Tom Donahue

Tom Donahue, often known as "Big Daddy," was an American disc jockey who significantly influenced radio in the late 1960s and 1970s. He was a pioneer of free-form rock radio, a format where DJs played a wide variety of music beyond rock, including rhythm and blues, blues, jazz, folk, and country, and had the freedom to speak about whatever they chose.1

Donahue's work at KMPX in San Francisco, and later at KSAN, helped make free-form radio a commercial success. This style of radio contrasted with the more structured Top 40 format. The free-form approach eventually evolved into album-oriented rock (AOR), which led to the decline of free-form radio after Donahue's death in 1975. A disc jockey, or DJ, is a person who presents recorded music on radio, television, or at events.123