Tom "Big Daddy" Donahue (May 21, 1928 – April 28, 1975), was an American rock and roll radio disc jockey, record producer and concert promoter.
[6] Donahue's radio career started in early 1949 on the East Coast of the U.S. at WTIP in Charleston, West Virginia, then affiliated with the Mutual Broadcasting System.
[12] Donahue briefly worked at WINX in Maryland,[1] but fall-out from the payola scandal was ongoing; it involved such big names as Alan Freed and Dick Clark, as well as a few East Coast and Midwest DJs.
In 1964,[14] while a disc jockey at Top Forty station KYA (now KOIT) in San Francisco, Donahue and Mitchell formed a record label.
He also opened a psychedelic nightclub, Mothers, on Broadway in San Francisco, and produced concerts at the Cow Palace, the Oakland Auditorium and Candlestick Park with his partner Mitchell (later known as Bobby Tripp in Los Angeles radio).
[1] Donahue wrote a 1967 Rolling Stone article titled "AM Radio Is Dead and Its Rotting Corpse Is Stinking Up the Airwaves", which also lambasted the Top Forty format.
[15] In 1969, besides his roles as a DJ, station manager, and live show producer, he also managed Leigh Stephens (former lead guitarist of the San Francisco psychedelic rock group Blue Cheer), Micky Waller (a British drummer who played in the Steampacket, Brian Auger, Julie Driscoll, Brian Auger & The Trinity, The Jeff Beck Group, 1968–69), and Pete Sears in the band Silver Metre, and in 1970 Stoneground.