Early Life
Hansen was born in Minneapolis, Minnesota, the son of an amateur pianist. He claims to have started his vast record collection as early as age 12, when he found "that a local thrift store had thousands of old 78 RPM records for sale at 5 cents each." He attended Reed College in Portland, Oregon, where he was promoted to Program Director of KRRC in 1960 and General Manager in 1961. He wrote his senior thesis on Alban Berg's opera Wozzeck and Claude Debussy's opera Pelléas et Mélisande. He graduated in 1963, and later studied at UCLA, from which he earned a master's degree in folklore and ethnomusicology.
After earning his master's degree, he lived for two years "in a big house on a hill" in Topanga Canyon with members of the rock band Spirit. He also served briefly as a roadie for Spirit, and for Canned Heat, before being hired as an A&R man, or talent scout, for Specialty Records. The Doctor began his weekly radio show while working for Specialty, and he later worked for Warner Bros. Records.
Read more about this topic: Dr. Demento
Famous quotes containing the words early and/or life:
“Names on a list, whose faces I do not recall
But they are gone to early death, who late in school
Distinguished the belt feed lever from the belt holding pawl.”
—Richard Eberhart (b. 1904)
“Oh! what a poor thing is human life in its best enjoyments!—subjected to imaginary evils when it has no real ones to disturb it! and that can be made as effectually unhappy by its apprehensions of remote contingencies as if it was struggling with the pains of a present distress!”
—Samuel Richardson (1689–1761)