David Holton House (1958-2016): The Best, the Brightest and the Blessed
David House on “All That Jazz”
In late 2016, former KUNM staffer and longtime radio producer Paul Ingles delivered the following sad news on KUNM’s website:
“One of our most excellent friends has passed away. David House, actor, musician, radio man, painter, photographer, body builder, computer expert, confidant, brother, son, father, and so much more. If you’ve been listening to Albuquerque radio anytime over the last 25 years, you’ve heard him. He was always the one who sounded the best…. But if you had the pleasure of knowing him, you were REALLY blessed, because you would have known one of the kindest, most pleasant, and warmest people on the planet.”
Born in Detroit, Michigan in 1958, David House blazed a storied path through life, touching the lives of countless people along the way. One of his most enduring contributions was right here at KUNM as the longtime volunteer deejay on the Wednesday edition of All That Jazz!
David’s older brother, Stuart House was an early conduit to David’s radio career back in 1970 when Stuart had a Michigan radio program dedicated to revolutionary politics. An intrigued Young David would drop in and observe his brother conduct interviews and work the controls.
“He was really psyched about it all. He was 12 years old, so I think that may have later influenced his later passion for radio. I hope so,” Stuart told the crowd at an Albuquerque memorial for David last year.
In Michigan, David had a “close set of eclectic friends growing up in the era of Jimi Hendrix, Miles Davis, Herbie Hancock, Chick Correa and other jazz fusion bands,” recalled high school friend Linda Parker.
“They developed a really cool language that they used to communicate just how uniquely different they were.. he was an explorer, searching for that space that was truly his own, to make his soul sing.”
David’s brother Charles House also spoke at the memorial, remembering how his sibling wasn’t too interested in the typical toys of childhood. “David had a telescope. He had books. His friends had music,” Charles said.
After high school, David went off to study at Antioch College in Yellow Springs, Ohio. There he landed a spot with WYSO, the local college and community station. The budding radio personality then moved to Key West, Florida, where he secured another deejay gig, worked as a bartender and bouncer, explored and mastered creative media and “loved to watch the hurricanes blow in,” said Patricia Gonzalez, who was very close to David in his Key West years, when she watched a talented artist blossom.
“It’s almost like I can see him right now in every brush stroke,” she said. Gonzalez shared her memories at the Albuquerque memorial of a “striking” man who was loved by everybody, “male or female.”
She added, “David pursued many, many crafts and was damned good at each and any one of them.”
“Let us remember something,” offered Kim Adams, David’s sister-in-law. “David Holton House was about celebrating…and David was really and truly about celebrating-celebrating you, celebrating me and celebrating life.”
After David had spent about a decade in Key West, Stuart House came to play another pivotal role in his brother’s life. Stuart, who was by then residing in New Mexico, suggested David come out to the Land of Enchantment and check out the art scene and market here. David took the advice, relocated to New Mexico and the brothers enjoyed a close, life-long relationship.
“He was my best friend, and that was something I thought a great deal about. He was my brother but he was actually my best friend, and that is pretty special. We would watch Star Trek together, and joke around together and hike around together and talk politics and art together.”
According to Stuart, the House brothers also collaborated on a genealogical project, tracing relatives back to the 1600s.
In his family life, David was the father of three beautiful and loving daughters-Aja (named after the Steely Dan song), Stephanie and Olivia.
KUNM’s Paul Ingles recalled how he struck up a close friendship with David:
“I’ve known David for 24 years. I first met him when I returned to Albuquerque in 1992. I was hired for weekend work at the Classic Rock radio station KLSK 104.1. For one of my first shifts, I came in to follow this Adonis-bodied black man who had the most amazing radio voice I’d heard. He was quick with a smile and a laugh, knew his classic rock, and we became good buddies. Not long after that, he let me know he was also volunteering at KUNM, where he was soon hired as music director. Eventually (1994) I joined him on staff there and our offices were just two doors away from each other.”
Over the years, we’d talk at length about all kinds of things, music, our relationship efforts (on-again, off-again for both of us), radio, life philosophies. Just by showing up at work each day, he encouraged me to keep going to a gym.
We worked together on a radio and web series celebrating New Mexico Jazz artists (www.newmexicojazz.org). He encouraged my acting exploration. He fixed my computer, time and again. He gave me a big hug and a smile every time I saw him. “Paulin-yo” he’d always say when I saw him.”
Former KUNM deejay Charlie Zdravesky was among numerous volunteers who had the pleasure of knowing David over the years. Zdravesky and House were two of the dozen dudes selected in 1993 for the “Leading Men of Albuquerque” calendar put out by the old Albuquerque Civic Light Opera Association as a fundraiser for kids who didn’t have the financial wherewithal to attend the theater.
Zdravesky said his day job of pouring concrete lent him a physique suitable for the charitable calendar shot by prominent local photographer Kim Jew. He recalled the 12 calendar hunks gathered at Popejoy Hall, all dressed in tuxedos, eager to personally sign the calendars.
“David had a whole line of groupies waiting for signatures, cause the guy looked good without a shirt,” Zdravesky chuckled.
Veteran KUNM volunteer and journalist Kent Paterson first met David in the 1990s when our man from the Motor City began working at 89.9 FM Albuquerque. Paterson recalled David’s collegiality, uplifting presence around the station and action-packed, energetic days. “He always had something going on, dashing around Albuquerque in his sporty little car,” Paterson said. “Seemingly, 25 hours in a day weren’t enough for him. Whoever invented the clock, couldn’t imagine David House!”
Tom Guralnick blew into New Mexico from Boston in 1976, and was on the air as a KUNM deejay in the late 1970s. The longtime executive director of Albuquerque’s Outpost Performance Space said he first met David around the time he opened the Outpost circa 1990.
