He spent 31 years leading influential R&B radio station KBLX-FM in San Francisco, championing the “Quiet Storm” sound that paved the way for softer, jazzier sounds on U.S. radio across the 1980s and 1990s. Now, many in Radio are mourning the loss of former President/GM Harvey Stone.
Stone, considered one of the architects of modern “Urban Contemporary” radio, died Tuesday (8/4).
He led KBLX from 1981, two years after its purchase by Percy Sutton’s Inner City Broadcasting from Horizon Communications, through its sale in 2012 to Entercom (today known as Audacy Inc.).
In an obituary sent to RBR+TVBR late Thursday, Stone is credited for transforming what had been a struggling station into one of the country’s most successful independently operated, minority-owned radio properties.
Born and raised in Cleveland, Stone was recruited by the Sutton family to lead KBLX. In July 1989, he added the role of President. Under his leadership, a unique mix of contemporary R&B, “smooth jazz” and mellow instrumentals with a soul and R&B lean attracted multicultural listeners.
In fact, an April 1986 feature with Stone in Radio & Records was not conducted by Urban Editor Walt “Baby” Love but by Adult Contemporary Editor Donna Brake. She began her column by noting the copy for KBLX’s then-current television commercial:
There is a musical landscape, so lovely, so harmonious, that its territory is explored by only one radio station, “The Quiet Storm,” KBLX. Sophisticated, transcultural, and unconventional. Down to Earth, yet magic like sunrise. Turn your radio to 102.9 FM.
For Stone, his programming philosophy was simple: “music has no color.” Program Director Tony Kilbert had much to do with that in early 1986, when Stone chided Brake for failing to include KBLX in a San Francisco market overview focused on adult-targeted stations. As it turned out, the Fall 1985 Arbitron results for Adults 25-49 showed KBLX ahead of key AC stations of the day such as KIOI and KOIT-FM.
By April 2012, Inner City Media Corporation was working through a Chapter 11 bankruptcy proceeding, with a court naming YMF Media the new owner of its radio stations. However, KBLX was open to bidders, and Entercom won — agreeing to pay $25 million for the heritage Adult R&B property.
The Audacy predecessor’s ownership of KBLX would conclude in 2018, when a deal announced in August of that year saw the station and its three siblings in San Francisco head to Bonneville International Corp. in a $141 million transaction that also gave Bonneville the four Sacramento properties Entercom held in that market.
Bonneville’s run as KBLX’s owner concluded in mid-May 2026, as Connoisseur Media concluded its $10 million purchase of KOIT-FM, KMVQ-FM and KBLX-FM in the San Francisco market along with their numerous FM boosters, and KUFX “98.5 K-Fox” in the San Jose market.
Stone in 2015 was inducted into the Bay Area Radio Hall of Fame.
