Pioneering Female DJ Dusty Street Dead at 77

Dusty Street, a pioneering female disc jockey best known for her long run on modern rock station KROQ Los Angeles, died Saturday in Eugene, Ore. She was 77.

Her death was announced Sunday in a Facebook post by her most recent radio home, SiriusXM Deep Tracks. “We have lost one of our own. Dusty Street has passed away after 77 joyous trips around the sun. And yes, Dusty Street was her real name,” the post read.

“Dusty was one of the first female rock jocks on the West Coast ...We are heartbroken,” the post added, before concluding with Street’s signature radio signoff, “Fly low dear friend and avoid the radar.”

Beginning in the late 1960s, Street became one of the country’s first FM female DJs, working at KSAN, KMPX and KTIM. She eventually moved to Los Angeles and landed at the then-burgeoning KROQ in 1978, where she stayed until 1980 and had stints at crosstown rivals KLOS and KWST. She returned to KROQ from 1981 through 1989 where she was a nighttime fixture at the station.

While at KROQ, Street, along with other DJs at the station, often broke new music on the airwaves as the station was one of the first to play artists such as Duran Duran, Depeche Mode and others.

Though some assumed her on-air name was a pseudonym, Street claimed it was her real name in a 1985 interview with the Los Angeles Times. “[My full name is] Dusty Frances Street,” she told the newspaper. “My father’s name was Emerson Street, and we used to live on Emerson Street in Palo Alto. Drove the postman out of his mind.”

In the same interview, she spoke her mind about female air personalities conforming to stereotypes. “A lot of ladies who got into radio decided that they had to do that bedroom thing, and not many of them developed an individual personality,” she said. “I have to say honestly that there are maybe four ladies in the country who are happening, who have a personality.”

Fellow former L.A. DJ Geno Michellini posted on Facebook that he was at Street’s bedside when she passed on Saturday night and offered a tribute. “Tonight I lost one of the best friends I ever had and the world lost a radio and music legend as befitting her starring role in the San Francisco Sounds documentary movie that just came out recently. She was all that and so much more,” he wrote. “There will never be another Dusty Street. The queen is gone, but she’ll never be forgotten.”

Some current air personalities also paid tribute. “RIP Dusty Street,” former KROQ DJ Kat Corbett, now heard on SiriusXM, posted on X (formerly Twitter). “Thank you for paving the way…”