Tom Rivers RIP

From what I understand, Tom hadn’t been ill for very long but he was adamant that it not get out that he was sick. His reasons? Who knows. Who cares, really. It was his life and how he wanted to deal with the end of it is nobody’s business.

I’m glad that I got to see Tom recently when he was filling in on the Jack morning show. I bounced into the control room and didn’t hide my glee at looking up at this mountain of a man again, after so many years. He gave me a hug that can only be described as a bear embracing a rabbit. You couldn’t help but feel small in Tom’s presence. He had a big frame and a big personality. He seemed happy to see me, too.

Tom and I worked together at the MIX circa the early 1990′s. I once blew an on air audition that I didn’t know was an audition (I thought it was last-minute fill-in stint) to be on the MIX morning show – that was with Tom. I remember him being supportive but Wray also remembers him being rather dark to me. Funny, I’ve forgotten any of that. I recall that when my GM couldn’t find the words to tell me some bad career news, it was Tom who dialled the phone and gently broke it to me. I respected that about him and I was grateful.

On the day his alliance with the MIX ended, I was filling in on middays and there was Tom, outside the building, nervously dragging on a cigarette. “There’s a coup at the fucking palace, Brandt. A coup at the palace!” That’s all he said about it. I later learned the whole story and why it was a very low point in his career. He had a few of those but he always bounced back and his stint on Jack seemed like a match made in radio heaven. He was working with his best buddy Larry Silver again, on the radio, where he belonged. I had heard several years ago that he was writing a book about his career but I don’t know what became of it. Maybe it was the victim of a publishing problem – I’m familiar with things like that.

We don’t have many true radio legends in this country. Tom was one of them, and he’ll be missed.