Harvey Stone, longtime KBLX radio executive, has died

Harvey Stone, who spent 31 years as president and general manager of KBLX and helped define modern Urban Contemporary radio, died on August 4, 2026, SoulTracks reported. He was one of the architects behind the Bay Area station's rise from a struggling operation into one of the country's most successful independently run, minority-owned radio properties.

Stone guided KBLX from Inner City Broadcasting's acquisition of the station, then known as KRE, through its 2012 sale to Entercom. Born and raised in Cleveland, he was recruited to lead the station by the Sutton family, who owned Inner City Broadcasting; asked if he could turn it around, Stone told them, "Only if you let me." They handed him the job, and he never looked back, SoulTracks reported.

Under Stone, KBLX developed the Quiet Storm format that became its signature: a blend of contemporary R&B and soul, smooth jazz and mellow instrumentals packaged under the station's "Soft and Warm" branding. His guiding philosophy, he said, was that "music has no color," and KBLX built a broad audience while staying rooted in the Bay Area's Black community, ranking among the region's top stations through the 1990s and 2000s even as larger broadcast groups consolidated around it.

Stone brought the same approach to the business side, challenging advertisers who overlooked Urban radio by demonstrating the buying power and loyalty of KBLX's audience, work SoulTracks credited with changing how national advertisers viewed minority-owned stations. He also founded the Stone Soul Picnic, which grew into one of Northern California's premier live music events.

In 2015, Stone was inducted into the Bay Area Radio Hall of Fame. He was also known as the godfather of the California Historical Radio Society for helping the group secure Berkeley's historic KRE building as its first permanent home. SoulTracks did not report a cause of death or say whether services have been scheduled.