Radio host Art Bell dies at 72

[FORD]

Radio host Art Bell dies at 72
Las Vegas Review-Journal
April 13, 2018 - 10:14 pm

Longtime radio host Art Bell died Friday at his Pahrump home, the Nye County Sheriff’s Office announced. He was 72.

Bell’s paranormal-themed show, “Coast to Coast AM,” was syndicated on about 500 North American stations in the 1990s before he left the nightly show in 2002. He broadcast the show from Pahrump’s KNYE 95.1 FM, a station he founded.

Bell retired several times in his career, which included a short-lived show on Sirius XM satellite radio in 2013.

Returning to terrestrial radio afterward was not a difficult decision, he told the Pahrump Valley Times in August 2013.

“That’s easy, because I love it,” he said at the time. “It’s my life and that’s all I have ever done. I went through a lot of family problems so that interrupted things and I was overseas for four years and that certainly interrupted things. I went back into radio because I love it.”

Bell was born in Jacksonville, North Carolina, on June 17, 1945. He served in the the U.S. Air Force as a medic during the Vietnam War.

According to the Coast to Coast AM website, Bell was an FCC licensed radio technician at age 13. He also held a Guinness World Record for a solo broadcast marathon, at over 116 hours, while working as a DJ in Okinawa, Japan, the website said.

[FORD]

Here's a 2010 episode when Art took his show back (temporarily) from that idiot George Noory, who ruined the franchise.....

[FORD]

If this is true, it looks like Art checked out just in time.....

[Nitro Express]

There was just something cool about driving all night listening to Art Bell on the radio. George Noory never did have the vibe Art Bell did.

[Nitro Express]

Here's a 2010 episode when Art took his show back (temporarily) from that idiot George Noory, who ruined the franchise.....

[Kristy]

72? I though that lying propagandist/conspiracy starting cocksucker was way older than that. Fuck him.

[Nitro Express]

72? I though that lying propagandist/conspiracy starting cocksucker was way older than that. Fuck him.

I think he was a smoker. That makes people sound and even look older. Yeah I was surprised he was only 72.

[Nickdfresh]

Here's a 2010 episode when Art took his show back (temporarily) from that idiot George Noory, who ruined the franchise.....

I was a fan of Art and listened often in my insomnia of his 1990's heyday. Noory sucks and I can't bring myself to bother turning on the local affiliate even in the wee hours of the morn such as now. Noory, a dumb-fucking conspiracy theorist that seemingly runs in circles and obsesses over his childhood horror-TV hosts, but he isn't the first to replace art. A guy named Mike Siegel did first, and was replaced by Bell after failing the franchise miserably due to the fact that he was just another conservative radio douche. They both sorely lack Art's baritone voice charisma and Barnum and Bailey style showmanship. Bell's legacy is that he was an excellent interviewer that had openly no pretense about being a journalist and would let batshit crazy guests tell their views and made them more interesting with his questioning rather than drowning them out (although there were exceptions)..

It's sad Art is gone, but he was definitely kind of a weird guy with the fixation on what were essentially Filipino-mail-order-brides that was a bit disturbing really. During his return to radio in the early 2000s, he went to the Philippines to find a replacement for his first wife that was also Filipino and it was a bit strange and sounded a bit like a business transaction with her family...

Anyhoo, at his height Bell was prolific and on the radio like six nights a week if not seven. His best shows were actually a Sunday night broadcast called "Dreamland" that was earlier (like 9pm EST) and I think was actually much better than CTC because he distilled everything down without having to fill hours of the normal overnight slot with idiot callers and fuckwit guests...

[Nickdfresh]

Is it me or does the audio cut out of that about halfway through?

Anyways, Bell once said Noory was basically just a run-of-the-mill conspiracy guy peddling the same shit from guys that make a living propping conspiracies...

[FORD]

Mike Siegel did a local show on an AM right wing talk radio station in Seattle. When he got bored with that, he got directly involved with politics, but I don't think he ever managed to win an election. He might still be involved with the Republican party on a state level. I'm not as tuned into the mechanics of either party as I used to be. Forgot all about him being on Coast to Coast, but then I always got a shitty AM signal around here, so I didn't listen all that often. My friend Billy Z was obsessed with the show though. He kept listening when Noory took over, but more for the bizarro guests than Noory himself. So if I was on the road with Billy late at night, I was listening whether I really wanted to or not..... had to draw the line when Noory gave an entire episode of the show to Michael Chertoff's idiot cousin who wrote the 9/11 whitewash garbage though.