Dusty Street Interviews Ray Charles, 1974

Dusty Street (1946-2023), born Dustine Frances Street in Palo Alto, got her start in Bay Area radio as one of the fabled “chick engineers” at KMPX in 1967. She went on the air for the first time when she covered for an absent disc jockey. She became a full-time DJ in 1969 after moving to KSAN, where she worked until the mid 1970’s.

Street is considered to be one of the country’s first female FM DJ’s.  She spent time at KTIM before moving to the Los Angeles market where she starred on KROQ until 1995. She was inducted into the Bay Area Radio Hall of Fame in 2015.

This interview with musical legend Ray Charles was conducted in November 1974 during Charles' run of shows at the Venetian Room in San Francisco's Fairmont Hotel. Street, who had held down a weeknight 10 PM to 2 AM shift on KSAN for several years, had voluntarily switched to a weekly Sunday timeslot a few months earlier.

This interview is among several Dusty Street recordings in the Bay Area Radio Museum and Hall of Fame archives.