Big Jack Armstrong
| Big Jack Armstrong | |
|---|---|
 |
|
| Birth name | John Charles Larsh |
| Born | December 4, 1945 Chapel Hill, NC |
| Died | March 21, 2008 High Point, NC |
| Show | Jack Armstrong Show, Jack Armstrong Go-round,The Jack Armstrong Experience |
Big Jack Armstrong (born John Charles Larsh on December 4, 1945, in Durham County, North Carolina; died March 23, 2008, in High Point, North Carolina), also known as Jack Armstrong, Jackson W. Armstrong, and Big Jack Your Leader, was a top-40 disc jockey of the 1960s through the 1980s, and an oldies DJ until 2006.
His parents were John Edgar Larsh, Jr., who was a professor in the School of Medicine at the University of North Carolina, and Ruth Ella Neal. His father once served as the acting dean of UNC's School of Pharmacy.
He held a Guinness World Record for "fastest talking human alive" at one point in his career. He developed two imaginary sidekicks - the Gorilla, who speaks in a raspy bass, and likes women, banana juice, and whiskey, in that order - and the Old Timer, who wheezes, tells lame jokes, and was always getting shot after one of them.
Larsh was known for his distinctive signoff. At WKYC, it was a few catchphrases, spoken over the instrumental version of The Beatles' "And I Love Her". On WKBW, he used "Shimmy Shimmy Walk II" by the Megatons. On most stations, he used no background music. Eventually, it became a Motormouth extravaganza, spoken so fast it was hard to understand.
Larsh began his radio career at WCHL in Chapel Hill, North Carolina in 1960 at the age of 14 as an after-school and weekend job. He also worked at WCDJ in Edenton in the summer when his family would go back home during summer break. At some point, he worked for WSSB in Durham, but the time frame is unclear.
Upon graduating from high school in 1964, Larsh moved to Atlanta, where he got an FCC First Class engineer's license, while working on the radio at WDJK. His parents enrolled him in Guilford College in Greensboro in the pre-med course. Larsh dropped out almost immediately, having gotten a radio job at WCOG.
...
Wikipedia