Longtime Philadelphia Radio Personality, Show Promoter, Businessman, and published author Harold (Sonny) Hopson has passed.
Best known as Sonny Hopson, his family announced that his passing took place on Saturday, January 21, 2023. His birthday was Tuesday, January 24, 2023, had he lived he would have been 86 years old.
A radio personality that made his name in the late 1960s through the 1990s in Philadelphia, Sonny Hopson broke into radio at the old WHAT/AM, 1340 on the dial. At the time, radio icon Georgie Woods was one of the personalities working at the radio station. As Sonny Hopson explained in his book, “The Untold Story,” Georgie Woods was one of the first on-air disc jockeys who showed him the ropes and took him under his wing, so to speak.
Dietz Hopson, one of the sons of Sonny Hopson, said, “We want our father to get all the love that he deserved. He did so much for others, never asking for anything in return. My father’s radio career was at WHAT.AM. He was under the tutorship of Georgie Woods and Jocko Henderson. After a number of great years at WHAT/AM, suddenly the owners and managers of the radio station wanted him to calm down on his on-air presentations and stop being “so political.” He saw the writing on the wall and knew he was about to be fired, so on his last day at work at WHAT he went into the studio and spoke his mind, and said whatever he wanted to say. He was fired immediately after his shift concluded that day.
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