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Jerry Williams, dean of talk radio in Boston, dead at 79

BOSTON — Longtime Boston radio talk show host Jerry Williams, considered one of the pioneers of the talk radio format, died Tuesday. He was 79.

Williams died at Massachusetts General Hospital after a long illness, said Rod Fritz, news director of Boston's WRKO-AM, where Williams hosted a popular afternoon drivetime program in the 1980s.

"He started doing issues-oriented talk shows back in the 1950s, and it just blossomed from there," Fritz said of Williams, with whom he worked over two decades. "He's probably best known for his time in Boston, but he made waves everywhere he went, Philadelphia, New York, Chicago."

Williams started his radio career in Bristol, Tenn., in 1946 but became widely known at Boston's WBZ-AM, where he was on the air for eight years beginning in 1968 to an audience that covered 38 states and Canada.

In 1976, Williams joined WMCA/New York, and the following year he moved to WWDB/Philadelphia, where he became the first FM talk host, according to the Web site of the Radio Hall of Fame, where Williams was inducted in 1996. He founded the now-defunct National Association of Radio Talk Show Hosts, according to the Hall of Fame.

Williams' cantankerous style made him popular among listeners but often infuriated politicians and public officials. He became an especially harsh critic of then-Gov. Michael Dukakis.

"I'll remember him best as a gentle man, a curmudgeon, but a gentle man," Fritz said. "He never backed down from anything. But even if he didn't like you, there was a respect there that only comes from a gentleman."

Williams was able to score important interviews, Fritz said, such getting Malcolm X on his show at a time when the civil rights leader didn't like talking to the media.

Williams spearheaded many drives, one to repeal the state's mandatory seat belt law, arguing that the government should not intrude on people's individual freedoms, Fritz said.

"He was the one of the first people to say when they started construction on the Big Dig back in the 80s, that this project is a boondoggle; it will never be finished on time or finished on budget," Fritz said.

Williams, who lived in Marshfield, had been in semi-retirement, with occasional guest shows, Fritz said.

"People are already calling up to say he's going to be sorely missed, him and his voice," he said.