By Ken Hall

It takes more than a pretty face and a smooth voice to earn a seat on TV's Hollywood Squares. Shadoe Stevens happens to have both of those qualities, but that's not why he's famous. Before becoming a circle or square, Stevens was already something of a legend in radio. Aside from working at numerous FM music stations around the country (mostly in Los Angeles), he served for six years as host of "America's Top 40" (from 1988-94) during the time that Casey Kasem had left the show. At its peak, the program was broadcast in 120 countries and had an estimated listenership of one billion people.

As program director of KROQ-FM in Los Angeles in the 1970s, Stevens created a new music format that consisted of only new, cutting edge music. As such, he can be credited as being one of the pioneers of alternative rock, a genre that exists today in most major markets. At the time, despite its newness, alternative rock was readily accepted by KROQ's listeners. Within six months, KROQ was the top-rated station in Los Angeles and Stevens was named Personality of the Year by Billboard Magazine.

"Creating a successful radio station or show is like putting together a big puzzle," Stevens said from his home in Los Angeles. "You integrate different components and strategies to create a whole, and you discard what doesn't work as you go along." It's an approach that spills over into his artwork. Yes, Stevens is also an artist. In fact, art was his first passion. He enrolled at the University of North Dakota as an art major.

"My biggest interest has always been multi-media," he said. "I like integrating different art forms to make one creation. I use acrylics, pen-and-ink and collage created from computer-generated materials. Those are the pieces of my puzzle and it's my job to execute a finished product. In that sense, art is very much like radio. The challenges are similar."

Stevens utilized those very artistic elements to create a large-format, multimedia suite titled "The Transdimensional Symbolism of Rocky Waters." Rocky Waters is a fictional, Depression-era football player (Stevens clipped the image out of an old magazine), who serves as the centerpiece of the eight-panel suite. Each work represents a struggle or issue with which Rocky must grapple and resolve. And each one is accompanied by a block of text, explaining what is taking place.

For example, in work #2, titled "The Mellifluous Bellow of Chronic Reality," Stevens writes:

"Feeling brittle and small, and wallowing in the enormity and complexity of his personal plight, Rocky Waters fails to see the bigger picture. Unaware of even the not-so-subtle headlights illuminating the path, he is clearly oblivious to the inner workings of the impossible inevitable all around him. Bathed in light he doesn't even see, he's blind to the vehicles of change that have been set in motion, inching forward through conflicting elements, bumper-to-bumper on the road to happy destiny."

The eighth and final panel is a surprise ending: a photo of a young Joan Crawford, dancing, repeated so that she looks like her own chorus line. Clocks are perched above her, suggesting that time is fleeting, for her and for Rocky. It's titled "No Wire Hangers, I'm Gonna Dance" and the accompanying text reads: "Lucille Fay LeSeur (Joan Crawford's real name) keeps dancing, shouting: 'I need sex for a clear complexion!', "I'm not mad at you, I'm mad at the dirt,' and 'If I can't be me, I don't want to be anybody.' These are actual quotes from Joan Crawford, Stevens pointed out.
Like Crawford, Stevens has taken a pseudonym. He was born Terry Ingstad in Jamestown, N.D., in 1946. Almost from the start, radio was his destiny. At age 10, he built a radio station in his home and began broadcasting for a mile in every direction. His show was brought to the attention of the local commercial station, KEYJ in Jamestown, which hired him at age 11 to host a program called "Spin With Terry." He was promoted as "The World's Youngest DJ."

Stevens' interest in art began even earlier. He made freehand drawings of Disney characters and his mother, herself an artist, saw he had exceptional skills for his age and actively encouraged him. In high school, he took kiosk space at a local mall and made custom T-shirts, using an airbrush and fluorescent paints. "It was great," he recalled. "It was like I was performing. I'd be painting a shirt and a crowd would gather, hypnotized by the activity. And I was all of 17."

Stevens began at the University of North Dakota as an art major, but switched to drama and radio/TV journalism when he transferred to the University of Arizona. "I took stock of what was the more viable career path," Stevens reflected. "Art was something I enjoyed and was good at, but radio was a medium I had already worked and made money in. I basically put myself through college (with some help from my parents) by working in radio -- at KILO in Grand Forks (North Dakota), KQWB in Fargo and KIKX in Tucson."

After five years of college, Stevens never did get his degree (although he plans to someday earn a diploma). But it wasn't really necessary. He already had an impressive resume when he got a job as evening host of a program on WRKO in Boston. From there, he was hired away by the number one radio station in the country, KHJ in Los Angeles. That was in 1970. His career path widened to include acting (as a regular on the TV shows Loose Cannon, Dave's World and, of course, Hollywood Squares), film, voiceover work and advertising.

Stevens' radio career reached a zenith during the years he hosted "America's Top 40." Today, he heads up RhythmRadio -- "The Sound of the World in a Good Mood" -- a global network of radio programs featuring vibrant new music from around the world. The shows are titled "World Hit Radio" and "Shadoe Stevens' Planet Party." They are heard in 30 countries( but not, ironically, in the United States).

Stevens would like to show the Rocky Waters suite at an established art gallery. Serious inquiries may be submitted to shadoe@shadoe.com.

Circle gets the square! Before taking a seat on TV's Hollywood Squares, Shadoe Stevens was already a radio legend. But art was his first love.

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