PERVIS SPANN

Pervis Spann was an American radio personality, music promoter, and community leader in Chicago, known best for his work on WVON-AM.

He started on WOPA-AM radio and organized his first concert, featuring B.B. King and Junior Parker, in 1960. Three years later, when Leonard and Phil Chess launched WVON, Spann joined as the late-night on-air host, playing Blues music. He became known as “The Blues Man”, and went on to expand his popularity for decades of community involvement.

Spann won attention with an 87-hour "sleepless sit-in" on the station to raise money for Martin Luther King Jr. In 1962, at a show at the Regal Theater in Chicago, Spann became the first person to refer to Aretha Franklin as "the Queen of Soul", a term that became synonymous with this music artist. During the 1960s, Spann managed the careers of leading blues and soul performers, including B.B. King, and had a role in discovering the Jackson 5 and Chaka Khan. After WVON was sold in 1975, he helped establish a new blues and gospel-oriented station, WXOL, on the same frequency in 1979. Four years later, it became WVON again.

Spann continued to promote blues festivals, and also ran station WXSS in Memphis, Tennessee, during the 1980s. Pervis Spann was married to Lovie for 67 years until his passing. Together, they had four children, including Melody Spann Cooper, who became chair and chief executive officer of Midway Broadcasting Corporation, which owns WVON.   

In 2022, Pervis Spann received a Legends induction into the Radio Hall of Fame.