Jay or Jaybird Drennan was born
December 9, 1928, Jerry William Drennan grew up as the son of a
sharecropper on peanut farms in Texas and New Mexico. He worked at radio
stations in markets in those states including Tucumcari, Clovis,
Hereford, Perryton, and Lubbock before moving on to Colorado Springs,
Colorado, Turlock, California and Akron, Ohio.During Jaybird's 27 years as morning drive air personality for WSLR in Akron, Ohio, he pioneered Country radio in Ohio and paved the way for successful Country stations in Akron and Cleveland. He has been called the best known and best loved personality the market has ever seen.
Jay Drennan passed away on December 10, 2006 from a blood clot that formed after surgery for a broken ankle.
Commenting here because I can…clearing out the attic of my family home in Cleveland recently I came across a large collection of records. Within these records were a lot of ‘special disc jockey edition’ and ‘promotional edition not for sale’ etc type records. A handful of records had writing on them and on the sleeves. This writing consists of “WSLR” and “Jaybird” and ‘Battle of Sound’ etc. I believe this record stash came from the station he performed at. I found a handful of letters that were written back and fourth between my great grandmother and him. They discussed a couple songs, and his letters are signed ‘Jerry “Jaybird” Drennan’. I reached out to some of his family a few years ago to see if they had any interest, but nobody ever got back to me. Anyway, just a small interesting bit about this guy.
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