The first time Angel “Angel Baby” Rodriguez heard Art Laboe on the radio, he was 13, in his father’s garage in the City of Industry. Laboe was introducing “Nite Owl” (1955) by Tony Allen and the Champs. “His voice caught me first,” Rodriguez told me, “that very distinctive tone, and then I heard the listeners calling in. The rawness of connecting with a listener, of spinning the record, it was something.”

Rodriguez became a DJ himself, in the mold of Laboe, at first playing records for Radio Aztlan, the late-slot Friday program at KUCR in Riverside. “I didn’t sleep on a Friday night for over 20 years, from my 20s into my 40s,” he told me. Now he hosts “The Art Laboe Love Zone,” keeping alive his hero’s legacy — three hours of live radio, emanating five nights a week from a studio in Palm

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