‘Thank You For All The Years of Competition’ CJ Remembers TLW
Rest easy Tommy Lee Walker.
I struggled for a bit to try and decide if I should write something about the passing of Tommy Lee Walker. I've been told many times in my life that writing things, or in this case typing things out are very therapeutic, so here we go.
Starting a weekday with country music fans in the Hudson Valley is an honor that anyone who does it, takes extremely serious. I had the honor of sharing the airwaves in the Hudson Valley with Tommy (TLW) for many years. Our behind the scenes work relationship started back in the late 90's. He was doing afternoons on WRWD and I was on Kiss FM and from day one we always had a certain competitive vibe between the two of us.
He loved what he did, and I loved what I was doing, all we both wanted was to give the fans of our respective shows, the best radio they would hear anywhere. I've worked around some of the greats over the years, and no matter how you felt about Tommy, he was incredible at what he did behind a microphone. His energy and knowledge was something I always envied, and always felt I needed to match. I also had a love for the Dukes of Hazzard like he did, but he always did me one better, and had the coolest General Lee car I have ever seen in person. He LOVED THAT CAR!! LOL!
Tommy had many highlights in life, and unfortunately some really low, lows. If you put all the well documented lows that Tommy experienced in his life aside for a second, you'll realize like I have that he was a good man at heart.
The work he did, along with another close friend Paty Quyn, with the ST. Jude radiothons every year was incredible. They would raise over $500,000 every year for the kids at ST Jude's in Memphis Tennessee. Tommy took so much pride in being able to help those kids diagnosed with cancer, that when I had the chance to host a radiothon myself I used his passion as inspiration to do the same.
It's a sad day!!! I would like to pass along my condolences and prayers to Tommy's children, friends and family. Thank you TLW for the years of competition and rest in peace brother.