{"id":450,"date":"2008-07-25T13:22:01","date_gmt":"2008-07-25T20:22:01","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.louielouie.net\/blog\/?p=450"},"modified":"2026-04-21T14:06:58","modified_gmt":"2026-04-21T21:06:58","slug":"remembering-hunter-hancock","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.louielouie.net\/blog\/?p=450","title":{"rendered":"Remembering Hunter Hancock"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/www.louielouie.net\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2008\/07\/hunterhancock.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"553\" height=\"693\" class=\"aligncenter size-full wp-image-14316\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.louielouie.net\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2008\/07\/hunterhancock.jpg 553w, https:\/\/www.louielouie.net\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2008\/07\/hunterhancock-239x300.jpg 239w, https:\/\/www.louielouie.net\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2008\/07\/hunterhancock-300x376.jpg 300w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 553px) 100vw, 553px\" \/><\/p>\n<p>Following up on the <strong>Johnny Flamingo<\/strong> footage I posted a few days ago to YouTube, I decided to share more footage from the <strong>Hunter Hancock<\/strong> tribute show where Johnny and <strong>Jeanette Baker<\/strong> performed.  This time, I&#8217;m sharing some footage of the man himself, Mr. Hunter Hancock, who is honored at this very special show that took place in Long Beach (CA) on March 4, 2000.<\/p>\n<p><iframe loading=\"lazy\" title=\"Hunter Hancock tribute 2000 - featuring Big Jay McNeely\" width=\"640\" height=\"480\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/fQWiz1ptA-E?feature=oembed\" frameborder=\"0\" allow=\"accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture; web-share\" referrerpolicy=\"strict-origin-when-cross-origin\" allowfullscreen><\/iframe><\/p>\n<p>This special event was produced by the <a href=\"http:\/\/www.electricearl.com\/dws\/\"><strong>Doo-Wop Society of Southern California<\/strong><\/a>, an organization that no longer exists.  On this video clip of Hunter that I created, you&#8217;ll see a short excerpt of <strong>Big Jay McNeely<\/strong> performing at this event, as well as a short photo montage of Hunter that includes photos from his career and the official &#8220;Hunting with Hunter&#8221; theme song.<\/p>\n<p>Hunter Hancock was a major player in the early days of rhythm &#038;  blues &#8211; the genre of music that evolved into we now call &#8220;rock and roll.&#8221;   Hunter was the first disc jockey on the west coast to play this kind of music on the radio, often referred to as &#8220;race music&#8221; during the 1950s.   I&#8217;ve read interviews with <strong>Brian Wilson<\/strong> of the <strong>Beach Boys<\/strong>, acknowledging that Hunter Hancock was the guy that turned him and so many of his friends onto this kind of music, making a major impact on his life.   I once attended a <strong>Nancy Sinatra<\/strong> concert where she talked fondly about how Hunter played all the cool music on his late night radio show, exposing her to such suggestive songs as &#8220;60 Minute Man&#8221; by <strong>Billy Ward &#038; the Dominoes<\/strong>.   Then, there&#8217;s the countless rhythm and blues artists that credit Hunter for playing their music on the radio.<\/p>\n<p>Hunter Hancock was <strong>the guy<\/strong> who turned a lot of white kids onto black music, and black culture.<\/p>\n<p>Hunter Hancock was also the first disc jockey to play &#8220;LOUIE LOUIE&#8221; on the radio, as he played a lot of <strong>Richard Berry<\/strong> records on his show.<\/p>\n<p>For years, I wasn&#8217;t sure if Hunter Hancock was still alive.  I put out inquiries to all sorts of places, posting open solicitations on my LouieLouie.net.   In 2000, I got very lucky.   Thanks to the persistence of <strong>Ray Regalado<\/strong>, Hunter was tracked down, and a special show was created to honor this man for all that he did.  As soon as I found about this show, I immediately made plans to travel to Southern California and see this living legend.   I was very fortunate to meet this man, and in my documentary, you&#8217;ll be able to see portions of my conversation with him.<\/p>\n<p>In the meantime, I&#8217;m happy to share some of my other footage of Hunter on YouTube, as I hope it will bring joy to others<\/p>\n<p>If you want to learn more about Hunter Hancock, be sure to check out:<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/www.electricearl.com\/dws\/hunter.html\">Hunter Hancock&#8217;s personal recollections (on Doo-Wop Society webpage)<\/a><br \/>\n<a href=\"http:\/\/www.hunterhancock.org\/\">HunterHancock.org<\/a> &#8211; the official webpage<\/p>\n<p>By the way, if you haven&#8217;t checked out my <a href=\"http:\/\/www.youtube.com\/user\/eplouie\">YouTube channel<\/a> lately, I&#8217;d like to invite you to do so.  I recently added a <a href=\"http:\/\/www.youtube.com\/view_play_list?p=D01AA0EF9338989D\">playlist dedicated to <strong>Meaning of LOUIE excerpts and outtakes<\/strong><\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Following up on the Johnny Flamingo footage I posted a few days ago to YouTube, I decided to share more footage from the Hunter Hancock tribute show where Johnny and Jeanette Baker&#8230;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":14316,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[28,22,15,30,16,11,19,3],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-450","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-los-angeles-music","category-louie-universe","category-music-business","category-obituaries","category-pop-culture","category-production-at-louie-central","category-radio","category-richard-berry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.louielouie.net\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/450","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.louielouie.net\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.louielouie.net\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.louielouie.net\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.louielouie.net\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=450"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/www.louielouie.net\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/450\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":14319,"href":"https:\/\/www.louielouie.net\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/450\/revisions\/14319"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.louielouie.net\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/14316"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.louielouie.net\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=450"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.louielouie.net\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=450"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.louielouie.net\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=450"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}