Leo Christopher Chears This is Me

Education

 Web References

1. 1. www.siue.com

   www.siue.com/news/archives/Arc - [Cached]

   Last Visited: 3/24/2007

   Leo Christopher Chears, known to WSIE-FM listeners and to many jazz aficionados throughout the country as "The Man In The Red Vest," died Monday, Jan. 2, at Barnes-Jewish Hospital after a long illness. He was 72.
   
   Chears, who began his broadacasting career in 1960 at the old WAMV radio station in East St. Louis, went on to make a name for himself as a jazz broadcaster in the early 1960s at KADI Radio in St. Louis, where he shared the airwaves with the likes of Spider Burks, one of the first black disc jockeys in St. Louis. Chears said he learned much from Burks about jazz and decided to devote the rest of his life to the music he referred to as "America's Art Form." Over the years, Chears appeared countless times on stage as welcoming host to jazz greats from around the world who came to perform in St. Louis.
   
   As was the case with many radio broadcasters in the early days, especially black announcers, the pay was low and Chears held a full-time day job for many years at Barnes Hospital as lab technician. In 1970, he moved to KSD Radio in St. Louis as host of an all-night jazz show. He also wrote and produced several radio commercials for Anheuser-Busch while at KADI and then at KSD. In fact, executives at A-B gave Chears the impetus for the moniker,"The Man in the Red Vest",which became his signature.
   
   Chears went on to establish a long-standing popular jazz show at WMRY Radio from 1974-1986 at the station operated by the Oblate Missionary Fathers at the Shrine of Our Lady of the Snows. After a five-year stint at WRTH Radio, he joined the staff of WSIE-FM at SIUE, where he played his favorite music for nearly 15 years.
   
   Radio managers found that when they hired Chears, his vast jazz record library was part of the deal, and he turned to it frequently to bolster a station's jazz holdings.
   
   According to the St. Louis Post-Dispatch, Chears was a native of Lamar, Miss., and moved to Brooklyn, Ill., with his family in 1940 at the age of eight. The family eventually resided in East St. Louis, where Chears graduated from Lincoln High School. He went on to serve in the military from 1955-57 at Ft. Lewis, Wash., and attended classes at Puget Sound City College in Tacoma, Washington.
   
   Visitation is scheduled from 4-8 p.m. Saturday, Jan. 7, at Nash Funeral Home, 144 N. 16th St., East St. Louis. A funeral service will be conducted at 7 p.m. Sunday, Jan. 8, at Rising Star Missionary Baptist Church, 3424 LaSalle St., St. Louis.