R.I.P.: Bob Mason, Legendary Albany NY Radio Personality

Bob Mason back in the day

Capital Region radio legend Bob Mason, half of the long-running Mason and Sheehan morning show on Rock WPYX 106 has died from complications of skin cancer.

Mason (real name: Roy E. Moon) and Bill Sheehan had a long run at WPYX but left in 1997 for WXCR, a smaller station with a much weaker broadcast signal.

Their audience share plummeted and WXCR bought out their contract in 1998. Mason and Sheehan’s on-air partnership ended then.

Mason had subsequent gigs on his own but decided to retire from broadcast radio in mid-2004. He was 56 at the time, and told The Gazette he was getting burned out from the daily pressure of having to outdo the previous day’s show each morning.

Mason earned the “shock jock” label with his style, which included winging the catchphrase “Goodbye, dummy!” at on-air callers.

A Rotterdam woman sued and reached a financial settlement for being declared the “winner” of an ugly bride contest on the Mason and Sheehan Show.

Locatelli said he probably got some of his own rebellious streak — he would have been sacked many times over for ignoring the station’s official playlist, except that it brought in good ratings — from Mason, whom Locatelli joined as a sidekick when Mason was still partnered with Cliff Nash on the Mason and Nash Show.

Mason and Sheehan and the crew would meet hundreds of people at a time at breakfast club parties that are still remembered today, Locatelli said.

“You know what’s gone? That interaction with the public,” he said. “You’d just have a ball.”

E​d Levine, operations manager at PYX 106 during Mason’s heyday, recalls arriving in 1986 to see a thousand people at a breakfast club celebration.