Jimmy Rabbitt, a pioneering freeform radio DJ who helped expose outlaw country music to Southern California, died of natural causes on Nov. 25, according to Robbyn Hart, a longtime friend and colleague. He was 79.
Rabbitt came to prominence during the late 1960s and early ’70s, a transformational period for rock radio. His popularity in the L.A. market may have been greatest during his end-of-the-’60s stint at Pasadena’s KRLA, but it was while DJing at KLAC and KBBQ in the early ’70s that he began weaving country into his rock playlists. He called the blend “outlaw music,” in a phrase that echoed the term “outlaw country” coined by Nashville journalist Hazel Smith around the same time.