next to the stage and I didn’t hear it.”

That story and many others are between the covers of the autobiography he published in 2008, “Clark Weber’s Rock and Roll Radio: The Fun Years, 1955-1975” (Chicago’s Books Press).



Weber promoted A Senior Moment with Clark Weber, a pre-recorded program series for radio stations targeting senior health issues.  He was zealous in that mission, saying during a speech in the mid-1990s, “There are a number of erroneous stereotypes about older consumers. It’s made us a wide-open market that’s hardly being touched.” And telling a reporter, “The older audience is being shunted aside by the time buyers at the advertising agencies who only think in terms of 18-to-34 listeners. But that’s a shrinking audience. And here I have an audience that is growing as the whole country is getting older.”

In 2015, Weber made the decision to retire from broadcasting; he was 84 at the time. Just prior to his retirement, Weber was named to the Illinois Broadcasters' Hall of Fame.