Country Stars React to Death of Radio Legend Bob Kingsley
Farewell to a true radio icon.
Bob Kingsley, the legendary radio personality and longtime host of American Country Countdown and Bob Kingsley’s Country Top 40, died Thursday (October 17) at his home in Texas. He was 80, and had announced he was battling bladder cancer just a week earlier.
A member of both the National Radio Hall of Fame and Country Radio Broadcasters Hall of Fame, Kingsley’s 60 year career made him one of the most-listened to voices in country music history. He loved giving context to the week’s most popular country songs, and influenced multiple generations of fans and artists alike.
“I love the music and the people who make it,” Kingsley once said, according to a statement about his passing, “and I want our listeners to have as much insight into both as I can give them, and to make the experience as enjoyable as possible.”
Kingsley was awarded many of his industry’s top awards and honors, praised for his charity work with his fellow military veterans and the namesake of the Bob Kingsley Living Legend Award, presented each year since 2014 at the Grand Ole Opry House and benefitting the Opry Trust Fund.
Some of country’s biggest names and newcomers alike offered remembrances of Kingsley when news of his death broke.