“I was up at KUNM a lot, so I had a lot of contact with him and other KUNM deejays mostly to promote Outpost shows,” Guralnick recalled. Guralnick said he didn’t care for David’s jazz shows too much at first, finding them “too middle of the road” or “popish.” But as time wore on and Guralnick’s tastes evolved, so did his opinion of David’s jazz shows.
“He was always playing new artists, and he was a good curator at that. It was a curated and very tasteful show,” Guralnick said.
As it turned out, the relationship between David and Tom grew even closer when David became a member of Outpost’s board of directors in 2004 or 2005, Guralnick recalled.
“He helped with everything, as all the board members did. He was a great board member, very supportive and willing to help anyway he could. Both he and (KUNM Blues Show host) Putnay were on the board, and gave me ideas of who we could bring to the jazz festival.”
Guralnick remembered David’s love of music festivals like Telluride, and his penchant for finding new talent while opening the doors to different styles like New Orleans sounds. And as “busy as he was,” David found time to come to the Outpost a lot, Guralnick added.
Outside radio land, David pursued an acting career that earned him parts in more than 40 films. His credits include Observe and Report, Force of Execution, Paul and the Wildfire television series, among many others. But his most recognizable role was as Dr. Delcavoli, Walter White’s oncologist in AMC’s Breaking Bad, the series which put Albuquerque on the international map.
Ironically, as Paul Ingles observed at David House’s public memorial, it was a cancer, a brain tumor, that cut short a brilliant life.
After learning about David’s health crisis, Tom Guralnick saw a man who was quietly coping with a life-threatening challenge and trying to overcome it.
“He didn’t talk about it. He was just moving forward and working to get himself healthy before his final illness,” Guralnick said. “How do you feel when people pass?” he pondered.
Ingles tried hard to be with his great friend, until fate intervened.
“Luckily, I got a good visit with him a few weeks ago after his surgery. He was unsure about what treatment path to take but seemed quietly resolved that his days were numbered. He wasn’t happy about it. In fact, his smile and laugh was noticeably absent through the whole 90 minutes, understandably,” Ingles wrote in Zounds!
“He seemed interested in going for a ride with me. We tried to work out other visits but therapists and treatments quickly gobbled up his good hours. His last text to me was a quick reply to the idea of trying again to get together the following week. “Sounds good,” he wrote.
David Holton House was a “very integral part of KUNM,” Guralnick said. “Everybody in the leadership role of KUNM has been important in changing the station to what it is.” A “multi-talented, easy going and very professional” David left behind an example of “how to be involved in the community and radio,” he continued. “The world is a better place. They make the world a better place in the world of KUNM and beyond KUNM.”
Quite appropriately, the Outpost Performance Space was the site for a January 2017 memorial dedicated to David’s life. Surrounded by David’s photos and art work, friends and family from all over the country packed that special place on Yale Blvd. in a loving tribute to a man who touched so many lives.
Daughter Aja Simpson showed a moving video she produced about her dad’s life. A clip was shown from the segment of Breaking Bad in which David informs Walter White that his tumor had shrunk by 80 percent, setting off familial rejoicing and seguing out with the Badfinger song “Baby Blue.”
Paul Ingles played a tape of David interviewing New Mexico jazz legend Arlen Asher, one of many Mr. House broadcast on KUNM. “He was a wonderful announcer,” Ingles commented about his dear friend.
“He was not only a great music host but he was a natural as an interviewer, which is not an easy thing to do, but not much of a surprise to those who knew him best because he was a patient and emphatic listener, which is the first thing you have to be if you are a broadcast interviewer, especially.”
Friends and admirers walked up to the mike, reminiscing about an unforgettable man who gave time to an Albuquerque Public Schools career path program for low-income kids or simply treated individuals, no matter their walks in life, with a dignity and respect that told them they mattered and were important enough to deserve the time of day.
Then an almost magical surprise happened. Tracy Whitney, one of Ray Charles’ former backup singers known as the Raelettes, had grown to know David over the years.
Whitney was scheduled to close the memorial with a song, but plans changed when she saw a 13-year-old girl with a stunning voice, Chloe Nixon, performing the song “Rise Up” at Albuquerque’s Martin Luther King memorial earlier the same day. Whitney and friends then tracked down Nixon through Facebook and invited her to sing at David’s memorial later in the evening. David’s good vibes were working.
Nixon showed up and sang “Rise Up” with her powerfully young but stirring pipes. She then rose to address the assembled. “I didn’t know David House, but he definitely inspired me to rise up,” Nixon told an appreciative audience.
Earlier in the evening, old friend Linda Parker had many things to say about David and the meaning of his life for the rest of us.
“The passionate way he lived his life is a true testament to all of us. He embraced each day and followed each and every one of his dreams. He never failed to let a friend know how much he loved them. He never failed to laugh,” Parker said.
“He took what life had to give him and carved it into a magnificent sculpture, fitting of his true talent as an artist for such a spirited soul. Let us each take a bit of David along our respective journeys and live out his legacy and become better human beings because of the way that he showed us how to love and live a life full of passion and march to our own jazzy beat.”
David Holton House was survived by his daughters Aja, Stephanie and Olivia, mother Hester, siblings Stuart, Charles, Walter, Elizabeth and Diane, numerous in-laws and nieces and nephews, and a big world out there that was fortunate to witness his presence.
Information: Paul Ingles, Tom Guralnick, Charlie Zdravesky, Kent Paterson, David House Memorial video, Outpost Performance Space, January 14, 2017. Imbd.com. Legacy.com.
edited by Kent Paterson
