Friends are recalling longtime radio host Jim Quinn as a force in Pittsburgh media.
Quinn died Sunday at 82.
The New Jersey native spent decades on Steel City stations, from his start at KQV in the 1960s to WTAE in the late 1970s and then becoming half of “The Quinn and Banana Show,” a popular morning duo on B-94.
Remembrances began flooding social media on Sunday afternoon, with friends saying “the world lost a great one,” and that it was “truly sad news.”
Ed Weigle, a voiceover actor for WWE radio spots, rememmbered Quinn in a Facebook post Sunday. “He was certainly a radio force back home in Pittsburgh when I was a kid,” wrote Weigle, originally from Latrobe.
“As a high schooler, I used to enjoy him and Don Jefferson on B-94. Years later, I had the pleasure of working with him, as our morning man, on my second run on Magic 97. His promos were always fun to record.”
Quinn got his start at KQV in 1967 where he met his future political mentor Rush Limbaugh, who also worked at the Downtown Pittsburgh studio.
After stints in Philadelphia and New York, Quinn returned to Pittsburgh to 13Q, or WKTQ. There, he voiced a popular parody record titled “Undercover Pothole,” a nod to the city’s cratered roads that mimicked the tune of the popular Alan O’Day song “Undercover Angel.”
For more than a decade, from 1983 to 1992, he was part of the hit duo “Quinn and Banana” with DJ Don Jefferson.
“I’m retired now, but Jim loved radio so much he never retired,” Jefferson told TribLive. “I was 24 when they signed him up to do mornings with me in 1984 and he was 17 years older. I learned some things from him — he’d obviously had a huge career even at that point. But good radio morning shows, in my opinion, work when everyone is bringing something different to the table. In our case, it worked because we made each other laugh.
“We had a good run at B-94 and then Jim was able to reinvent himself, successfully, in talk radio, which is a tough act.”
Quinn, after an unceremonious departure from mainstream radio, moved to WRRK in the North Hills where he honed his conservative views into a talk format.
The program moved to WPGB in Bridgeville in 2004 where it was broadcast alongside nationally syndicated shows like Rush Limbaugh’s.
Later, his program “The Warroom with Quinn and Rose” was aired on XM Satellite Radio and meant to appeal to political conservatives.
Most recently, he hosted “Quinn in the Morning” on WAVL in Apollo.