By Matthew Keys
He spent more than three decades at Adult Alternative WXRT-FM 93.1 in Chicago until stepping aside last summer, a battle with cancer preventing him from continuing on the air.
On Sunday (1/22), Lin Brehmer passed away at the age of 68, the Audacy Corp. station said in a statement.
“Lin Brehmer fought cancer as long as he could,” Terri Hemmert, Brehmer’s colleague at WXRT, wrote on Sunday in a post on the station’s Facebook page. “He passed early this morning, peacefully, with his wife and son by his side … We’ll hold each other up through this heart-breaking time. Lin would want that. Take nothing for granted.”
WXRT said an on-air tribute would take place Monday (10/23) at 10am Central.
To say Brehmer was a Chicago institution is perhaps an understatement. The onetime home of Harry Caray, Wrigley Field, paid tribute to Brehmer; the stadium’s outside signs were changed to paid tribute to Brehmer, a long-time Chicago Cubs fan, ABC Owned Station WLS-7 reported.
Brehmer in July 2022 told listeners he would step away from the microphone while he underwent chemotherapy for prostate cancer, the Chicago Sun-Times said. He momentarily returned to the airwaves in November 2022, WBBM-2 said in its coverage of his passing.
“Radio has been my life, music has been my life, and whenever I’ve had a rough time or a joyous time, it’s the music I turn to,” Brehmer said at the time. “So getting back on the air and sharing music with ‘XRT listeners is something that I was hoping that I’d be able to do again.”
Brehmer worked as a morning air personality for WXRT for more than three decades; in 2020 he moved to the midday slot. He began his radio career in Albany, N.Y., where he earned the nickname “The Reverend” because of his knack for reciting poetry over whatever song was playing on-air, the Sun-Times reported.
Brehmer became the Music Director at WXRT in 1984, and worked mostly behind the scenes until getting an on-air job in Minneapolis. He moved back to Chicago one year later when the station in the Twin Cities ended its run.
