Talent: WALT "BABY" LOVE
Station: CKLW Windsor, Ont.
Date: August 29, 1970
Time: 1:06:16 (unscoped)
8:11 (scoped)

(Chart scan courtesy Tom Howard)

The glory days of Top 40 radio ended, but Walt "Baby" Love just kept on rockin'.

Love entertained at many of the biggest stations in Top 40 radio history, including CKLW, KHJ, KFI, KILT, WNBC, WXLO and WOR-FM. Along the way, he became the first African-American to work for both Lin Broadcasting in the south and the RKO chain. But in 1983, Love went into a new direction as he began hosting The Countdown with Walt "Baby" Love. The show has gone on to become the longest-running syndicated R&B show in radio and has won Billboard's Best R&B Syndicated Radio Show award multiple times. He has also hosted the syndicated shows Gospel Traxx, The Urban AC Countdown and African-Americans Making It Happen. In addition to his radio work, Love was Urban Radio and Music editor at Radio and Records for 21 years.   

While he calls himself Walt "Baby" Love on air, the Pennsylvania native is known off-air as Reverend Walter Shaw. In 1997, he was ordained in the ministry at the First House of Prayer in Chicago. Later he was ordained as a Deacon in the African Methodist Episcopal (AME) denomination at FAME, First African Methodist Episcopal Church of Los Angeles. He earned the designation of local elder in the AME Church in 2003 and is now an associate minister at FAME.

Love was inducted into the Radio Hall of Fame in 2022.

Hear Walt "Baby" Love on CKLW (unscoped) here. 

Hear Walt "Baby" Love on CKLW (scoped) here. 
 

(The Tom Howard Collection)

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