Al Lohman - The Unexpected Split and Post-radio Contributions

The Unexpected Split and Post-radio Contributions

In 1986, Roger Barkley suddenly and unexpectedly quit the duo after twenty-two years, much to Lohman's shock and surprise. Barkley left KFI for a solo stint at beautiful music format KJOI-FM 99 (now 98-7) till 1989 and in the fall of 1990 teamed with Ken Minyard on talk radio KABC to replace the just retired Bob Arthur as co-host of the morning drive show "The Ken and Bob Company," a play on the station's call letters, rechristened as "The Ken and Barkley Company" with his arrival. Lohman and Barkley never spoke again after that. Lohman stayed at KFI and teamed for a while with Gary Owens, a Los Angeles personality best known as the wisecracking announcer on the Laugh-In television show.

Although Lohman and Barkley's morning KFI show was mostly talk and skits, an occasional tune was played, probably to give the guys a restroom break. In a later Los Angeles Times article regarding his sudden exit from KFI, Barkley was quoted as saying that he warned their program director that their constant playing of the same Eagles songs over and over was very aggravating to him. He said if he heard Hotel California one more time that he might just get up and walk out one day. He also alluded to Lohman's increasing undisciplined ways including a growing tendency to not be at the station in time for the start of the show. Obviously Barkley was simply tiring of the situation. Years later on the Los Angeles Ken and Barkley KABC radio show, when Ken Minyard mentioned Al Lohman, Barkley remarked "he says that I destroyed his career." Ironically, Barkley went through a bit of the same. The Ken and Barkley show was dropping in ratings in the very competitive LA morning market, and Barkley was dropped too. Minyard continued on with a new format. He said that Barkley was very upset, but that the station demanded a change.

In the early 1990s, Lohman semi-retired to Palm Springs where he hosted a morning show on easy listening KPLM-FM. Upon the station's move to a contemporary country music format, Lohman moved his morning show to KCMJ-AM, Palm Springs' oldest radio station.

Lohman also appeared in film and was credited as simply "Lohman" for his parts as a film critic in the 1987 comedy Amazon Women on the Moon (Roger Barkley played alongside him and was credited as "Barkley") and the narrator of the 1988 comedy, Spies, Lies & Naked Thighs.

On October 28, 1999, Lohman appeared as part of an all-star panel of Los Angeles radio legends at the Museum of Television and Radio in Beverly Hills, CA. At the beginning of the event, recorded bits from each personality's past was played to introduce them. When Lohman was introduced, a segment of the Lohman and Barkley show called "Seven Second Delay" was played. After Lohman was brought on stage, he stated: "When you were playing the clips, that hit me, what a talented group of talented people I'm associated with. And including, in all fairness, I re-realized what an outstanding straight man Roger Barkley was" (Barkley had died two years prior). The house erupted into applause.

Al Lohman died October 14, 2002 at age 69 of complications from bladder cancer. Bandleader Ray Conniff died at about the same time, and while Conniff's obituary in the Los Angeles Times rated an entire column, Lohman's took up nearly three pages.

His partnership with Roger Barkley earned Lohman a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame, the only Palm Springs radio personality so honored.