Remembering Jim Ladd

I had the great fortune to work with Jim Ladd twice in my career. I’m sure that there are many others here on LinkedIn who spent more significant time with Jim than me…but they were significant times for me. The man made everyone he came in contact with feel like their time together was significant and I think that's a testimony to his legacy

To most of us my age and older, Jim was an icon. However, if you were born after the Millennium, what you need to know that Jim was essentially the last freeform Rock DJ on mass-market terrestrial radio. Beyond his tenures at KMET and KLOS and then later, Sirius XM, Roger Waters included him on Radio K.A.O.S., and Tom Petty even wrote a song about him. To put it plainly, much of the classic rock & roll that you love and many of the careers of artists you know benefitted from his influence. He had a larger-than-life, yet approachable personality, and a voice that was pure gold.

My first meeting with Jim was around 2010. Television producer Robert Ballantyne and my long-time friend Shawn K. Clement , approached me to co-produce a TV series they were developing called Masters of Sound.?

With Masters of Sound, we set out to feature the unsung heroes behind the music we love, the world's greatest recording engineers, as they told the stories behind the greatest recording sessions of all time. In thinking about who the host should be, a unanimous decision was made that it should be someone like Jim Ladd…if we could be lucky enough to get him. At the time, Jim was still on the air at KLOS, and this was right before his much-publicized move to Sirius XM. When Jim, agreed to work with us…I remember that we felt like we had hit the jackpot.

The good news was that Jim’s involvement with the project got our foot in the door in many places. …but TV execs couldn't be convinced that a show about recording engineers would be interesting enough to garner enough viewers. Our pitch reel seems a bit dated to me now, Jim's introduction to it is below, but I still think they were wrong...what do you think?

After we closed up shop on the production in 2012, I found it hard to imagine that I'd have the chance to work with Jim again. Life had other plans. In 2021, I found myself directing the Polk Audio brand where we had something truly special coming up: 2022 was Polk’s 50th anniversary. In addition to a complete refresh of the brand identity, we needed to launch a heritage campaign to celebrate Polk's core mission to provide great sound at a great value...Great Sound for All.?

In developing the videos for the campaign, our agency Someoddpilot sourced some great voice talent. I was ready to move forward but our brand president, Frank K. Sterns wasn't satisfied. He told me that we didn't just need great voice-over talent, “this is the brand's 50th year and now, if ever, Polk deserved an iconic voice for the campaign.”?

Over a weekend, Frank reached out to tell me he had an idea of who that should be. He shared that at the very beginning of his career, he had interned at A&M Records. Through that internship at A&M he got to visit KMET (The Mighty Met) where Jim Ladd had DJ'd. Frank was a fan then and he had been a fan ever since.

Jim Ladd was the perfect choice for the campaign. Polk is an American heritage speaker brand that's been synonymous with the Rock & Roll ethos for 50 years, and Jim Ladd was the DJ and voice of Rock & Roll that came out of those speakers for just about as long.

It turned out that Jim wasn’t just a fan of the brand, he wasn't just going to be a hired gun for the campaign, he said he was proud to be the voice of Polk’s 50th anniversary. Thanks to the invaluable help of Kenny Nemes , Jim's manager, it all became a reality.

I virtually attended the recording sessions led by Someoddpilot, and it was amazing to see and hear such a consummate professional at work. On most takes Jim intuitively knew what we needed, but he gave us options, some hard options to choose from...how do you choose from two perfect takes? In the few instances where he needed direction, he took it and immediately nailed it. All-in-all we produced nine campaign videos for Polk. I’m sharing the two that I’m most proud of below.?

While I was sad to learn yesterday that the needle lifted from the record for the last time for Jim Ladd, I know he had a life well lived, driven by the love of music and we are the better for it. I am grateful for the brief time that I spent with him and I'm sure that wherever he is now, the playlist just got much better.? ? ?

Signing off,?

Carl

About the author: Carl Jacobson offers fractional CMO and brand consulting services within the pro and consumer audio space, and to technology start-ups. Throughout his career, he has directed the marketing of some of the world's leading audio brands including JBL Professional, AKG, Polk Audio, Definitive Technology, PreSonus, Soundcraft, Digitech, Studer, and others. His branding work was featured by Kevin Roberts, Chairman of Saatchi & Saatchi in his best-selling book The Lovemarks Effect; he's spoken on stage with CMO of Intel about successful comarketing during their IDF conference; and in 2022, a campaign he led for Definitive Technology was nominated for a Webby Award. Carl lives in Los Angeles and views his greatest life work as being the best dad he can be.