The radio was Pierre\u2019s town hall. The music and the interviews and the banter were his civic charter \u2014 which proclaimed the rights of boomers and millennials, Deadheads and grunge fans, to tune in, take part, unite. \u201cHail, Hail Rock \u2018n Roll!\u201d \u201cLong Live Rock!\u201d \u201cGreetings Citizens!\u201d To Pierre, it was all \u201cWe the People,\u201d gone electric.<\/p>\n
Hyperbole? Maybe. But \u2026 maybe not. Pierre proclaimed the possible. He was a Bay Area transplant who came to Philly in 1981 jointly spurred by a romance and a radio format switch at his old station. His long hair and white striped beard seemed more from the hippie era he grew up in than the AI age he kept working in \u2014 but he let it wave down Broad Street with the Mummers, flap as he let himself be crowd-surfed in a Green Day mosh pit, and flow from the days of the Chestnut Cabaret<\/a> past the opening of The Met<\/a>.<\/p>\n His look made him stand out. But it seemed that the standing out was only there to make it easier for people to spot him, approach him, hang with a fellow citizen. So often, we never know what the DJs who keep us company look like. Not so with Pierre. Yes, he was, as friend and \u2018MMR colleague Preston Elliot remembered him on air the day after he died, \u201cthe friend on the other side of the microphone.\u201d But he was also the friend on the street. And at the concert. And to so many vulnerable citizens who needed support.<\/p>\n WXPN\u2019s Robert Drake, another stalwart of Philadelphia radio, said on his station\u2019s website, \u201cWhat I think set [Pierre] apart from many was his steadfast commitment to Philly\u2019s LGBTQ+ community, especially its constant fight to support those living with HIV\/AIDS. Pierre was front and center when the AIDS Walk Philly made its debut 38 years ago. The same goes with other events he embraced, which supported a rainbow of nonprofit organizations. He not only used his professional position to educate and celebrate, but he also quietly supported the community when it mattered.\u201d Of the city, in the city, for the city \u2014 Pierre showed up.<\/p>\n When Philly was chosen as the U.S. counterpart to London for 1985\u2019s Live Aid benefit for African hunger relief, Pierre volunteered to join the fast, furious, and massive set up effort at JFK Stadium. (Then, ever the one to cross boundaries to build bridges, he used his volunteer badge to sneak backstage and score interviews with rock icons that he broadcast to the region).<\/p>\n For me, Pierre mattered most at Christmas. His Christmas Eve show was the epitome of who he was. What time was it on? 10am til \u2026 4pm? 5? 6? He seemed never to want to stop. He\u2019d welcome people home to Philly for the holidays. He\u2019d dig into his inexhaustible archives to play the same touchstones each year. An interview with actor John Astin (TV\u2019s original Gomez Addams) about playing Ebenezer Scrooge in A Christmas Carol. \u201cI Wanna Jagwa.\u201d (Give it a listen<\/a>). And three which seemed to represent Pierre\u2019s philosophy \u2014 his credo of citizenship.<\/p>\n Christmas on the Block<\/a> by the Alan Mann Band has become a Philly classic, due in no small part to Pierre\u2019s annual airing. It tells the story of a house Mann saw one Christmas season while walking the streets of the city\u2019s Overbrook section. The house was bedecked with lights in lush abundance. Mann learned it was a group home for people who were blind, who still wanted light to shine for others to see. It was a story of a city neighborhood. Of that ideal unit of civic cohesion \u2014 the block. Of citizens sharing with others. No wonder Pierre loved it.<\/p>\n He\u2019d close, when he finally could bear to stop, with classics stretching back decades. First, the finale of a Honeymooners Christmas episode,<\/a> with Jackie Gleason, as Ralph Kramden, sharing that what he loved about Christmas was how it changed the city. The citizens, Ralph tells his wife Alice, \u201cdon\u2019t hustle at Christmas like they usually do.\u201d And when they collide, as they will on a crowded city street, \u201cThey laugh, and say pardon me \u2026\u201d And then Pierre would call upon Louis Armstrong to close it out with his vision of \u201cfriends shaking hands, saying \u2018How do you do?\u2019\u201d in What A Wonderful World.<\/a><\/p>\n It would all just be gauzy nostalgia, but for the fact that over all these years, Pierre himself hustled through our city, shaking hands and giving his own version of \u201cHow do you do?\u201d\u2014 \u201cGreetings, Citizen!\u201d He really was the light on the block. And he believed that music, and radio, could get us a little more wonderful world. The night he died, my 23-year-old son called to see how I was doing. He said he remembered being a kid in the backseat, driving to our annual Seven Fishes feast every year, with the end of the Pierre Christmas Eve show playing in the car. He called it a \u201cfelt memory.\u201d I love that. It\u2019s so Pierre. You don\u2019t just think the memory of him. You feel it.<\/p>\n Pierre loved the Grateful Dead. (Another highlight of his Christmas show was a little treat of a choir singing O Come All Ye Grateful Deadheads.<\/a>). When he died, a line from the Dead song Franklin\u2019s Tower<\/a> came to mind. I don\u2019t think it\u2019s our Franklin they\u2019re singing about. But when they sing \u201cIf you get confused, listen to the music play,\u201d they could just as well have been nodding to Pierre. Cold War, War on Terror, deep times of polarization \u2014 Pierre took the mic during decades of times and events that got us, kept us, confused. \u201cListen to the music play,\u201d his presence seemed to say. \u201cIt might help.\u201d It did.<\/p>\n After playing the Dead, Pierre would always say, \u201cGod bless the Grateful Dead.\u201d Same to you Pierre. Thanks. Farewell, Citizen!<\/p>\n David Bradley is a lifelong citizen of Philadelphia, and lover of music and Philly radio.<\/p>\n The Citizen welcomes guest commentary from community members who represent that it is their own work and their own opinion based on true facts that they know firsthand.<\/p>\n MORE LEGENDARY MUSIC TRADITIONS IN PHILADELPHIA<\/strong><\/p>\n \u00a0<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"\u201cGreetings Citizens!\u201d For a city perpetually reveling in the Ben Franklin-ness of it all, that salutation might seem…\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":348962,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5132],"tags":[5229,975,593,1448,2830,1311,67,586,132,5230,68,2969],"class_list":{"0":"post-348961","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-philadelphia","8":"tag-america","9":"tag-music","10":"tag-obituaries","11":"tag-pa","12":"tag-pennsylvania","13":"tag-philadelphia","14":"tag-united-states","15":"tag-united-states-of-america","16":"tag-unitedstates","17":"tag-unitedstatesofamerica","18":"tag-us","19":"tag-usa"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@us\/115476844432012469","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/348961","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=348961"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/348961\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/348962"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=348961"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=348961"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=348961"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/11\/nl_bolt600-copy.jpg\"\/)
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