Raphael Vincent "Ray" Taliaferro (February 7, 1939 – November or December 2018) was an American radio host and political commentator.
[2][3] In 1954–1955, Ray (a high school Junior) and his brother Robert ("Bob", a Senior) were attending Monterey Bay Academy ("MBA") in Watsonville, California (their family lived in San Francisco at the time).
An accomplished musician, he conducted the "Ray Tal Chorale" and served as director of music for the Third Baptist Church.
The program was simply known as the "Early Show" and primarily consisted of lively (and sometimes confrontational) discussion of contemporary issues in American politics, culture, and current events.
Shortly thereafter, he also got into television, commuting every day to Burbank (by Los Angeles) to host a show on KHJ-TV (KCAL-TV) before accepting a news anchor position at San Francisco's KRON-TV.
Taliaferro was claimed to be the first African American talk show host on a major market radio station in the country in 1967.
Taliaferro discussed "scary" callers in a November 1988 article in the San Francisco Chronicle, noting that several women have shown up at the station to meet him and he has had to get security to stop them.
He was the Mayor's Commissioner of the War Memorial Trustee Board from 1992 through 2000, and he headed up the San Francisco Art Commission for 16 years.
[15] Autopsy results showed Taliaferro died from a combination of hypertensive cardiovascular disease with a likely contribution from hypothermia and environmental exposure.
[18] An aircheck of Taliaferro, from KGO, was sampled by Brian Eno and David Byrne and used on "America Is Waiting", the first track on My Life in the Bush of Ghosts.