PHILADELPHIA (KYW Newsradio) — Jerry Blavat, a Philadelphia radio institution known for more than 60 years around the region as the “Geator with the Heater,” has died. He was 82.
Blavat spent his life playing and promoting the music that he grew up with on the streets of South Philadelphia — music that helped create his legacy.
Perhaps the one thing that set Blavat apart from the rest of his era was his ability to make everyone in the room feel like a star. That was the case starting in the ’50s. Blavat started as an “American Bandstand” dancer, loyal to original host Bob Horn but eventually worked with Dick Clark.
He started turning up on local radio stations, and eventually local TV — even a guest shot on the ’60s sitcom “The Monkees.”
His book, “You Only Rock Once: My Life in Music,” laid his history — the good and the bad — open. His record hops in the ’60s for “yon teens” turned into “beyond teens” after he opened Memories in Margate more than 50 years ago.
And, he called stars friends — Frank Sinatra, Don Rickles and more. Through it all, it was his love of music that drove him.
Blavat kept up with personal appearances, many of them for charitable causes, and promoted oldies concerts until his health recently forced him to slow down. He had to cancel a show at the Kimmel Center earlier this month.
Blavat was known to bike through Center City regularly, even as he kept up a radio schedule on commercial and public stations few could match.
He always spoke of playing “from his heart, not a chart.” And he held true to that to the end.